This is an extremely sweet, fruity sharp Arabian coffee blend. Mocha Yemen Sinani, wine-like Horse Harar, and dry-processed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe are combined in equal parts to create this coffee. Distinct with the smell of ripe, wild coffee fruit, Yemen coffee is characterized by musky fruitiness and earthiness, sweet and spicy. Arabian Coffee from Yemen is one of the more distinctive-tasting coffees in the world. The acidity is bright and complex, and the flavor alive with notes that range from candied fruit through wine to dark chocolate, roasted nuts, wood, and tobacco.
The Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia (the Middle East), bordered on the west by the Red Sea. The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. Almost all Yemen coffee comes from ancient varieties of coffee arabica grown nowhere else in the world except perhaps in eastern Ethiopia; virtually all Yemen coffee comes from "heirloom" varieties of coffee arabica first naturalized hundreds of years ago. It is the world's most traditional coffee, extremely popular everywhere "Turkish" style coffee is drunk.
Yemen coffee is grown almost exactly as it was hundreds of years ago, on terraces clinging to the sides of semiarid mountains. In the summer, when the scrubby little coffee trees are blossoming and setting fruit, misty rains temporarily turn the Yemen mountains bright green. In the fall, the clouds dissipate and the air turns bone dry as the coffee fruit ripens, is picked, and appears on the roofs of the stone houses, spread in the sun to dry. Yemen coffees are dry or natural coffees, dried with the fruit still attached to the beans. Ripe coffee cherries are processed as they have been for centuries, dried in thin layers on rooftops, husked by millstone, and winnowed and cleaned by hand.
New Guinea is Earth's second-largest island. It lies just north of Australia and is divided down the center between the country of Papua New Guinea (on the east) and Indonesia's Irian Jaya province (on the west.) Richly endowed with natural resources, Papua New Guinea has one of the most rugged and spectacular topographies on earth: mountain peaks close to 4,000 meters (12,000 ft), active volcanoes, frequent earthquakes, and annual rainfall exceeding six feet. Much of the seedstock on Papua New Guinea is planted from the Jamaican Blue Mountain var. typica arabica, and with the Arushi typica varietal from Tanzania. Some are more modern hybrids or the Indian "Kent" varietal. The majority of quality coffee grown in Papua New Guinea comes from larger estates, such as the Kimel Plantation, located in the famous Highlands region.
This coffee offers a taste of caramel and cream, rounded out with an undertone of a cappuccino flan flavor -- an intriguing, hearty Indonesian coffee. You will find this coffee has tons of body with a touch of sweetness; heavy, but finishes clean and smooth. The cup is initially a rounded dark honey sweetness with malted chocolate. As the cup cools the complexity begins to reveal itself in an array of flavorful spice: cinnamon, sassafras, and sandalwood with black tea aspects lingering in the finish.
Antigua is internationally renowned for its high-quality coffees. Located between three volcanoes in a valley with a climate perfect for cultivating coffee, an annual rainfall of 1800-200 mm per year, relative humidity as high as 75% and average temperatures of 73°f. The soils are volcanic, profound, well drained, and with high contents of organic matter. Coffee is grown among fruit orchards, basic grains, ornamental plants and thousand-year-old virgin forests.
Shade-grown coffee is one of the most environmentally benign crops in the world and is perhaps the ideal agro-forestry crop. The use of large trees for shading coffee is a Guatemalan coffee-growing custom and is said to have been developed here. Coffee grown under the proper level of shade takes longer to develop, which favors the development of rich and complex flavors. This is an exceptionally sweet, delightful coffee, flavorful without being overpowering.
Invariably newcomers to my shop ask for my " favorite coffee" and more often they ask for my "most popular coffee". While the answer to this question has little to do ultimately with what appeals to you personally as a coffee drinker, the answer to this question is soundly irrefutable. Guatemalan coffee is a crowd pleaser, it embodies the essential answer to the question, "What makes a specialty coffee extraordinary?".
Needless to say each year I wait with great anticipation for new crop Guatemalan coffee. When something as bright and floral and complex as Antigua from Los Volcanes arrives in the shop, it's almost shocking. I recommend that you run, do not walk, and get your hands on some of this immediately. If you're not impressed by the bright, almost iridescent floral quality of this coffee, allow it to cool in your cup. A great deal of this sweet floral essence of this coffee can be attributed to acidity. Keep in mind that when cupping coffee, acidity is what gives coffee it's bright, lively fruit and wine flavors and floral aspects. There is also an earthy, smokey, malty aspect that gives this coffee an amazing rich flavor and vital aroma!
This coffee is grown under a rich canopy of shade trees in Santa Ana, El Salvador between the Apenaca and Ateno mountain ranges. The farm takes its name from a lagoon that is populated by thousands of frogs (Cerro Las Ranas means Hill of the Frogs).
Ripe red cherry is picked and milled in a process that is becoming more and more common throughout Central America. The cherry is processed normally and the coffee is then immediately sent to the clay drying patios still covered in the sweet mucilage where it is laid out, raked and turned to ensure even drying. This process (called Pulped Natural or Honey) imparts a subtle sweetness and fruit note, lending an atypical complexity to the cup. A strong coffee with a rich flavor and fragrant aroma, You will find hints of berry, lemon, and citrus flavors with a distinct caramel chocolate undertone here, along with the earthy flavors inherent to the region.
Looking for a deep, dark, sweet "French Roast" flavor profile? El Salvador Cerro Las Ranas is your cup of coffee!
This is our distinctly traditional cupping panama coffee from our most traditional Boquete producer, Casa Ruiz Classico. Having served many Panama coffees in the past I know the profile well, creamy medium body, seductive complexity, smooth Central American coffee profile. Since the late 1800's, three generations of the Ruiz family have been dedicated to the traditional coffee varieties and natural-system growing methods characteristic of excellent coffee flavor and nature preservation.
What was once a single farm in Boquete, is now a family owned and operated coffee crafting enterprise in Panama. Over three hundred small-scale family farms partner with Casa Ruiz, S.A. to process, roast and market their coffee. The headquarters is located in the Boquete Valley at the skirts of the Baru Volcano, in the western side of Panama. Casa Ruiz is dedicated to crafting the most consistently flavorful coffee possible, to maintaining a healthy natural environment and to the sustainability of the farms and region. This is a direct contribution to the efforts of the Boquete Community to keep the valley as green as it was left from generations past.
Garabito Tarrazu Pulp Natural 100% Honey Sun-Dried "African Natural Style" Micro Lot
The Costa Rican Tarrazu coffee from Finca Sixto in Garabito is a fully pulped, natural, sun-dried coffee. The term "100% Honey" refers to the process of sun drying the coffee in 100% of the fruit pulp, as opposed to washing any amount of the fruit away before sun drying on raised African drying beds. For the past two or three years, Sun-Drying Costa Rican coffee on raised African drying beds has become the way small micro-lot producers are distinguishing themselves from larger producers. By utilizing this labor intensive and more primitive method, the end result is small quantities of amazingly flavorful coffee. This rivals in every way the larger crops of more predictable and available kiln-dried coffee from Costa Rica.
Costa Rican coffee is clean and light in character, embodying the best of what can be accomplished when truly co-operative, modern farm communities develop clean and ecologically sound, forward thinking processing practices. This is an incredibly clean coffee, clear with the flavor of chocolate malt and deep sweet cherry. When hot, the coffee seems deceptively sweet, as it cools the flavor develops a more round and robust character. A strong, sharp, distinct taste of ripe coffee cherry pervades the entire cup. The aroma is particularly fresh sweet cherry; imagine sniffing a freshly opened cherry cola while sipping a sweet hot chocolate with a touch of malt, and you have an idea of what I'm talking about!
This is the first of our Costa Rica Micro Lot coffee to be featured this year. This coffee is a stunning example of micro-lot attention to detail in processing. I have exactly 15 sacks of this coffee to offer, no more will be produced this year. I highly recommend you sample this coffee.
I expect to cup Pulp Natural Costa Rican Palmares Honey Dried coffee again this year, in fact I will be in San Fransisco at our importer when they open the containers arriving in June 2010.
A Peaberry is a single oval bean appearing in place of the usual two flat-sided beans. Peaberry has a slightly spicier flavor and more intense roast profile - many people ask us for Peaberry every time they order! Tanzania is the world's largest producer of exceptional sun dried Peaberry coffees, and Ruvuma is known for it's Kenya-like flavor.
Tanzania is probably one of the oldest known continuously inhabited areas on Earth; fossil remains of humans and pre-human hominids have been found dating back over two million years. Ruvuma is the region in Tanzania named after the Ruvuma River which forms most of its southern boundary with Mozambique. Tanzania is mountainous in the northeast, where Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, is situated.
Tanzania contains many large and ecologically significant wildlife parks, including the famous Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park in the north, and Selous Game Reserve and Mikumi National Park in the south. Gombe National Park in the west is known as the site of Dr. Jane Goodall's studies of chimpanzee behavior.
Tanzanian coffee is typically shade grown. Mixed crops of bananas and native plants allow the growers to have less impact on the environment while creating a more productive landscape. This great Tanzania coffee exhibits intense flavors of bright lemon, cherry and a floral-toned honey sweetness with thick, full syrupy body that finishes with hints of cedar and cinnamon.
Fazenda Joao de Campos is located in a region called Alto Paranaíba near Serra do Salitre, a high plain in Cerrado Miniero, in the state of Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais is in the west of the southeastern subdivision of Brazil, the second most populous of the 26 states of Brazil, and fourth largest by area in the federation. This is no Micro Lot, it's a big farm that produces a lot of this coffee, yet much smaller and at a higher altitude than our last brazillian offering, the Fazenda Aurea. Altitude is always a good thing for the flavor of your coffee, as the harvest ripens slower, with more flavor. This coffee roasts up creamy, soft and alluring and rather delicate in the cup.
Brazilian coffee is intriguing - there's almost no explaining it to the uninitiated. This is a wonderful coffee in the cup, simple, soft, almost velvety, clean and very sweet. Given it's moderate acidity and intense aroma, you taste this coffee more in the back of your mouth than the tip of your tongue, adding to it's mystique. This coffee works very well for espresso, it produces a huge head of soft creamy crema.
Sumatran coffees are processed in a unique way. From the point the coffee is picked and the cherry skin pulped off, the process follows the way it is done for most washed coffees produced around the world. As with these other washed coffees, fermentation is complete when the mucilage or fruit surrounding the parchment (or pergamino) has dissolved and the fruit-free parchment rinsed off. At this point, the bean within the parchment still has very high moisture content.
In almost all washed coffee origins throughout the world, before the parchment is hulled, it is dried, either in the sun or in machine dryers, until the moisture content is down to around 15-13% at this point the coffee is ready to ship, store and roast.
So herein lies the difference; in most places, the bean is dried in the parchment and the parchment or pergamino is milled off the beans when they are dry… not in Sumatra.
In Sumatra, the bean is still very wet when the parchment is hulled. The bean comes out of the parchment quite soft, white, and spongy. These wet soft beans are then sundried. Typically, the drying conditions in Sumatra include on-and-off sessions of fierce tropical sun, interrupted regularly by torrential thunder showers. This slow inconsistent drying is in large part what provides the essence of a Sumatra Mandheling, both in flavor and appearance.
The State of Oaxaca is located in the South-eastern region of Mexico; it borders on the North with Veracruz and Puebla, Chiapas on the East, Guerrero on the West and the Pacific Ocean on the South. Oaxaca is a beautiful region of Mexico, with a rich heritage of Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and fourteen other ethnic groups still present in its culture and customs.
Oaxaca is the most diverse state in Mexico, with peaks almost 10,000 feet (more than 3,000 metres) high, caverns among the deepest in the world, virgin beaches, hidden jungles, and luminous valleys that house populations where, as a crucible, cultures of all people who once lived in its midst come together. Amazingly diverse in terms of biological species, Oaxaca is home to approximately 30,000 plant species, representing approximately 5 per cent of the flora on the planet. This area hosts about 10,000 coffee-growing families descended from indigenous Indians. Pluma Altura is one of the most renowned classifications of coffee in Mexico. Grown by a group of small Oaxacan farms, Tres Oros (three gold stars) is the mill name given to this coffee.
Cupping this coffee is delightful, there's a bright fresh nose to the cup, lots of cherry to the aroma. My first sip is bright and spicy, with a good snap and a clean finish. It's the fresh clean aroma and taste of coffee cherry that distinguishes this cup. Malt and toasted grain flavors dominate, with distinct sweet sharp caramel flavors and a touch of sweet almond and dark bittersweet chocolate in the long lingering finish.
Peru is a land of contrast: high mountains, dense jungles, and barren deserts all within close proximity. Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, and to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. Northern Peru is primo coffee growing country. The weather is characterized by high temperatures all year long and heavy rains from October through March.
Peruvian organic coffees are revered for their delicate acidity and sweet round cup. The finest organically grown coffees are exquisite, especially those from small farms and co-ops. The 2009 Peruvian harvest is just beginning to land in the states, and I've passed up some first crop offerings while waiting for the more mature mid-harvest green. This is by far the best to date.
Our Peruvian is a beautifully balanced organic cup, bright and clean with the essence of dark chocolate, pinion, oak and forest herbs. There is a smooth, solid character with subtle cherry notes, milky chocolate, and a surprising dry almond finish.
