Description
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.
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 (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. The Belarminio Ramirez Group was named in his honor.
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.
Paul Pinchera (verified owner) –
Used a US Sample Roaster, dropped at the end of first crack, morning 2 after the roast, just doing my morning walk in the garden when suddenly it was like I had just taken a bite of milk chocolate. Shared with the local roaster he texted back “Straight up strawberry and chocolate”
Tyler (verified owner) –
This coffee is fantastic. Purchased more
Anne (verified owner) –
I’ve purchased other Dominican beans from BCT, but this is my favorite. As far as bean quality, I typically get 2-3 quakers per 150 gram roast.
John Gross –
Very good cup of coffee! Would order it again for sure.
notyourown (verified owner) –
Experienced longer roast time to finish first crack. Highly unusual and may be due to the aging process. City plus roast was amazing. Even and nice medium dark roast. Bean aroma was fruity at first then transcended into tobacco tones. Brewed pour over was a rich chocolate bomb. Very delicious. Interested in purchasing more when available.
Michael Katz (verified owner) –
Excellent coffee, bursting with the characteristic flavors of dry process coffees. After roasting, be sure to let it rest long enough for the sweet, fruity flavors to develop. I rest it for a week on the counter, then divide it into snack size zip lock bags and store them in the freezer until ready to grind. The flavor gets stronger the longer it sits in the freezer. The flavor is so intense that I use 1/3 less coffee grounds per cup that with any other coffee that I brew! 14 grams for an 8 oz cups vs the 21 grams I usually use. It does seem to take more heat than other beans, so be sure to buy enough for some practice roasts!