Caballero Geisha, Honduras
Flavour notes: Tangerine, jasmine and honey
Producer: Marysabel Caballero & Moises Herrera
Harvest: February – March 2019
Origin: Chinacla, La Paz, Honduras
Cultivar: Geisha
Although last year’s Geisha lot from Marysabel and Moises was quite intense in flavour, the 2019 took me by surprise when it arrived Norway. I tasted through many daily pickings during my visit in Marcala in March, but did not find the coffees to be very intense. However, when the coffees arrived in Norway they showed a much more intense floral and tangerine flavour with delicate honey notes in the aftertaste. Last year Moises decided to keep every daily picking separate so that I could taste through all the lots and pick the best ones. Since the lots are quite small due to the low amount of plants Moises and Marysabel have of the Geisha cultivar, the daily pickings could be anything from 50kg to a couple of hundred kilos. What was interesting when I tasted the different lots was that we found that one picking from one particular part of the farms could taste very different and with lower intensity compared to a later picking from the same trees. That is why we decided to continue with this separation practice also in 2019 and I managed to select what I thought was the very best of their Geisha lots.
Caballero Catuaí, Honduras
Flavour notes: Milk chocolate, plums & dried fruit
Producer: Marysabel Caballero & Moises Herrera
Harvest: February – March 2019
Origin: Chinacla, La Paz, Honduras
Cultivar: Catuaí
The 2019 harvest from Moises and Marysabel is in my opinion the best one we have ever tasted from them. Especially the Catuaí coffees were really sweet, with a rich mouthfeel. It is the first time ever that I only bought coffees that scored 86,5 – 87,5 points of this cultivar from them. Although they produce a lot of this cultivar of coffee, not all lots are produced the same way. Some are dried on patios and others in mechanical driers or on raised beds under shade. Over the years I have developed a protocol in cooperation with Moises and Marysabel on how to separate, process and especially dry and store the coffees and during the last 4-5 years they have been producing a lot of Catuaí coffees especially for us to choose from. This means that all the lots we buy are dried on raised beds in shade and are hand sorted and milled with extreme care and attention. It really makes a difference in the final cup. In fact Moises was the one who let me experiment with shade dried coffee in the first place and we found that the green coffee will stay fresh for a longer time and taste much cleaner than the patio or mechanically dried coffees they produce.
Karogoto, Nyeri, Kenya
Flavour notes: Rose hips, red apples & blackberries
Producer: Several smallholders farmers
Harvest: December 2018
Origin: Nyeri, Kenya
Cultivar: SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11 & Batian
This is one of my favourite Kenyan coffees. The coffees from Karogoto are always super clean, floral and have an intense black currant flavour. This is because most of the members / farmers are still growing the SL28 variety and have received a lot of agricultural training over the years. The climatic conditions also contributes to the coffees’ intensity with very cool nights and moderately hot days that slow down the ripening process and gives a very sweet and unique coffee.
Tatmara C.P. Natural, Kaffa, Ethiopia
Flavour notes: Peach, strawberries & floral
Producer: Negussie Tadesse
Harvest: December 2018
Origin: Dakiti, Kaffa, Ethiopia
Cultivar: 74110
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I am very excited to announce our first coffee from a single producer in Ethiopia since the famous Olke Birre coffee we had a few years ago. What is different now is that this time the coffee is from a different area and also from a bigger farm and hopefully we will be able to buy coffee from Negussie in the many years to come. Ethiopia opened up for smaller farmers to sell coffee directly to Roasters last year so I immediately contacted the French import company Belco, to see if they could help me get in touch with some farmers I could possibly start working with and buy coffee from. After a week of traveling in the areas of Jimma and Kaffa there were a few farms that stood out for me and one of them was the Tatmara Coffee Plantation and farmer Negussie Tadesse. Negussie was already separating his coffees by variety but was only producing natural processed coffees due to not having infrastructure to wash coffees yet. He had a very open mind and wanted to work with quality so I decided to at least get started by buying some natural processed coffees and then see if we can support him in building a wet mill for washing coffees in the future. We agreed upon a protocol on how to produce 80 bags of high quality natural processed coffees for us (this is not so easy as it seems) and I was surprised on how good they turned out. Normally I am not the biggest fan of natural processed coffees as they are difficult to produce well and often have taints of over ripe fruit due to uncontrolled fermentation within each coffee cherry during drying and also a peanutty flavour from uneven ripeness of the cherries. Negussie made sure he only dried the coffees in really thin layers and also only with the fully ripe cherries for us and the results are really tasty. In fact I liked them so much that we might just continue focusing on buying his naturals. We will see…
For me these coffees still have hints of flavours from fermentation but they are pleasant like fresh peach, fresh ripe strawberry and floral. As the coffee cools it does not turn to an unpleasant over ripe fruity note like a lot of naturals in the market, but it keeps its vibrancy and cleanliness. It makes these coffees really great for making iced coffee as well.
We have separated and bought two different cultivars from this farm. The first one we are launching is the 74110 cultivar. Both cultivars are selections made by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center and although they have very similar qualities, there are some subtle nuances in the flavour profile.
We are now taking webshop orders for retail and wholesale.
Enjoy,
Tim & Crew