Crown Jewel Guatemala FTO Santo Domingo Orfa Constanza Washed

Boxes 0

Warehouses Oakland

Out of stock

Overview 

This is a traditional washed coffee from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, produced by Orfa Constanza on her farm El Limar. It is certified Fair Trade and Organic and is the first time Orfa Constanza’s coffee has been selected as a single-farmer microlot. 

The flavor profile is low in perceived acidity but sweet and viscous, with notes of plum, chocolate, and browned butter 

Our roasters found the coffee to readily match profiles and well-suited for many levels of roasting 

When brewed, lighter roasts may channel slightly, but the coffee works nicely as pour-over and will be in service as a dark roast batch brew at The Crown. 

Taste Analysis by Sandra Elisa Loofbourow

Sweet but delicate, this coffee has more than meets the eye. As a pourover it can yield a fool-proof cup that’s caramelly and peachy sweet. Pushed to a tighter dial, we found crisp grape and ripe plum behind the almost overwhelming blonde sugar sweetness. We served this in the Tasting Room on our pourover bar as a great first-cup-of-the-morning coffee, and we’re looking forward to having it on our menu as a dark roast batch brew, where the pervasive sweetness will likely hold up against a heavier roast profile.  

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell 

Good supply chains deliver tasty coffee. 

This is certainly the case with a collection of micro-lots that just arrived courtesy of the Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala (FECCEG), an umbrella organization that helps producers with small farms gain access to the international market. 

Orfa Constanza Cobon produced one of these lovely micro-lots on her 4-acre farm called El Limar near the village of Santo Domingo in the municipality of La Libertad. 

This is the first time Orfa has seen her coffee featured as a micro-lot. She has worked up to this goal through her membership in Cooperativa Integral de Ahorro y Crédito Café de Responsabilidad Limitada (COPECAFE), an association of 112 producers. 

COPECAFE has focused attention on training producers on the best organic practices to manage their farms. Orfa has put her training in action making her own organic fertilizer. Orfa has her own micro-mill where she depulps, ferments, washes and dries the coffee on patios to 11 percent moisture. 

At this stage, FECCEG steps in to support Orfa with transportation, warehousing and cupping analysis, and later provides the preparation for export. FECCEG has worked hard to ensure coffee traceability so that Orfa receives more income for improved quality. Increased earnings from coffee sales help Orfa strengthen her family’s livelihood. 

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman 

Fairly straightforward green specs here, including a by-the-books European Prep style screen sizing at 15+ and moisture exactly as intended by the producer. The water activity is slightly elevated, as we sometimes see with recent arrivals during the summer months, I expect this to calm down a little during stable storage and suspect it won’t be much of a problem in terms of shelf life. 

Orfa Constanza is growing some classic cultivars, including legacy Bourbon, dwarf Caturra, and Guatemala’s own short-stature plant, Pache. All three belong to the Bourbon genetic group, and dwarfism is a pretty common mutation in the cluster. Its evolutionary advantages include denser planting capacity, which can increase the yield per hectare and make manual harvesting less strenuous. 

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Chris Kornman 

Learning from some mistakes is the theme of this analysis for a lovely and very-easy-to-work-with Guatemalan coffee from a beloved supply partner in Huehuetenango. 

My first crack at the coffee this week was roasted for brew analysis, and I wanted to keep the profile light and airy. The coffee moved easily through a standard drip profile, and I pulled back a little too soon on the gas, cutting the burners at the 8-minute mark assuming that I was home free. I had to kick them back on briefly as my heat delta plunged perilously close to zero. The coffee spent a full 90 seconds in first crack but registered a very light 51 (ground) on the Colortrack. 

Saved by a mercifully dynamic coffee (see Nate’s Ikawa analysis) the cup presented as a little thin but overall expressive and cooled nicely. Keep an eye on the end of your roasts, but you shouldn’t have much of a problem getting a delicious light roast from this easy-going and well-behaved green. 

The real quest, however, was to dial in a new dark roast profile for this gem. Plans had been laid to slide this coffee into our Tasting Room rotation (fair trade and organic certified coffees usually occupy that slot for us). I confidently remembered my days of darker roasting styles on larger machines and assumed I could power through on the Diedrich (to much chagrin). Launching my initial dark roast (not pictured here) as the first roast of the next day left me with insufficient thermal energy early in the roast, and a far-too-quick development and scorchy end result. Back to the drawing board. 

Lesson learned, I charged the next batch (in red on the chart) with a stable drum, gave it an early full-power boost and was able to coast easily. The larger batch size (6lbs, our standard production roast) began to slow down a bit during Maillard reactions, which was just fine considering I planned to take this coffee to the edge of 2nd crack. Slow and steady, develop the body and brown the sugars. 

Remembering my misstep with the light roast, I kept the gas on through first crack. As my rate of rise continued to dip I checked the airflow baffle back to 50% and then 100% as my exhaust temp dropped below my bean mass, keeping momentum moving towards the end of the roast. Just a little aroma-style roasting. 

The cup was incredibly sweet as a darkish roast (63.5 ground Colortrack, edge of second crack). This coffee is versatile and would make a great set of training wheels for a new roaster. It’s also a veteran’s dream: you can really push your profiles around to test the edges and still be certain you’ll end up with something delicious. Happy Roasting. 

Quest M3s Analysis by Evan Gilman 

Unless otherwise noted, I follow a set standard of operations for all my Quest roasts. Generally, I’ll allow the machine to warm up for 15 minutes until my environmental temperature reading is at least 250F, weigh out 200g batch size, and begin roasting when I’ve reached my desired charge temperature.  Read my initial post here and my updated post here. 

A clean washed Central American coffee like this one may not be a rarity, but it is definitely a pleasure to roast and drink. In either case, encountering this coffee is a nearly effortless joy. I only say ‘nearly’ because you still have the drop the coffee when it’s finished and pick up the cup to take another sip. That’s how well this coffee has been prepared. 

I started this coffee off on the higher side of charge temperatures for the Quest M3s (on my particular thermocouple probe setup) at 388F and full fan speed. Keeping to my recent habit, I turned fan down to minimum a little before turning point. This coffee handled predictably and began a gradual descent in rate of rise when I increased fan speed to 3 at 250F / 2:50, and ramped down heat application to 7.5A at 265F / 3:10. I wanted to spend a good amount of time in Maillard for this coffee, and increased fan speed to full at 280F / 3:30, quite a bit earlier than usual. This ended up being slightly heavy-handed, but it ended up playing into my overall plan to try something different with this roast. To maintain momentum going into first crack, I reduced airflow back to 3 at 340F / 5:15, and reduced heat application to 5A at 360F / 6:00. Performing the “U” trick Candice mentioned last week (which you can see on my attached diagram), I returned to 7.5A heat application and full fan speed at first crack, then allowed the coffee to develop nicely after crack for a bit without losing too much delta/rate of rise.  

This coffee is super versatile and was a sweet, syrupy, and confection-like cup. Tamarind sweet tart sugariness, a touch of still-unsubtle cinnamon, and crisp apple acidity really came through in this cup. My favorite part, however, was a lingering aftertaste like pecan pie. This is just such a sweet coffee, I’m glad that it’s being considered for the dark roast option at The Crown – there will be plenty of sweetness to keep everyone pleased! Recommended for any brew style, really. This would even be great as an espresso in your favorite milky drink.  

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Nate Lumpkin 

This coffee from Guatemala, one of the few I’ve had the chance to taste this year, is rich and expressive no matter how we roasted it on our Ikawa. I’m very excited to be serving this here at the Crown, which I believe we will be doing shortly. 

Our standard hot and fast roast profile produced a juicy cup, with notes of watermelon, blood orange, green apple, plum, and dark chocolate, with a faint floral finish like honeysuckle. I thought this was really delicious, though its intensity decreased somewhat as it cooled. 

Our longer Maillard profile produced notes of dried peach, cranberry, raspberry, salted caramel, butterscotch, and cocoa powder, like a fudge brownie made with fruit-forward chocolate. This roast was probably my favorite overall, though I’d say it was a toss-up with the previous roast’s bright acidity. 

Our cooler low airflow profile produced a lighter-bodied coffee that was a touch simpler overall. I tasted orange, raspberry, lemon candy, honey, and dark chocolate. This was a nice cup but my preference was for the previous two, and probably the extended Maillard roast first. 

You can download the profile to your Ikawa Pro app here: 

Roast 1:Crown Standard SR 1.0          

Roast 2:Crown Maillard +30 SR 1.0          

Roast 3:Crown 7m SRLowAF2     

Brew Analysis by Nate Lumpkin 

I’m excited to be serving this coffee from Guatemala on the pour-over bar at the Crown this weekend, and as part of dialing it in for service we brewed it a few different ways. On pour-over, this coffee was heavy and chocolate forward, with some excellent stone fruit juiciness and long chocolate finish. 

On the Saint Anthony C70, this coffee brewed through at about 3:39, producing a cup with a TDS of 1.28 and flavors of grape, plum, caramel, dark chocolate, brown butter, macadamia, and a hint of violet. I liked this a lot, and we’re intending to use this recipe on bar at the Crown this weekend, though I should note that I experienced a little inconsistency in the brew using this device. I noticed a little bit of channeling a couple times, which I did not with the Fellow Stagg. Nonetheless, I liked this cup a lot. 

On the Fellow Stagg, this coffee brewed through a little faster, at 3:19, with a higher intensity of 1.37. In the cup I tasted lots of heavy fruit notes like apricot, canned peaches, plum, mango, and cherry, as well as dark chocolate, peanut butter, and brown butter. This was a thick, heavy cup, and I liked it, though I’d say my preference was for the previous brew.