Description
In 1943, Mr. Belarminio Ramirez started a small company dedicated to the cultivation and marketing of coffee, which over the years grew into a family tradition involving three generations already. The Belarminio Ramirez Group was named in his honor. Currently, the company owns 350 hectares of coffee production, located in the mountains of the central range between 800 and 1500 meters above sea.
This family-owned estate is extraordinarily socially conscious. They use fermented coffee cherries to create natural gas, which partially powers their operation. They also donate books and computers to the local schools, and in a more rural area, they built and funded a new school preventing small children from having to walk over 15 km each way to class. They also help Haitians obtain legal residence in the Dominican Republic, in order to receive fair wages. We pay roughly 300% higher wages to this Estate for their exceptional care of the environment, organic certification, care for local Haitian immigrants, and high cupping scores.
This coffee comes from a single estate in the Jarabacoa region of the Dominican Republic. The Ramirez Estate employs over 400 people. 40 percent of the workers are female and many of them are Haitian migrant workers. They are paid roughly 300 percent higher wages than Fair Trade to the Estate and they use a decent portion of their profits to create sustainable gas recycling (to reduce emissions), water filtration (to prevent river contamination), and to donate computers and books to many of the local schools. This estate is an example of how a coffee businesses that becomes successful should operate in their community.
One pound each of:
Dominican Org. Ramirez Estate – Washed Processed
Tasting Notes:
A great medium to dark roast coffee: robust, fuller bodied, lower acidity and complex. Rich and smooth with nutty, chocolate, earth and spice tones. On the lighter roast spectrum there is a little jazzy citric note that presents the cup a little sweeter, on the darker roast spectrums it will have some roasty and smoky notes that we found quite pleasant.
Roasting Notes:
A wonderful bean screen, even and easy roasting, medium to low chaff. Make sure to play around with the roast on this one, light to dark a tasty cup but pretty different. Lighter roasts you get sweet with more delicate tastes, dark you get strong and complex. A nice medium roast is where we settled on being our favorite but a bean everyone will love it at slightly different roasts.
Dominican Org Ramirez Estate – Red Honey
Tasting Notes:
Best from the lighter side of a medium roast to as dark as you want to go. A bit cleaner tasting but slightly less fruity than previous seasons. Lighter roasting presents some nice honey processed features: citric, floral, soft fruit with an almost oak/peat like finish, sweet & complex but does risk some underdeveloped tones if you nail it a little too light. Medium roasts were our favorite, still balanced and complex but will develop the traditional chocolate and smoky tones for which Dominican coffees are known for – to balance out those more exotic fruity and citric tones. Darker roasts are a little more complex than on the washed processed version, but not as smooth and rich.
Roasting Notes:
The preparation on Ramirez Red Honey keeps getting cleaner and better every year. It will roast much more even, and has gone from high chaff, to more medium chaff levels. It will darken up a bit quicker color wise, so make sure to use the cracks and roast level guides.
Dominican Ramirez Estate – Natural Processed
Tasting Notes:
A very cool, very exotic cup of coffee. One can tell this is a slow dry natural processed coffee with its strong ripe red fruit tones upfront. Lighter roasting presents a ton of floral and fruit with an almost oak/peat boozy finish, very sweet with just a ton going on but does risk some underdeveloped tones with its two-toned roasting. Medium roasts were our favorite, still plenty wild but develop enough of the chocolate and smoky tones – which most Dominican coffees are known for – to balance all those more exotic fruity and citric tones. Darker roasts will burn out most of what distinguishes this cup, the washed processed handles those roast level much better; interesting and still exotic but strong and edgy, it will retain some fruity factor with very strong and less sweet, smoky, tobacco and bakers chocolate type notes.
Roasting Notes:
Will roast a bit two toned, so make sure everything makes it through first crack before cooling. Slower roasting (at lower temps) and/or slightly reducing batch size may help if having issues, worth the work for you fruit forward coffee fans. Make sure to play around with the roast on this bean, light to as dark as you want to go will really change it up. Has some good lighter roast attributes for those who don’t mind a little acidity. Higher chaff.
Cafe Kreyol goes into some of the most impoverished and troubled areas that are within prime coffee growing territory. They organize farmers, teach how to correctly process beans & guarantees purchase of the beans at way above market prices. They ensure the funds go directly to the farmers and strive to economically turn around some of the more troubled and impoverished areas in coffee growing territory, putting people to work at well above average wages and ensuring future livelihoods.
Joey, the head of Cafe Kreyol, even strives for his US employees the above statement. He finds the hardest working individuals with great work ethics that for one reason or another have really been put down with employment and troubled times to help them recover and build a resume while also being able to help others.
One can feel really good about supporting any of Cafe Kreyol’s projects and for the most part – really tasty coffees as well.
Cafe Kreyol projects including this one are project coffees, these are not a 0 defect large screen coffee. It takes around 5-7 years to really turn out a prime coffee operation and most of these are on year 2-3. Great tasting cups but keep in mind – not the worlds best screen.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.