3 lb Bundle: Special

Description

Garry’s coffee special features three of our more interesting coffees. Higher acidity, interesting processing, this bundle is leaning towards more exotic coffee tones.

*Bundles change over time. You will get the listed coffees at the time of order.*

A pound each of:

Dominican Ramirez Estate – Natural Processed

Cafe Kreyol goes into some of the most impoverished and troubled areas that are within prime coffee growing territory, organizes farmers, teaches how to correctly process beans, guarantees purchase of the beans at way above market prices ensuring it goes directly to the farmers and strives to really turn around some of the more troubled areas, putting people to work at well above average wages and ensuring future livelihoods.

Cafe Kreyol projects including this one are project coffees (although this is the nicest screen out of the lot), these are not a 0 defect beautiful 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.

In 1943, Mr. Belarminio Ramirez started a small company dedicated to the cultivation and marketing of coffee, which over the years grows into a family tradition involves three generations already. 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.

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.

Mexican Altura Veracruz – Natural Processed

Fresh new crop! This Mexico Altura Veracruz comes from APG Coffee, a fourth-generation family operation based in Coatepec, Veracruz. The story goes back to 1920, when Antonio Pérez-Redondo Galvan (hence the initials APG) joined Arbuckle Coffee as an exporting agent, stamping his initials on the finest lots heading to New Orleans and Hamburg. Today the operation is run by Ernesto Perez and his sister Givette, who have been pushing lot separation and full traceability by farm, variety and process. APG also runs the first ecological mill in Coatepec, and their dry mill was selected to prepare the winning lots of the 2022 Cup of Excellence Mexico.

This lot is grown between 900 and 1200 masl on clay mineral soils in the Veracruz coffee belt, by partner farms that receive technical assistance from APG. The varieties are a classic regional blend: Bourbon, Catimor, Caturra and Typica. Harvest runs October through March. Cherries arrive at the APG wet-mill, where they are floated and sorted to remove underripe or damaged fruit, then dried on raised beds for 15 to 20 days, rested in GrainPro cocoons and milled at the same APG dry mill, so the coffee never leaves the family’s hands from farm to port.

Roasting Notes: Good from light to dark, but the sweet spot lives between City+ and Full City. Lighter roasts (just past first crack with a bit of development) bring out the juicy side of the natural: cherry, strawberry and a floral lift. Pull it too light and you risk a grassy edge, so give it a few extra days of rest before cupping. Medium (Full City) is pretty error-proof: chocolate, cacao nib, toasted pistachio and a round body. Pushing into Full City+ or slightly darker brings more cocoa, toasted nut and that sweet edge typical of Mexican naturals. There’s still a chance of a caramel spin before 2nd crack. Naturals like this one tend to roast a little two-toned, that’s normal, don’t panic. Medium chaff.

Tasting Notes: Light roast: cherry, strawberry, floral, bright medium-low acidity. Medium roast: cacao nibs, pistachio, semisweet chocolate, round body and sweet finish. Dark roast: deeper chocolate, toasted nuts, holds the sweet edge of the natural without falling into smoky territory. Medium-low acidity, medium to medium-full body.

Papua New Guinea – Jiwaka Arufa – Natural Processed

Natural Processed coffees are very different from washed processed. Fruity ferment like tones will dominate the cup. Sweet, slightly floral with some citric acidity. This is a wild old world example of a natural, similar to Bali Kintamani Natural but with more acidity upfront. This year is amazing clean for a PNG natural, although there is no missing its old world roots, you can expect a clean, balanced and decently fruit forward cup.

From its earliest introduction to present day, the arabica gene stock in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is considered to be one of the country’s strongest natural assets, not to mention one of the best-preserved Typica lineage variety sets in the world. And these delicate genetics clearly thrive in PNG’s highlands, which are some of the most virgin and fertile on the planet.

Between World Wars I and II, Australian settlers would establish more and more large coffee estates across the Eastern, Chimbu, Jiwaka, and Western highland provinces. As commercial exports ramped up, more indigenous Papuans would adopt coffee as a cash crop alongside their traditional economies, in most cases processing at home and selling humid parchment to traveling collectors. For hundreds of thousands of rural farmers coffee would be, and still is, the very first and only source of western currency. To this day expert-level cultivation knowledge largely remains in the possession and experience of PNG’s plantation owners. Remote smallholder coffee tends to fall short of its potential, receiving only scarce quality interventions from ambitious millers and exporters.

Tasting Notes: It yields an excellent cup at any roast level, great from light to dark, Our favorite roast point was a nice medium roast, best balance of tones and very easy drinking. The aroma is distinctly fruity and complex adding wonderfully to the tastes. A lighter roast presents a sweeter cup, more dominate fruity/floral notes. A fuller body true to its PNG roots, a more pronounced citrus acidity, accompanied by unique red fruit undertones (evoking hibiscus flower and fruit peel), all balanced by an earthy, semi-sweet contrast reminiscent of malt. If the roast is taken a little further, the profile becomes more chocolatey and denser in body; it remains incredibly sweet, but with only a faint fruity hint less sharp eliminating much of the citrus character. Darker roasts exhibit a distinct baking-chocolate tone slightly smoky with a red fruit note, almost cherry-like, that emerges strongly as the cup cools.

Roasting Notes: If you are unaccustomed to roasting “Old World” natural-process coffees, be prepared to observe some unevenness in the roast and a high presence of chaff. This is typical for a coffee with these characteristics. Generally speaking, it is easy to roast; however, if you prefer a light roast, you must monitor it closely to ensure that not too many golden or pale-colored beans remain before cooling it out, otherwise run the risk of developing a slight almond or peanut-like nuance.