Grower: Oscar & Olga Mendez
Farm: Finca Genesis
Origin/Region: Lourdes de Naranjo, Costa Rica
Processing: Miel
Description
Crisp, clear jasmine and cane sugar aromatics dart among light nuts and sunflower seeds. Slight bodied, with a gentle, but substantial finish. The structure is a bit like what I imagine something built a group of Dozers would be: crisp, ordered, layered, almost airy, but sweet and compelling; a crisp spiny fruity tang that sits neat with the basic structure. Brisk apple (braeburn, fuji) and grape skin.
Grower: Maximino Gutierrez
Farm: Finca Florestales
Origin/Region: Tolimo, Columbia
Processing: Wet Process Varietal: Caturra
Description
For years, I’ve cupped past Columbian coffees – not because they haven’t been good, some have been excellent, but because I only keep a relatively small selection of coffees at any one time and they have lacked a distinguishing quality that separated them from the other good and excellent coffees. So I bought other coffees.
But this one, grown by Maximino Gutierrez, is different than that. Possibly because it so cleanly caught my memory of first drinking good coffee. There’s a peculiar, subtle coffee-ness in it that encourages its flavors gently on the palete. Nuts – pistachio in particular – bring a buttery sweetness, tentatively salty, floated by sweet rose aromatics. This isn’t the more boastfully acidulous and structured coffees that I normally gravitate towards, but more like gracefully balanced Rwandan.
Lot: (Aged) Peaberry ’07 Crop
Origin: Lintong, Sumatra
Processing: Aged (’07 Crop) Varietal: ?
Description
This’ll lower you into the soil, and wrap you with loamy goodness. Carefully stored for the past 3 years to develop a pretty unique coffee, it’s earthy, deeply peppered with woody cardamon, burnt caramel and brown sugar. It’s intense and lovely all at the same time. Aged coffees are a treat for me that hasn’t been much available for several years and am pretty excited about this little bit. Quite a treat for those who love the deeper, richer coffees.
*Limited availability
Grower: Duhingekawa Women’s Coop
Origin: Rushashi, Rwanda
Processing: Wet Process Varietal: Bourbon
Description
Here is one of those seasonally appropriate coffees, perfect as sun begins creeping around the clouds… earlier and earlier till you’re actually waking up sun sunlight. A touch of moist chill hangs still, but it’s a hopeful moment, where the comfort in the evenness of pralines and hazelnut flavors balance almost exactly with the highly structured, acidulous, tart-like sweetness. Jazz apples at their peak. White Peaches. This isn’t a dance of complexity, but rather a perfect arrangement of what is great about having both natures in a coffee. It wakes you up gently, but with purpose. And that’s what I am loving about this coffee. It’s gentle, exacting. An easy-going perfectionist.
Additional Notes
The Abakundakawa Cooperative mills coffee at the Rushahsi washing station. This particular lot is separated by the Duhingekawa Women’s Group.
Grower: Haille Gebre
Lot: ‘Maduro’
Origin: Guji, Sidamo, Ethiopia (Organic)
Processing: Dry Process Varietal: Heirloom varietals
Description
I was listening to Spanish Guitarist Federico Aubele a few nights ago, and it struck me then that this was the tension that I feel in this coffee. There is unboasting beauty, subtle and mellow, but there’s also a sense of urgency that weaves through it… From the dry ground coffee, there’s clear, fresh cacao powder aromatics leaping forward. You’d think it should keep on and build on that intensity, but begin steeping, and the aroma turns more mellow, more like buttered toast. Sip, and the rich spices like clove, ceylon cinnamon, and a bit of mace makes is seem Mediterranean. Then pops the ripe huckleberries and fruit – a sweet cantaloupe-like richness, with plum and fully ripe stone fruit. Butterscotch, agave syrup follow close on the tails of everything else.For so much fruit, the acidity is well integrated by easily distinct flavors that finish proud and strong.
Additional Notes
Located in a remote area of the Sidamo district called Shakisso, on the Guji zone, largely known for large gold mines – an area of open conflict between growers and miners [what is the nature of this, history?]. For this lot, Haille Gebre has overseen the harvesting of only crimson-purple cherries, deeper than the typically red ripe indications – likely the impetus for the moniker ‘Maduro’ or Mature.
Grown on old Typica coffee trees at around 1900 meters, this coffee has a softer touch than the Daterra Espresso Reserve. Medium bodied, with caramel – more than sugar – that comes through as the cup cools. First whiff is sweet, fruity with a nicely balanced toffee, cocao background to it. As a varietal, this doesn’t have the heavier fruit (blueberry, huckleberry) that a typica coffee from Harrar or Sidamo might – it’s softer, lighter than that. Subtly stretched out. There is the influence of climate and the growers particular skill showing through – giving it a character that is completely enjoyable early early in the morning, or mid-afternoon as an http://www.deftcoffee.com/2008/08/06/bolivia-san-ignacio-iced-sumptuous/.