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.
It’s been a super full week – taxes and other things – so it’s been difficult to make up some shortfall from Sunday’s roasting. So this morning pulled out a bit of the Aged Sumatra that I roasted a week and a half ago… this coffee has legs. Although it doesn’t have the freshness that it did a week ago, it hasn’t lost it’s depth either. Very very nice.
Aged. First cupping of a three year old coffee and I’m so happy with it. After a week of cupping good and decent coffees, with only one or two standouts, this one is a clear choice for me.
Intense, thick, pepper and spice – cardomon, brown sugar, burnt caramel, and a deep woody-earthy dry-chocolate base.
The roast could be brought a slight bit more – just touching second crack – to bring the caramelization out more, but other than that I am happy with the balance.
Be sure to give it 3 days rest.
Oh, and it lingers.
Just did a first cupping of a new Peru coffee – El Guabo… Very impressed. It was what I call a casual cupping, which means I don’t score it and just note my experience with it. It’s something I do with most all the coffees to get to how it strikes me emotionally than, say, the degree of complexity or whatnot.
Anyway, it was quite elegant – hazlenut base, smooth medium-full body with hints of vanilla and apricot (especially in the dry aroma). Great balance. I kept thinking to myself that I could simply drink this all day long and neither get bored of it nor feel that I had to pay attention to it.
Rich like the marbling of Kobe beef. Medium-heavy body. Stone fruits – like apricot and the light starch of a real good, I mean amazingly smooth and even textured, pear – weave complex, layered dolphin patterns through a bed of bittersweet cocao and chocolate.
(this coffee is currently sold out)
Similar to the Koratie Dry-Processes that sold out so quickly, but with more crispness. Lighter fruits are at play – starfruit, citrusy notes. But it’s sweet and aromatic, floral. Complex and delicate. Light in body. This is like the sun the last couple days, crisp, bright, but with a stark clarity to the air that is mesmerizing. Truly, this coffee is an amazing display of skill set to work amid the right environmental conditions. This is a very light roast, gingerly stretched at the right points to bring forward the floral and clear crisp complexity of its fruit flavors.
(this is currently sold out)
