I just bought three new coffees. I bought two of them through Ninety Plus, which is the company that brought us the Aricha and Beloya coffees.
One of them is a Colombian from Finca La Aurora. La Aurora is one of the Garces' farms in La Concordia. Cristina (Garces) is taking the coffee from this farm and milling it in her new specialty mill. We visited this mill while we were in Concordia. It is immaculately clean and they boast the only mechanical drier in the country, which creates a cleaner, more consistent coffee (than the other drying methods being used in Colombia). La Aurora is planted with Caturra, Catuai, and Colombian Variety. It's obviously a wet-processed coffee, like virtually all coffee from Colombia, and the fruit flavors are very subdued. Also, like all coffees from the Concordia region of Colombia, this coffee is very high-grown. At 6,400 feet elevation, the coffee beans develop more slowly, creating a better-tasting coffee and very dense beans. The coffee is stored in parchment for a few months before it is dry-milled and exported. I'm not positive of the effects this rest has on the coffee, but I've been told storing coffee in parchment preserves the coffee better than storing it green, and the acidity of the coffee will lessen some over that resting period. That rest and resulting drop in acidity can be good with a coffee that is so acidic that it tastes sharp, which is entirely possible with a coffee that is grown at such high elevations and wet processed. I thought the La Aurora had a nice nutty, chocolaty flavor with some soft, melon fruitiness lingering in the background. Cristina describes the coffee as such: "The cup is very balanced and rich of flavor. The chocolate, the spices, the tropical fruits and vanilla notes are present from hot to cold. The citric acidity and the lemon finish is very atractive." I think you're really going to like this coffee.
Another coffee I just bought is from the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala. The farm is called Finca Villaure. It is in a neighboring area to Finca Vista Hermosa, which you might remember from almost a year ago when their manager and his son were shot and killed. After that incident, I began corresponding with Edwin Martinez, whose father owns Vista Hermosa. He has been sending me coffee samples and we have been discussing details. He is representing Finca Villaure in the United States, and that is how I came to buy this outstanding coffee.
Here you can read an article from Roast Magazine about Edwin's experiences with bringing coffee to the U.S.
Finca Villaure was started in 1986 by the Villatoro family. They are entering their 3rd generation as premium coffee producers in the Hoja Blanca region of Cuilco in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. The growing operation is headed by Aurelio Villatoro, one of eight brothers, who together with their parents, spouses and children (more than 70 in all) cultivate approximately 40 acres of rugged, shade covered mountain slopes.
The Hoja Blanca region is one of the last to harvest each year in Guatemala due its high elevation and heavily shaded slopes. These two factors combine to slow the development of the coffee cherries resulting in an extremely dense and more chemically complex bean. In 2002 Finca Villaure was selected in the Cup of Excellence competition as one of the top 33 coffees in Guatemala. The farm was also selected by Illycafe as the best producer of coffee in Guatemala in 2003.
Edwin describes the Villaure as having "Candied grapefruit taste with jasmine fragrance and a sweet, crisp finish." In my cupping of the coffee, I definitely found it to be pleasantly acidic, with very clean, sweet, grapefruit-type flavors and a super-clean, delicious finish. I bought two different lots of this coffee. One has spent a few months resting in parchment form, like the La Aurora. The other lot is the more recent harvest, and will have more cinnamon in the aroma and a bigger acidity. It will be interesting to compare these two lots of the "same" coffee. It is supposed to be delivered TODAY, so needless to say I'm pretty damned excited.
The third coffee is the other one I bought from Ninety Plus. It's a coffee from Panama. The last Panama we had was from the Boquete region. This one is from another region called Volcan. The coffee is from Finca Hartmann, which was founded in 1940 by a man named Ratibor Hartmann Troetsch. He and his family (5 children) work on the farm, producing some excellent coffees. I looked back at the results from the "Best of Panama" competition from the last two years. In 2006 Hartmann had two coffees in the top 16 and last year they had one.
Some info from Ninety Plus: "Some of the hardest-working and most environmentally committed coffee producers in the world, the three generations currently represented at Finca Hartmann all have a hand in daily operations. Much of the family’s land is primary forest and rests contiguous with the enormous Parque Nacional La Amistad, Central America’s largest national park. Despite uncountable offers to cut the forest for large monetary gain over decades, the Hartmanns remain committed to a future of coffee in balance with nature. The Hartmanns have a cupping lab on site and are leaders in coffee production for quality. Their expertise has been enjoyed beyond their own farm as they act as consultants for many Panamanian and other Latin American coffee producers."
In fact, our friend Cristina Garces (who produced the La Aurora) is friends with Ratibor Jr, who worked for the Garces family as a consultant for 6 years in Colombia. It's a small world after all.
This is a really interesting coffee. It's called Hartmann Honey - micro-lot #7. I picked it out of a few different lots as the most interesting of their offerings. The "honey" refers to the processing method used with the coffee. Instead of depulping the coffee, fermenting, washing off the mucilage, and drying the parchment, the Hartmann family used a "pulp natural" method. The coffee is run through a depulper to take the skins off the cherries, but instead of sitting in a fermentation tank to loosen up the mucilage so it can be washed, the coffee was laid out on raised drying beds where it was dried with the mucilage still intact. The picture at the top of this blog is the Hartmann Honey drying on raised beds. After drying, the coffee was cleaned and the parchment removed. This unusual processing method creates an unusual coffee. It seems that there are sugars on the outside of the coffee bean, so they roast a bit weird, deceiving. The outside of the bean isn't necessarily indicative of what's happening on the inside of the bean during roasting. The farm is located around 5,500 feet elevation, which is still pretty high for coffee, so the beans are dense and flavorful. The Ninety Plus cupping notes say "This cup has intense grapefruit acidity, dried black-currant aroma, and gentle fresh coffee berry notes. Honey processing can also add fruit characteristics that remind of Ethiopia naturals but are usually more restrained. They are also commonly laden with a refined nuttiness in the aftertaste which grows stronger as the cup cools." I thought the coffee was a lighter cup with some sour melon and yeasty smells in the aroma and maybe a bit of tea, then a lot going on in the flavor- fruits, malt, sweet honey, chocolate, and nuttiness. It's striking really. Not what you'd expect in a coffee.
More from Ninety Plus: "Finca Hartmann, our coffee development partners in Panama, have a history of strong relationships with the workers on their farm, largely seasonal employees of the indigenous Gnobe tribe of Panama. Workers are well-compensated and enjoy some of the most beautiful housing in Panama, some of which is nestled right in the heart of the cloud forests at Ojo de Agua. As coffee prices are improved for Finca Hartmann, additional monies will be available to further improve facilities and pay for seasonal workers.
With hundreds of species of birds, mammals, and reptiles co-existing with coffee at Finca Hartmann, this farm is truly one of the finest examples in the world of healthy integration of coffee and nature. The subject of studies by the Smithsonian Institute and other wildlife organizations, Finca Hartmann has been embracing and protecting biodiversity on its land for many decades."
Three new coffees. Each one is unique and delicious. I'm excited, and I think you're going to like all of them.
I feel like I've read volumes about these coffees and where they came from, and I still know very little and can express even less in this blog. So I hope, when you drink them, there is enough info here for you to understand a little about and appreciate the coffees and to appreciate the people who have worked hard bringing these coffees to your cup.
