Neues Schwarz

From Dortmund, Germany, we’re happy to share some excellent coffee from Neues Schwarz. For this month we’re shipping sweet coffees from Latin America.

EL CEDRAL

Origin: Costa Rica
Process:  Black honey
Altitude: 1700 masl
Varieties: Caturra & Red catuai
Tasting notes: Mandarin, Walnut, Dark Caramel

”In Costa Rica, we look for coffees that stand out with their sweetness. With El Cedral, we found a coffee in the province of San José that delivers what we were looking for. The processing plays an important role for the cup profile in this coffee. The cherries are depulped and then dried in the sun with a relatively large amount of pulp still adhering to them. With this harvest, this process leads to a balanced interplay between clear acidity and concise sweetness.”

EDWIN & LUZ

Origin: Peru
Process:  Washed
Altitude: 2000 - 2200 masl
Varieties:  Typica
Tasting notes: Honeydew melon, Almond & Cocoa

”Edwin & Luz, grown at an altitude of 2000-2200 meters, convinces with unusual fruity properties and an intense sweetness. The harvests of the last few years have also delivered these complex flavour profiles. Such constant results are evidence of the steady routines they have when processing the coffee. Sufficient hours of sunshine and little rainfall during the drying period after harvest are also important factors for such a compelling result.”

LA PILA & NEIGHBOURS

Origin: Guatemala
Process:  Washed
Altitude: 1700 - 1750 masl
Varieties:  Catuai, Bourbon, Pache
Tasting notes: Plum, Cane Sugar & Cocoa

”Rodolfo Gracia, the owner of the farm, runs his finca with great passion and is constantly striving to improve the quality of his coffee through soil analysis and innovation. Together with his neighbours Antonio and Fredy, and his family, the ripe coffee cherries are hand-picked every year and brought to the El Hato farm, where the washed processing takes place.”

Want to explore Europe’s best coffee roasters?

MOK 2019

2019 has been a year full of delicious coffees, working with extremely talented coffee roasters. We wanted to finish up the year on top. We’re happy to introduce Belgian roaster MOK for our December’s box.

Founder of MOK, Jens Crabbé, opened his coffee shop and roastery in Leuven in 2012. Always knowing he wanted to start his own thing, this let him develop his own approach and create his own vision. We had the chance to ask Jens a few questions!

- What is the coffee scene like in Leuven and Brussels?

Our shop in Leuven grew every year since we have started back in 2012 so this must mean the specialty coffee scene and audience is still growing. On the other hand there’s only a hand full of actual specialty coffee places and most other are still riding the more commercial wave to be honest. I feel we have really created a nice coffee community which was obvious when we hosted the Aeropress semi finals this year with 40 people competing. Brussels on the other hand is (finally!) expanding fast in terms of hospitality in general, not only coffee shops but natural wine and fine dining places are popping up everywhere... I’m moving to Bxl soon! :D

- Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

The next big step for MOK is moving the roastery to Brussels, apart from being a roastery we will add a nice extra to the space as well., keep an eye on our social media for more details soon! After this i’m not sure where my ambition will take us but I definitely don’t want to become a chain or sell the brand to Nestle haha ;) Quality and Integrity are key and I will keep focusing on this, trying to be the best possible MOK we can be.

- Do you have a brewing recipe that you would like to share?

I must say I like to keep my brews as simple as possible, only for competitions I tend to go for a more complex approach but this hardly ever pays off. On the other hand competitions are super interesting to push your abilities and skills and learn from your mistakes. My advise for brewing is to keep things simple and focus on the most important factors: a good grind and water. We like to brew with SPA which always gives a great mouthfeel and freshness to the brew also people visiting our shop are allowed to fill up there bottle of our brewing water (reversed osmosis +-60ppm) to brew at home! For the brewing; try to make the pouring routine and timing easy to repeat and focus on pouring technique and achieving a “flatbed”.

- Many of our subscribers are tasting MOK for the first time. What can we expect from the three coffees (Mr Tessema Edima, Mr Basha Bekele and San Antonio de Esquipulas)?

We decided to enter the subscription with 3 different processing methods; washed, honey and natural as we believe these coffees are great examples of these processing methods.

Tessema is in my opinion a typical Yirgacheffe, super floral bursting with citrus flavours. We clearly find jasmine in the aroma and bergamot and black tea flavours. Try cupping this coffee before you start brewing to get a good reference of what a good brew could taste like!

San Antonio is a bit more easy going but very satisfying and forgiving, water is a bit less important to make great brews as it will always have a nice body and sweetness, we mainly taste chestnut and chocolate and that typical honey-process kind off acidity.

Basha Bekele; probably one of our most successful coffees of the (last) year! Bursting with ripe fruit flavours and floral notes and has that right amount of funkiness that keeps you coming for more.

What coffee's did we send from MOK?

Mr Tessema Edima
Origin: Ethiopia, Yirgacheffe
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1950-2150 MASL
Varieties: Kurume
Tasting notes: Peach, lavender, black tea

This is the second year MOK buys coffee from Mr Tessema Edima. For this year, Tessema introduced a 72h fermentation, putting the depulped cherries in a tank under full immersion with renewed water every 24hrs. This process make sure the complete mucilage is removed during fermentation. With precision and quality control, this resulted in an incredibly clean & aromatic coffee with notes of peach, lavender and black tea.

San Antonio de Esquipulas
Origin: Guatemala, San Antonio de Esquipulas
Process: Honey
Altitude: 2000+ MASL
Varieties: 70% bourbon 30% caturra
Tasting notes: chocolate, chestnut, golden raisin.

Due to the migration of workers, producer Jorge had to rely on 1/4 of his usual workforce this harvest. Supported by Anacafe, he explored different possibilities to find out if he could produce a honey processed coffee using mechanical drying. The coffee was spread across static dryers and over 2 days a combination of airflow, heat, movement & rest were repeated. This coffee includes both bourbon and caturra varieties and has notes of chocolate, chestnut and golden raisin.

And exclusive to our Tasting box subscribers 👏

Mr Basha Bekele
Origin: Ethiopia, Sidama
Process: Natural
Altitude: 1950-2000 MASL
Varieties: 74160
Tasting notes: Pomegranate, black tea, lime

With new export laws in Ethiopia, small producers are now able to market their coffee themselves. MOK’s importer Falcon has begun a funding and education initiative that pre-finances export and teaches families like Basha’s how to improve their farming and processing techniques. Basha and his wife own three hectares where they grow the 74160 variety, known to have very pronounced citrus and floral notes. This coffee has flavours of pomegranate, black tea and lime.

Join our coffee community. Become a member!

Frukt Coffee Roasters

From Kakola, Finland, we are happy to introduce Frukt Coffee Roasters! Frukt has brought some fun and exciting coffees for November’s box. Let’s get brewing!

What’s the story behind Frukt Coffee Roasters? Where does the name come from?

We started roasting in early 2019. Initial idea was to establish a small yet specialty-focused coffee roastery in Finland. Much in the vein of some of the finest roasters in Scandinavia that we look up to, many of which have of course been featured on Bean Portal.

The name Frukt is funny. In Finnish or English it doesn't really mean anything, yet in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish it's a fruit. Coffee is a fruit too as you know. But on top of that, the letters form nicely and it looks neat.

We found out that a local developer was looking for quality-focused small businesses for his project. Kakola neighborhood, where the roastery is located, used to be a notorious prison. It was left abandoned for ten years and is now under renovation. Half of the project is done already, there's people living there, fancy apartments and all that. There is also a restaurant Kakolanruusu and Kakola Brewing Company brewing beers right next doors. Few weeks ago a sourdough bakery bageri Å opened and we are running a coffee shop together with them now!

What drove you to the specialty coffee business?

We were both pretty new to coffee when we met at Turun Kahvipaahtimo, a local roastery. Kyle and I both continued to work in coffee after the internship at the roastery. Kyle went on to work in a coffee shop and started roasting at home. I stayed at the roastery, working there for few years. In 2018 I was roasting for Coffee Collective in Copenhagen. Kyle was doing his own thing in the other side of Finland from Turku. I came back to Finland and learned about the Kakola neighborhood and that there could be a place for a small roastery. I hit up Kyle, he was up for it and now we are at the end of the first year in business!

We weren't satisfied with the current version of Specialty Coffee (or the lack of it) in Finland. We wanted to participate and roast really tasty coffee and to make it look fresh and inviting and approachable to someone who's not initiated to Specialty Coffee yet. We label our coffees either Fun or Exciting. Depending on the flavor profile. It's just either or. Fun is for balanced and approachable tastes and Exciting is more complex and adventurous. Easy like that.

How will Frukt evolve in the future? Have you got any set goals or projects that you would like to share with us?

Future is bright. We are ending the first year with the freshly opened coffee shop in the Kakola neighborhood that we run together with bageri Å. They bake amazing sourdough bread, insane sourdough croissants and we handle the coffee side. It's a great match. We are really excited about it. We'll develop the shop further in 2020.

The aim for 2020 is to be more professional in all that we do. We've done good in our first year, had amazing support from the people in and outside of Finland. I think we just need to step up and be as good as we can be. Build on the idea of transparency in trade of coffee and all the aspects of the business.

What are you most excited about regarding the growth and development of specialty coffee?

The most exciting thing for us is how easy it is to find great coffees and also the increased amount of traceability and transparency in Specialty Coffee. It's there, if you want it. We are certainly going to dig deeper and not just rotate good coffees from different producers year after year. We have found really good partners that we work with. We look forward to building these relationships further. It's amazing that a collective of producers from Colombia (LaREB) and us connected over another subject and that led to us being introduced to the green coffees they're producing and selling. We got the green coffee from Efrén Echeverry from LaREB and will for certain have more in the future. Don Francisco is from Primavera and Gute Sodu from Collaborative Coffee Source with who we have been working since the beginning. Connection, that's where it's at!

What can we expect from this month's coffees (Gute Sodu, Efrén Echeverry and Don Francisco)?

Gute Sodu is hands down one of the most exciting Ethiopian coffees for us this year. It is sparkling with citric acidity, lemon peel and intense florals. Such a clean and sweet coffee!

Efrén Echeverry is clean, sweet, fruity with orange-like acidity and some almond there too. The body is round and adds to the balanced cup.

Don Francisco is different from the other coffees we've had this year. This coffee is not too heavy in the mouthfeel, but the deep notes of dried fruit and cacao with brown sugar sweetness add to a feeling of a more heavy cup.

November’s box included these coffees ✨

Gute Sodu

Origin: Ethiopia
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1900-2100 MASL
Varieties: Dega & indigenous varieties
Tasting notes: Sparkling, lemonade & floral

Gute Sodu is a clean Ethiopian coffee from the Guduba washing station in the region of Guji. Smallholder farmers have produced the coffee in Hambela Wamena, close to the town Gute Sodu, from where the coffee has its name. The cherries are delivered to the washing station, where they are pulped, fermented for 48-72 hours, washed, and then dried on raised beds for 10 days. The coffee is a mix of Dega and indigenous varieties. This sparkling coffee has floral notes of lemonade.

Efrén Echeverry

Origin: Colombia
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1650 MASL
Varieties: Colombia & Caturra
Tasting notes: Stone fruit, caramel & bright

Efrén Echeverry is the farmer behind this tasty coffee. He is located in the municipality Palestina in the southern part of Huila, Colombia, an area known for its great coffees. After the coffee is picked, it is left for 12 hours in-husk resting. The coffee is later fermented for 48 hours, before being washed and dried in a greenhouse for 15 days. The mix of the Colombia and Caturra varieties makes this coffee special. This bright coffee has notes of stone fruit and caramel.

Exclusive to our Tasting box subscribers 👏

Don Francisco

Origin: Guatemala
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1750-1850 MASL
Varieties: Bourbon & Caturra
Tasting notes: Dried fruit, cacao & brown sugar

Francisco Salucio Ramirez is a second-generation coffee producer who runs the farm Mumuxa in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. This coffee is produced according to a ”double washing” process. The coffee is de-pulped the same day as it is picked and later fermented in water for 48 hours. After being washed, it is soaked in clean water for another 12 hours. Drying is done for another five to six days depending on the temperature. This is a great example of how good a Guatemalan coffee can be.

Explore Europe’s top roasters!

CleverCoffee

We’re ending 2018 in a great way. CleverCoffee is our December’s roaster, and our final featured roaster for the year! We had a chat.

How did CleverCoffee start?

Actually, we are coming up on our fifth birthday in February as CleverCoffee began in the beginning of 2014. However, it was in a very different format that what it is today; we began purely as a blog with nothing to sell – just purely informational articles about what we learned about coffee roasters, brewers, water, etc., and I had been a home barista about five years before that.

It was a great way to get people interested but the more we examined and learned, the more we found that it was hard to get to know the world of specialty coffee. For us, this helped form our approach to specialty coffee as we wanted – and still want to – make it more simply to experience world-class specialty coffee.

What drove you to the specialty coffee business?

In fact, I did not drink coffee until I was 26 years old. I started to be embarrassed if I was at a café or coffee show with my wife and she had coffee, while I was having hot chocolate.

Then a good friend of mine introduced me to a fantastic cup of specialty coffee. I think it was a lightly roasted Ethiopian coffee and I had no idea that coffee could be clean and sweet without being sour or bitter – and it got me hooked!

I started exploring the world of specialty coffee, but it was complex, so I wrote what I learned and the blog, CleverCoffee, was an easy next step. Here five years later, we have just relaunched our website for the third time and I have revisited the blog posts that I had not read for years. Some of them are still useful for people who are interested in specialty coffee, so I am adjusting a bit here and there and will repost them online soon.

How has CleverCoffee changed if you compare today, with the day you started roasting?

As I had been roasting quite a lot on a smaller scale before opening CleverCoffee, I knew that nothing beats using the best beans available. The very first bags of coffee we sold, I roasted on a Hottop coffee roaster and closed the bags with a vacuum sealer. Of course, we had every food grade certifications in order, but before making a huge investment in a complete roasting setup, In the way of LEAN startup, we just wanted to make sure that we were able to produce a product that people wanted to buy.

Later, we got the chance to buy an old 1963 Probat LG5 coffee roaster, that we restored and used for quite some time before upgrading to our current Giesen W15. Still, we are using the same formula when considering new investments in both coffee and equipment; we need to know that it works on a smaller scale before introducing it to a broader audience.

How do you think CleverCoffee will evolve in the future? Have you got any specific goals?

Sure, we have many goals – but one of our main focuses right now it to develop our core business, which is to source, roast and present some of the world’s most interesting coffees, without adding unneeded complexity and doing it in a responsible way.

We believe strongly that we should have an environment impact, which is as low as possible. It is not easy but an important process where we have taken the first steps by only printing info sheets on our coffees on CO2-neutral paper, we are only using electricity that comes from windmills and we use recyclable coffee boxes to deliver coffee to coffee shops and hospitality businesses that are located nearby. Now, we are working on having our Misiones coffee registered as a Transparently Traded Coffee as we would like our customers to know how much the grower has been paid for his green coffee in order for them to make a more conscious choice more easily.

Additionally, we are exploring the opportunities to opening our own coffee bar but that would certainly add complexity to our business, but it also opens up for us to being able to display our coffees in our own way. Therefore, we are looking for likeminded and talented people from the hospitality business industry to take part in this project.

Many of our subscribers are tasting CleverCoffee for the first time. How would you describe coffee roasted by CleverCoffee?

Coffee comes from a fruit and we want you to taste this. We roast to highlight the natural sweetness and fruitiness in the coffee. This way all coffees will taste different and you can explore the huge variety there is in coffee.

We work exclusively with the most interesting coffee producers in the world. We buy our green beans directly from the farmer or through socially aware and skilled importers who, with great professionalism, add value in the form of knowledge about better production and organic initiatives while always having the best interest of the coffee farmer in mind. Simply, we feel that this is the right way to do business.

We have selected all of our coffees for their unique and exciting characteristics, and you can be sure that our selection always reflects the huge variation in flavor found in the world of coffee. Our coffees come from micro lots from all over the world. Carefully selected and gently profile roasted to the brighter side as to preserve the sweetness and the innate flavours in the bean. We omni-roast all coffees so you can brew them just the way you prefer.

What can we expect from this month’s coffees (Misiones, Ceiba and Biloya)?

As usual, we would like people to experience the diversity in specialty coffee and we aiming to do this by only having seasonal coffees in our lineup as well as having a limited number of coffees in our lineup. We believe that a lineup of 5-7 coffees that change with the harvesting season helps our customers appreciate the diverse tastes that lies within the world of specialty coffee.

Misiones

For us, the Misiones from Colombia is more than special. For a long time, we have been looking for a coffee that meets our quality and taste requirements, and a coffee, where we can trade directly with the producer. Therefore, we are extra proud of this coffee, which is our first directly traded coffee and at the same time exclusive to CleverCoffee in Denmark. Collectively this results in a sweet and transparent coffee with a balanced tasting experience.

The coffee plants grows in nutrient volcanic soil in 1500-1700 mas in areas with plenty of shade. The variety is Castillo, a typical Colombian variety known for its great sweetness and citrus aftertaste.

The coffee is as a fully washed coffee, to highlight the clean and transparent taste. The pickers are highly skilled and have picked the ripe cherries when the cherries have reached a sugar content of 14%. This highlights the coffees natural sweetness.

All of this combined, results in a sweet and transparent taste of ripe red berries and citrus in a great balance. It is a coffee with a high complexity where you will experience a change in taste depending on the temperature of the coffee. Grind it rather coarsely and you will get a super juicy coffee. If you grind the coffee finer, you will get a very sweet coffee. This coffee has a big spectrum to play with.

This is a great example of a classic Colombian coffee – and what the Castillo variety has to offer, when it has been grown and processed with the outmost care.

Origin: Colombia
Region: Cundinamarca
Washing station: Hacienda Misiones
Varietals: Castillo
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1500 - 1700 masl
Harvest: May 2018

Ceiba

Ceiba is a specialty coffee from the Huehuetenango region in Guatemala on the border to Mexico. Here we have a fantastic combination of the comfortable silky and creamy mouthfeel, as the coffee from the area is known for and the fresh fruitiness that our roast style emphasizes. This results in a balanced coffee that everyone can drink, while you can find a great complexity in new taste notes.

Ceiba is a sweet and balanced specialty coffee that gives a nice freshness with taste of milk chocolate, orange and vanilla. This is an easy-to-drink coffee that everyone likes while it contains a large complexity and it expresses new tasting notes clearly, if you let the coffee cool down a little.

Origin: Guatemala
Region: Huehuetenango
Washing station: Ceiba
Varietals: Caturra, Bourbon, Typica
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1350 masl
Harvest: Jan – April 2018

Biloya

Biloya from Ethiopia is the latest addition to our lineup and Biloya blew us away with a sharp cup profile: Clean, sweet and transparent with notes of red berries and red grapes. It is a beautifully balanced natural processed coffee and a great showcase of how fantastic a natural processed coffee from Yirgacheffe in Ethiopia can taste like.

Coffees brought to the Biloya washing station are grown between 1700-2000 meters above sea level. There are several tiers of drying tables on the slope below the washing station and Biloya’s workers turn and sort the cherries by hand as the coffees dry on raised beds. The mesh material allows for airflow both above and below the coffee to prevent the formation of any mildew or mold. It takes between 18 and 21 days for cherries to dry. Naturally processed coffees are milled to remove the dried cherry pulp and parchment at once, and then stored in a warehouse no closer than 50cm from the wall and 15cm from the floor before transport to the final processing warehouse in Addis Ababa where it is color sorted and packed for shipment.

Origin: Ethiopia
Region: Yirgacheffe
Washing station: Biloya
Variety: Heirloom
Processing: Natural
Altitude: 1850 masl
Harvest: January 2018

We hope you all enjoyed December’s box with CleverCoffee. Don’t miss out on our next roaster!

Lippe

From our neighbouring country in the west, we're happy to announce Lippe from Oslo, Norway, as our October’s roaster!

Glad to have you back in our subscription! First time you were featured was about 18 months ago.

Great to hear! Glad to be back, cooperating with you and sharing our coffee with you all. :-)

What has happened since our last collaboration?

18 months, yes, well always lots going on, always tasting new coffees which has of course been made easier by receiving delivery of our Røst sample roaster which we’re very happy with. We have continued to strengthen our relationships with our suppliers, endeavoring to give back to the communities we buy coffee from as well as educating our customers about this and about how to get the best out of the coffees.

We have seen an increased awareness of our brand overseas which is always pleasant. It’s great to see and to hear how others outside of Norway react to our roasts. Something that we are very happy to confirm is that we now have the possibility to sell wholesale to EU customers with 0% customs duties which is a big help to those cafes out there who are looking for a supplier of premium Norwegian roasted coffee!

Further, 2018 is a special year for us as it is our 10th anniversary as a coffee roaster and our 20th anniversary as a company, two things that we are very proud of. The first 10 years we grew organically providing the market with coffee brewing equipment, machines and service, this growth was made ever easier thanks to the Rancilio Silvia which is also celebrating it’s 20th anniversary. A machine that has been close to us since our earliest days.

Is there any project you are working on right now that you are extra excited about?

Absolutely, we’re very pleased to say that over summer we confirmed our order of a brand new Loring roaster which will allow us to continue in our goals to be known as one of the leaders of specialty coffee in Norway. We expect to receive delivery and to install it early in 2019. We will hold onto our old roaster as it gives us the flexibility that we need.

What can we expect from this month’s coffees (La Esperanza, Uraga, Los Pirineos)?

Esperanza is a real fruit bomb. Big mouth feel, tastes of honey snaps and sweet citrus. Uraga is a beautiful example of a Guji from very high altitudes. We have taken coffee from this producer (Israel Degfa) a number of times over the years and we’re always very happy with their coffees. We find tastes of strawberry jam, tropical fruits and herbs. Los Pirineos is the coffee we chose for this year’s Nordic Barista Cup, a standout honey processed pacamara with a beautiful acidity and sweetness with tastes of ripe stone fruits, prune juice, nougat and chocolate. We were lucky enough to meet the producer of this coffee, Gilberto Baraona, during the event and can only confirm that he is a very knowledgeable and fun guy to be around.

How would you recommend brewing them?

Pour over, aeropress…we have also experimented with the Pirineos on espresso but at a slightly different roast degree

Looking ahead, what can we expect from Lippe in the future?

More of the same that has put us where we are now, providing the market with some of Norway’s best tasting and best value specialty coffees.

Thank you Lippe for providing us with delicious coffee for October!

Don’t miss out on our next box. Get your subscription going!

Cloud Picker

How can a year possibly start better than with great coffee? Our first roaster 2018 is the fantastic coffee roaster Cloud Picker Coffee from Dublin, Ireland.

From Cloud Picker we sent three fantastic coffees from Rwanda, Guatemala and Costa Rica. What a month!

Don't miss out on our next box!

Love Coffee Roasters

We are very excited to let you meet our December’s roaster, Love Coffee Roasters. The roastery was our first ever featured roaster back in September 2015. Now they’re back, and we have shipped some very special coffees.

Love Coffee Roasters from Lund, Sweden, have been roasting coffee since 2009, but the founder Daniel has more than 16 years of experience in the field. Love Coffee Roasters have a must visit coffee bar in the centre of Lund, a unique spot with a great courtyard.

For December’s box we shipped three very different coffees, from three different countries. When brewing these coffees you will be able to experience the great diversity between them.

INGA APONTE

Origin: Colombia, Narino, Tablon de Gomez
Producer: Various Cooperative Members
Process: Red Honey
Harvest: 2016
Soil: Volcanic
Altitude: 2150 masl
Variety: Caturra
Tasting notes: Fresh Tobacco, Mint, Ripe Yellow Fruits, Red Berries, Milk Chocolate & Brown Sugar

Almost all Colombian coffees are fully washed, but there are a few exceptions. This Colombian coffee is a honey-processed coffee, which results in a cup that is very sweet, full bodied with a soft acidity.

Love Coffee Roaster’s words about the coffee:

“The indigenous tribe Inga Aponte was for a long time forced by guerrilla groups to cultivate coca in their territory and they have historically also been driven away from their place of origin. Today, through efforts by state and the governor of the Inga Aponte, they aspire to produce the Colombian Caturra variety. The soils of the Narino region are made up by volcanic ash and the area is highly elevated with lower temperatures than average. This unique terroir gives long maturation and excellent growing condition for the coffee trees. We love it and are showcasing our second harvest with these coffees. Many more to come!”
 

MAGARISSA

Origin: Ethiopia, Danbi Uddo, Shakiso
Producer: Gigesa Washing station
Process: Washed
Harvest: 2016
Soil: Red Volcanic
Variety: Ethiopian heirloom
Tasting notes: Lemonade, Rose Water, Bergamot & Brown Spice

Included in the 2x250 and 3x100 Tasting box.

This sweet Ethiopian beauty is as delicious as a perfectly ripe fruit. About 850 farmers deliver their coffee cherries daily to the washing station in Shakiso. The production is organic and this lot is a grade 1 coffee.

Love Coffee Roaster’s words about the coffee:

“This coffee comes from a new washing station in Shakiso. The station is privately owned by Faysel Abdosh and about 850 small scale farmers deliver their coffee to his mill. By default the production is organic and this lot is a grade 1 coffee. Processing is done by using clean water from the area and drying is done on raised beds. We chose this coffee because of its clarity and very sweet character. It will leave you wanting more and more.”

LA ESPERANZA

Origin: Guatemala, Huehuetenango, Finca La Esperanza
Producer: Eleodoro Villatoro López
Process: Washed
Harvest: 2016
Soil: Limestone
Altitude: 1400 - 1600 masl
Variety: Caturra & Bourbon
Tasting notes: Dark cherries, Cranberries & Dark Chocolates

Only included in the 3x100 Tasting box.

This is the first time we’re shipping a coffee from Guatemala, and when you’ve had your try you will see why. It has taken the farmer Fransisco Morales 39 years to reach the quality you are about to brew.

Love Coffee Roaster’s words about the coffee:

“Fransisco Morales started farming coffee in 1977 on a small plot of land. Year by year he managed to buy a little more and today he has a good size farm which produces great coffees. It has taken him 39 years to reach his destination, of which he is very proud.

The farm is run with the help of his family and he now employs other families nearby to help with the farming practises. Fransisco strives to produce coffees of the highest quality and has been doing so for a long time. 18 years ago he formed an alliance with neighbouring farmers to share knowledge and gain technical support from the agronomists at the National Coffee Organization of Guatemala. This has helped him understand what his trees needs to prosper and produce better coffees. He is particularly interested in soil biology and the surrounding environment and he wants the future generations to be gifted with the wonderful coffees he feels so fortunate to have.”

We hope you will enjoy the coffees for this month. If you don’t want to miss out on our next box, be sure to join for January’s box! Subscribe here, or buy a gift box!