I am racing against the clock to add all these new arrivals before leaving for the first-ever RwandaA Bourbon cultivar variant from Rwanda and Burundi. Bourbon coffees are named for the island in the India Ocean where French colonists grew it. Some history from the... ...more Cup of ExcellenceThe Cup of Excellence is a competition held yearly in many coffee-producing countries, designed to highlight the very best coffees from each origin.: The Cup of Excellence (COE)... ...more competition on Thursday night. I am going to split this into 3 parts: New Centrals; South America + a new DP EthiopiaEthiopia, formerly known as Abyssinia, or a coffee cultivar: Ethiopia, or more specifically the Empire under Haile Selassie, was known as Abyssinia. The name is Latin, derived from... ...more; 6 new decafs arrive at once.
- Part 1: A smattering of new cropRefers to fresh shipments of green coffee within the first month or two of the earliest arrivals ... not quite the same as Current Crop, which means the... ...more Centrals from mid-harvest. Costa RicaCosta Rican coffee is typically very clean, sweet, with lots of floral accents. hey are prized for their high notes: bright citrus or berry-like flavors in the acidity,... ...more Helsar “Typica Villalobos” is our second pure cultivarCultivar is a term used interchangeably with Varietal in the coffee trade to indicate plant material, although there are distinctions.: The naming of a cultivar should conform to... ...more lot from this fine Micro-MillSmall independent mills that produced finished coffee, ready for export, usually right on the farm. A Micromill is a tiny low-volume, farm-specific coffee producer who their lots separate,... ...more, a balanced cup with soft chocolateA general flavor or aroma term reminiscent of chocolate. But what type? Usually described with more specifics.: Chocolate is a broad, general flavor or aroma term reminiscent of... ...more tones. On the other extreme, a Central American that cups like a DP Sidamo; heavily fruitedIn some coffee taster’s lexicon, “fruity” means the coffee is tainted with fruit, and “fruited” means a coffee is graced by positive fruit notes. We don't exactly see... ...more El SalvadorEl Salvador coffee had an undeservingly poor reputation for years, marred mostly by the inability to deliver coffee of high quality in an unstable political climate. Unfortunately, agriculture... ...more Santa Rita Full Natural. (Note… I messed up; this lot arrives Thursday August 28). Then there is the famous one, #1 in Cup of Excellence for BourbonA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,... ...more last year, and for this cultivar in ’08: GuatemalaGuatemalan coffee is considered a top quality coffee producer in Central America. Due to our proximity to Guatemala, some of the nicest coffees from this origin come to... ...more El Injerto EstateA "coffee estate" is used to imply a farm that has its own processing facility, a wet-mill. In Spanish this is called an Hacienda. A Finca (farm) does... ...more PacamaraAs the name implies, Pacamara is a large bean cultivar, a cross between Pacas and Maragogype with unique flavor properties. This variant originated in El Salvador in 1958,... ...more (we will have the very spendy auction lot version later). We have a very high-grown Huehuetenango with a classic, bright cup: Guatemala Huehuetenango “Quetzal Azul”. Like the Santa Rita Full Natural, we also have the Mexico Organic Nayarit Dry-Process, as we did last year. Dry-Process = Natural. Natural = Dry-Process. In Central America it means lower acidityAcidity is a positive flavor attribute in coffee, also referred to as brightness or liveliness. It adds a brilliance to the cup, whereas low acid coffees can seem... ...more, heavy bodyAssociated with and sensed by mouthfeel, body is sense of weight and thickness of the brew, caused by the percentage of soluble solids in the cup, including all... ...more, fruit, and great intensityWe have a simple scale to rate intensity in our coffee reviews, from Mild to Bold. Low intensity does not mean low quality!: We have a simple scale... ...more.
- Part 2: BrazilBrazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, "they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil".: Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra... ...more -Colombia-Colombia-Ethiopia. It’s an odd time to be getting a Brazil, with new crop 4 months out. But this lot was too distinct, with complexThe co-presence of many aroma and flavor attributes, with multiple layers. A general impression of a coffee, similar to judgments such as "balanced" or "structured" ...more character: Brazil Pocos de Caldas -Fazenda Barreiro. The ColombiaColombian coffee is highly marketed and widely available in the US. They have been largely successful at equating the name Colombian Coffee with "Good" Coffee. This is half-true.... ...more OrganicGrown without the use of artificial fertilizers, herbicides, etc.: Organic coffee has been grown according to organic farming techniques, typically without the use of artificial fertilizers. Some farms... ...more Cauca Tierradentro (2-Star) is a really nice regional lot we found, whereas the Colombia “Perros Bravos de Huila” (3-Star) is a whole different beast, a lot we built through cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... ...more around a hundred tiny farm-distinct Huila lots. And on a different note, a super wildly-fruited Ethiopia along the lines of the dry-process Koratie: Ethiopia Organic DP -Dale Yirga Alem.
- Part 3: A mixed container of small lot decafs all arrived at once. Colombia WP Decaf -Huila Pitalito, Ethiopia Organic Natural Djimma WP Decaf, Guatemala Huehuetenango WP Decaf, Mexico Organic Oaxaca WP Decaf, Panama Boquete WP Decaf “Panamaria”, Papua New Guinea Peaberry WP Decaf . There’s a huge range in cup flavors here, from the “fruit bomb” Ethiopia Djimma to the restrainedA descriptive term I use to communicate a well-structured, classic, clean flavor profile from a wet-processed coffee. This would be in opposition to coffees with exotic character, flamboyant... ...more MexicoMexican coffee originates from South-central to Southern regions of the country. For that reason, coffees from Coatepec and Veracruz are much different from Oaxacan Plumas, which are in... ...more Organic. Check out the reviews… “Whew” -Tom
