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:
Panama Premium Boquete – Damarli Estate – Catuai Natural Processed
This is season four of working with Keith Pech, owner of Damarli Estate. He has some family in the U.P. (Michigan) and passes by our warehouse from time to time visiting his family. Keith is really on the cutting edge of Panamanian coffee. He really hooked us up this season with his best chops but much smaller quantities than normal. Luckily he was able to produce two winning lots from his neighbor as well to fill in the shortfalls. These are high scoring, super fresh and very tasty lots. His mom is actually part of the Ruiz family who we sourced a ton of awesome Panama coffees from in years past.
This Catuai Natural is more wild and is on the stronger side. Awesome prep and one heck of a cup. Pretty exotic stuff, if you are new to Natural Processed coffees, be in for something different. Being highly rated this cup will have some acidity to it. Floral, winy and fruity mark this cup.
Tasting Notes: A very jazzy & blasty cup of coffee with a noticeable natural processed spin; full of citric, floral and fruity tones. Although similar to the Typica, this Catuai is a much more potent cup, stronger acidity and more complex darker tones (think African type cup). Light roasts themselves will be bright and crisp with strong lemony floral and fruit tones. The fruitiness is almost winy and more reminiscent of a red grape-skin; complex with a little astringency upfront. The cup will be front-loaded (almost all citric/floral/fruity tastes) at the light roast points but will have a little complex herbal chocolaty balance. Medium roasts bring a more traditional cup with better balance. This should be the minimum roast level if you do not want blasty floral/fruit notes upfront. Still a bit lemony upfront but has a much more noticeable malt like tone with a bit of spice to balance it out. The fruitiness turns a bit more normal for a natural, red-fruit like and sweet.
Dark roasting still has well above normal jazz to the cup, hard to roast the floral/fruity notes out of the cup, fuller bodied malt and spice comingle with a little roasty and floral, a little hint of fruit as the cup cools.
Roasting Notes: A bit dependent on personal taste what to do with this coffee and can be a bit harder to roast. High chaff, good to reduce the batch size slightly. Looks way darker roasted than it is, even at first crack, looks like you are pushing 2nd crack. If you are seeing splotches of color on a single bean, you are still in the light to medium ballpark. A strong shine to the beans are you are getting closer to 2nd crack than first. If you like acidity, floral and fruit tones, the front loaded light roast cup is pretty cool stuff. If you like traditional Panama and Central American coffee, good to go into the medium roast points to get some darker toned balance. Darker roasts will be exotic for the roast point, but we liked it best before 2nd crack. A longer setup time on these beans will help a ton, blasty coffees often need 3-5 days to start tasting their best.
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.
Ethiopian Sidama Gr. 3 Natural – Daye Bensa
Truly a story of local entrepreneurship, this superlatively fragrant and sweet coffee came to be through a producer group founded by Bensa district natives in 1996. The Bensa and Arbegona districts reach some of the highest elevations in all of Ethiopia; in the right hands, coffee grown here has proven capable of pushing the limits of what Sidama coffee genetics can show us.
Tasting Notes:Light roasts put off a sweet lemon acidity that fades into a nice red-fruit note, balanced with a tea-like dry chocolate undertone. A longer setup will help smooth it out and pronounce the fruit note. If shooting real light, make sure to flick out any beans not through first crack. Medium roasts are a bit more tame, no flicking required. Cup will get a richer chocolaty note with just a pinch of floral acidity and fading into a soft fruit note. Medium roasts are slightly reminiscent of the Yemen but perhaps still a bit brighter. Darker roasts are cool with these beans, as you touch 2nd crack you still have some nice medium roasted beans in the mix, a good balance of tones between the smoky chocolaty roasty and fruity citric tea notes.
Roasting Notes: A bit more challenging to roast, most will think it is well worth it. A bit two-toned in the roast color – the lighter spectrum roasts are very tasty with a little setup but you may find yourself flicking a couple beans that are too light, otherwise can risk some nutty/grassy tones. Medium to dark roasts are much easier roast points to hit, no flicking required and not very risky with the tastes. With higher chaff, make sure to reduce batch size a little and keep a close eye on it.
Nicaraguan Org. SHB EP Jinotega – Finca El Pastoral – Natural Processed
This is a very fruit forward cup of coffee, winy/floral/fruity/ferment are the predominate tones. A wonderful offering assuming you love fruit forward natural processed coffees.
What’s the best way to support coffee producers? This is exactly the question Juan de Dios Castillo (the family’s agronomist) and his 4 siblings were looking to answer when they created J&M Family Coffee, a privately-owned export company named after their parents Juan and Miriam (J&M). Their first goal was to sell their parents’ coffee directly to international buyers. It was a way to honor their parents who started cultivating coffee during their childhood with the income from the first family business as tailors in the town of Jinotega.
With this first goal completed, Juan de Dios Castillo decided to take the next step and start his own farm called El Pastoral, which has 150 acres of coffee production. During the harvest, the coffee cherries are carefully harvested, sorted and then depulped, fermented, washed and pre-dried at the farm. The partially dried coffee is taken to a nearby location where drying is completed and the coffee is stored and later prepared for export. This is a truly integrated model, in which J&M Family Coffee ensures quality control and traceability from farm to export.
Tasting Notes: A wonderfully complex light to medium roast coffee. Light roasts are lemony and floral upfront which fades to stronger red fruit and balances with a hint of a chocolaty darker tones. Medium roasts clean up the more rustic chocolaty tones which many will like but also reduce the sweetness and fruity factor of the cup, a little fuller bodied with low acidity with good mouthfeel, fruity factor pops out more as the cup cools. Darker roasts get a bit edgy with semi-sweet smoky and roasty notes, finishes with almost a bit of an oaky barrel aged tone.
Roasting Notes: Light to medium roasts are where this bean will shine. Good to get a little past first crack to get a slightly less earthy chocolaty contrast but tasty anywhere in the light to medium ballpark. Higher chaff and a bit uneven roasting, good prep and bean size though, shouldn’t be too challenging to roast in any machine.
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