Description
A wonderful batch and prime example of Puerto Rican coffee.
A wonderfully fresh & feel good project coffee. Holy smokes, a wonderful resurrection story.
We have had some lovely Puerto Rican relationships in our history, one of our favorites being from Don (Guillermo) Cardona who owns Hacienda Las Nubes.
Unfortunately when the hurricane happened about four years ago, everything dried up (not just coffee). It toppled the trees and infrastructure, which take some serious time to come back. We lost contact with Don Cardona (as well as our other buddy farmers) shortly after and have not seen PR coffee since. Low and behold, Don Cardona called us up last week. He had to pull 3000 coffee trees and replant, been working on it for the last three years. The fruits of his labor finally paid off this season! Hacienda Las Nubes coffee has risen again! 3 year old trees which is quite young but his land is fertile and in the perfect spot for high altitude coffee, beautiful beans for such young trees.
Everything about this coffee is hand done in small batches, from the picking to the processing. Cardona does a ton of it himself, hiring only friends and neighbors to help with the high quality picking. He is a retired engineer and has developed custom processing and drying equipment that brings his coffee to the next level.
Tasting Notes: A wonderful smooth and rich cup. Best served at a medium roast. There are some cool island floral tones upfront at a light roasts but lacks the contrast (balance) of the exotic peppery/clove spice and chocolaty undertones that build into fuller roast levels; can risk a little grassy tone super light. Medium roasts retain hints of the island acidity and build a exotic spice note to go along with a little floral crispness and smooth creamy nutty/chocolaty factor, quite tasty. Darker roasts get real hefty and a bit bittersweet but retain those exotic spice notes to compliment the roasty and smoky darker chocolate cup.
Roasting Notes: Small batch picked and processed leave the beans roasting a bit a bit uneven. Slower roasting to a strong medium to dark roast presents it nicely. Second crack can sneak up on you a bit, watch it close especially with higher temps, a little sheen on the surface and you should be good to go.
sonoitaheritagecoffee (verified owner) –
This lot was fantastic, dropped @ 424, super smooth, beautiful rice looking roast, flavor was sweet, caramel, and a hint of light flowers, loved it
John House (verified owner) –
Very good tasting brew. My only problem with it is how fast it goes into 2nd crack. My first roast I did hot and fast and it started 2nd crack 10 or 15 sec. after the end of 1rst crack. The 2nd roast I tried slowing the roast down a bit and it started 2nd crack before 1rst crack even finished. It also gets oily very fast when storing it and is the first variety that bridged in my grinder so I had to tap it to get it into the burrs. It is still one of the best tasting coffees I’ve roasted. It gives Kona a run for its money in taste from my experience. It may take some time to get my roasting process working properly for the oils to take longer to come out.
John House (verified owner) –
Very good tasting brew. My only problem with it is how fast it goes into 2nd crack. My first
roast I did hot and fast and it started 2nd crack 10 or 15 sec. after the end of 1rst crack. The 2nd roast I tried slowing the roast down a bit and it started 2nd crack before 1rst crack even finished. It also gets oily very fast when storing it and is the first variety that bridged in my grinder so I had to tap it to get it into the burrs. It is still one of the best tasting coffees I’ve roasted. It gives Kona a run for its money in taste from my experience. It may take some time to get my roasting process working properly for the oils to take longer to come out.
Patrick M (verified owner) –
I’ve roasted three batches of this and enjoyed each roast level. The Full City+ makes a terrific espresso reminiscent of a semi-sweet Tollhouse chocolate chip. Full City was a creamy nutty and chocolatey cup. Perfect for an Aeopress. The City+ was my favorite for V60: full body but there is more nutty/chocolate factor and less bittersweet. This is a lower elevation bean so be careful: it will race to second crack. On the Behmor 1600+, I ran it Manual P5, double drum, for 5 minutes and then lowered to P4 until FC. At Fc, I dropped to P3