Description
Jon’s coffee special features three of our most popular coffees.
This bundle includes:
*Bundles change over time. You will get the listed coffees at the time of order. *
Relatively new to specialty coffee processing in western Honduras, CAFESCOR has quickly made a reputation that is turning heads. The success starts with a well-defined plan for centralizing the collective efforts of more than 400 member-producers. With a centralized wet-mill designed to receive cherries from all of its members, processing consistency is stellar. The mill floats cherries using recycled water to remove less dense and damaged beans before depulping. After depulping, coffee is washed with a demucilager, which uses very little water.
Tasting Notes: Best medium to dark roast, a great everyday drinker. This cup is nice and chocolaty with some nutty accents, just like a good Honduras should be. Lower acidity and medium bodied, a sweeter edge assuming its not roaster super dark. Clean, rich and smooth cup with nutty and chocolate tones. Medium roasts were our favorite but might be a little mild for some. One can put a little heft and stronger bakers chocolate tone by touching or going slightly into second crack.
Roasting Notes: Easy to roast. Light roasts can get a little grassy/herbal, but these tones will blossom into rich and chocolaty notes as the roast progresses. A couple shades past first crack to as dark as you want to go. Medium roasts have nice balance, a little hint of acidity and more nutty/caramel like tones. Past a medium roast, turns into a nice everyday drinker being medium bodied, low acidity and on the chocolaty/nutty side.
Washed parchment is placed on patios to pre-dry and then mechanically dried in horizontal dryers called guardiolas. Furnaces burn recycled coffee parchment to heat the guardiolas. Dried parchment is stored and milled Corquin, which has mild weather conditions ideal for resting parchment and preparing coffee for export. CAFESCOR has a fully staffed cupping lab equipped to cup through every lot and ensure consistent quality.
CAFESCOR has also worked collectively to establish a number of norms required for certification including organic certification. CAFESCOR goes another step-in centralizing efforts with an organic fertilizer production plant that uses coffee pulp as the base ingredient and California earthworms to promote decomposition. An average of 3,000 pounds of organic fertilizer is produced for every hectare of coffee production. All of this work means producer-members can focus all of their attention on year-round farm management and picking the best cherry possible.
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Nicaraguan Premium Selva Negra – Mirador Washed Processed
Nicaraguan Selva Negra coffee is cultivated in the most ecologically sustainable and socially responsible way possible. Learn more by reading our Selva Negra Grower Profile.
Selva Negra’s history is in many ways the history of the coffee in Nicaragua altogether. In the 1880’s the Nicaraguan government invited young German immigrants to come and settle in Nicaragua in order to promote coffee growing in the northern highlands. Many accepted the offer, thus forming the main coffee plantations of the country; some estates bear names of their motherlands. Selva Negra means Black Forest, and the coffee estate is called La Hammonia, Latin for Hamburg. Located approximately 4,000 ft. above sea level, La Hammonia has been producing fine old style Arabica coffee for over 100 years. Eddy Kühl & Mausi Kühl-Hayn, the farm’s proprietors are descendants of two of these original German immigrants – Alberto Vogl and Klaus KÜhl.
Selva Negra Estate Coffee is grown at a high altitude in a shaded environment. This allows the bean to have a slow development cycle which instills an intense and fulfilling flavor to each bean. The coffee is not only 100% Arabica, but more importantly it is mostly Bourbon and Typica strains (which produce higher quality beans than other varieties of coffee trees). The region of Matagalpa, Nicaragua is mountainous with excellent volcanic soil producing exceptional beans. Finally, the coffee is prepared using an environmentally friendly washing process, which gives the coffee still one more unique quality enhancing aspect.
Tasting Notes:
A very clean and fresh batch from Selva Negra. A little citric & floral acidity upfront, balanced with nice complex nutty & malty undertones. Light roasts are going to be a little front loaded with the brighter characteristics, a higher rated cup meaning one will notice some decent crisp acidity at the light-medium roasts. Will give great depth of flavor but may be a little sharp for some. Our favorite roast and a great everyday drinker was in the medium roast ballpark, builds more of a smooth and creamy cup with a sweet edge, reducing that perceived acidity to just a pinch. Turns much stronger, a robust cup most would say, into the darker roasts but shined nicely; fuller bodied with strong malty and smoky tones, still a sweeter edge to it which darker roast fans will love.
Roasting Notes:
A little more challenging to roast but luckily tastes pretty good no matter where you roast it to. Error lighter than darker when playing around. Although this cup tastes like a nice Ethiopian natural, it will roast much more two toned. When shooting for a nice light roast, judge it by the lighter shades of beans, make sure they get through first crack then cool it out. A speckled roast is normal, you will see 2-3 shades of beans when done roasting, this coffee is produced to give those results.
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Panama Premium Boquete – Finca Maestra Chela – Catuai Washed
Finca Maestra Chela is our buddy Keith Pech’s aunt. Keith is owner of Damarli Estate and his whole family has coffee in their blood. Her farm is located right above Damarli Estate and is only 2 hectares (a little under 5 acres), which is real small for a coffee farm, boutique production all around. Starting at about 1600m, the farm is actually a little higher up the mountain than Damarli Estate. Keith and his father do all the processing for her. A lovely new addition to our Panama lineup.
Keith normally doesn’t do washed processed coffee but with the Catuai strain, it created the perfect match. They still brought some science into the processing and while the coffee was in its short fermentation soaking to get the fruit off (open air tubs), they added their proprietary yeast mix which adds a wonderful depth of flavor and sweetness.
A stellar example of a washed processed Panama, not all fruity and wild like many of the other offerings, a wonderful traditional style cup.
Beautiful beans and screen of coffee, similar to the other Panama’s, these are basically 0 defect gems. Not your average coffee by any means. High scoring, crisp and clean, great from light to dark.
Tasting Notes: We thought it best right around a medium roast; balanced and sweet. Hints of sweet citric floral upfront comingle with smooth defined malt like tones, just the tiniest hint of a fruity factor in the aftertaste. Lighter roasts get much crisper, dominated with more floral citric fruit tones, lemony most would say but does still show a little malty undertone. Darker roasts cut out the more floral aspect of the cup and are very rich and smooth, more semi-sweet but still very malty, into second crack adds some complimenting smoky tones. Hard to find a bad roast point with these beans.
Roasting Notes: A very easy to roast coffee, even roasting with medium to low chaff. Darkens up a little quicker than many other central American coffees, so keep an eye out for first crack to mark your lighter roasts. A jazzy cup, setup will help smooth out the cup and pop out all the little exotic notes. 2-3 days is ideal but we still found it tasty right out of the roaster.
Damarli Estate is a specialty coffee farm located in Boquete, Panama. The estate dates back to 1995 when David Pech, a photographer in the United States and his wife Lia Pech (Ruiz) bought the farm from a bank foreclosure. Lia’s family, the Ruiz family, had been heavily involved in the coffee industry in Boquete for four generations; thus David and Lia were encouraged to get involved with the family industry as well.
Damarli, as a name came from a combination of the original investors: David and Lia and David’s father and mother (Manfred and Ruth Pech) – DA- for David, MA- for Manfred, R – for Ruth and LI – for Lia.
The estate was planted in 1996 and began to produce in 2001. For over one decade Damarli Estate sold the raw coffee cherries to Casa Ruiz, which was Lia’s family’s coffee business. In 2014, David and Lia’s son Keith moved from the United States to Panama in order to begin a new project at Damarli Estate. This was the beginning of a new chapter for the beans.
Keith began to identify all the unique coffee varieties that were grown at Damarli Estate and market them internationally. Keith and David began to process their own coffee at the estate in a way that would create sweet and unique cup profiles that had little to no water waste. They built a house on the estate to accept visitors, a new mill and drying beds to process all the coffees and a coffee tasting lab to accept international buyers. Damarli Estate is a beautiful farm filled with tropical birds, tall canopy forests and enchanting sunrises.
Bill M. –
I always love this coffee. It has a lovely and complex flavor. No one element dominates. I like to roast it medium to medium dark. Each pound I roast is a different variety, but every time I roast this one, both my wife and I absolutely love it.