Description
COMSA has been a house favorite Honduran coffee, smooth and creamy, low acidity with more neutral nutty and chocolaty tones. What’s not to love. This chop is an interesting screen of coffee, an experiment for the co-op. Originally the idea was to create a peaberry chop, but without the specialized equipment to separate peaberries, the end result was a small screen coffee. About half peaberries, half small flat beans, some bean fragmentation in the mix as well. Creates an old world offering by appearance, but blooms into a wonderful daily drinker from medium to dark. Sweeter and smoother than the normal flat bean offering with a wonderful chocolaty cup profile.
This is likely not one for slotted drum roasters, some of the small beans could fall through. Will work great in air roasters and solid drums. If you use a slotted drum, sieve the coffee by shaking the drum before putting it into the machine.
Finca Humana (the Human Farm) is the first thing you will hear about Café Organico Marcala, S.A. (COMSA) if you make your way to visit this cooperative in Marcala, Honduras. The wellbeing of humans is foundational to the COMSA philosophy and educating more than 1,500 producer-members to successfully live in harmony with nature is everywhere at COMSA.
It starts with the La Fortaleza, the COMSA biodynamic demonstration farm where the focus of transferring knowledge takes place through week- long seminars called Pata de Chucho (pawprints left by a stray dog), which aptly reveals COMSA’s dogged exploration for human productivity in harmony with nature.
The trailblazing ideas for using organic matter to productively cultivate high quality coffee is only a sliver of what COMSA teaches about the power of nature through the Finca Humana philosophy. COMSA dedicates significant funding from the proceeds of coffee sales to run a cutting-edge international school dedicated to filling children’s minds with possibility and training them to be the future leaders of Finca Humana.
What makes it so good? The fundamentals: traceability to the Marcala region, which is a protected designation of origin (DENOMINACION DE ORIGEN CAFE DE MARCALA); meticulous post-harvest hand sorting of cherry; cherry floating to remove less dense beans; long drying times; and a healthy dose of the COMSA philosophy and training.
Tasting Notes: A wonderful daily drinker from medium to dark roast. Works well for espresso and cold brew as well. Lower acidity and fuller bodied, medium roasts lean a little towards the nutty side, strong medium to dark roast, a very chocolaty cup. Light roasts do work, adds a little hint of caramel and citric, but can come off a little grassy, not quite developing the chocolaty base notes.
Roasting Notes: Medium to low chaff levels and pretty even roasting comparatively to the looks. Small beans can go very quick after first crack, often wise to drop temps slightly when you hear/see first crack. Although a smooth tasting coffee from day 1, a little longer setup will take away any edginess to the cup.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.