Crown Jewel Guatemala Antigua Luis Pedro Zelaya Greenhouse Dried Bourbon

Boxes 0

Warehouses Oakland

Out of stock

Overview 

This is a traditional washed and greenhouse-dried 100% Bourbon coffee from Antigua, Guatemala, produced by Luis Pedro Zelaya at his facilites on Hacienda Carmona and Bella Vista mill. 

The flavor profile is classic and steadfast: clean apple and lemon candy acidity is matched with exceptional sweetness. 

Our roasters found the coffee easy to work with and recommend extending Maillard phase for best results. 

When brewed, the coffee showcases some subtler tropical notes and a lot of versatility. This is a menu-saver: perfect for batch, pour-over, espresso, and even cold brew. 

Taste Analysis by Chris Kornman 

The phrase “classic” gets thrown around at the Trader’s cupping table a lot. It’s an indicator from veterans that the coffee represents the best characteristics of its particular origin and processing. It’s not super descriptive, but it resonates with the insiders. 

For the uninitiated, Antiguan coffees offer balance and versatility. This 100% Bourbon selection is the best of the best in that regard. Think about Grandma’s Pecan Pie for the sweetness and viscosity, but don’t leave out some fruit notes: apples and lemon candy on the cupping table, hints of ripe melon and tropical fruit in a pour-over. 

Above all, the coffee is exceedingly clean, remarkably sweet, and destined to fit into your menu just about any which way you choose to use it. 

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell 

Luis Pedro Zelaya has earned a lot of attention around the cupping table and among learned coffee professionals. 

He has four generations of Guatemalan coffee culture pulsing through his veins and an Agribusiness degree from the renowned University of Zamorano. His stellar professional reputation for producing world-class coffees is drawn from his ability to implement precise farm management and post-harvest processing decisions. 

The perennial arrival of the Bella Carmona lots personifies the combined execution of all the fundamentals. The process starts at the Zelaya’s family farm, Hacienda Carmona, where plant nutrition, pruning, and pest management are superb, which results in a selection of exquisite coffee cherries. 

At Bella Vista, the location of wet and dry-mill, Luis Pedro and his team meticulously process fully traceable lots by harvest date, location, variety, and altitude. Coffee is depulped, fermented, and washed in a very traditional way perfected over the last 100 years. Then the coffee is gradually dried in a controlled environment designed to protect cup quality. Raised drying beds and sensor controlled airflow permit a more uniform drying process and an additional opportunity for hand sorting parchment as it dries. 

The same focus on sorting and quality control is executed through to the final export stage. Bella Vista’s dry-mill has also been specifically designed for sorting high quality micro-lots. Bella Carmona is produced in the Antigua region, which has a protected designation of origin (PDO) established because of Antigua’s renowned coffee reputation. 

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman 

No surprises here. Luis Pedro Zelaya’s reputation for precision and consistency preceeds him, and this coffee is a perfect example of a precision-processed traditionally washed coffee. 

Standard looking EP specs for size at 16+, with moderate density, moisture, and water activity all speak to ease of use for roasters. This coffee is a stalwart and longstanding addition to the Crown Jewel lineup for a reason. Store and roast with confidence!

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Chris Kornman 

Roasting coffees year after year, as we’ve done with this Greenhouse Dried Bourbon from Antigua is a pleasure. Knowing a little about the coffee’s history in the roaster gives the operator confidence in the profile and opportunities for experimentation. 

All in all this was a by-the-books pour-over style roast that hit each of its marks within predictable parameters. A moderate charge temperature led me to a small boost to 85% gas just before the Maillard reaction began. The extra heat allowed me to draw back during Maillard and extend the sugar browning a bit in order to enhance sweetness and viscosity without compromising momentum. 

The final roast stages started with a slightly earlier than expected first crack. I was able to easily anticipate the dip in heat delta, open my airflow baffle completely, and kill the burners just seconds before the environmental and bean temperatures converged with a healthy 1:30+ development time at 17% total roast percentage, and 12% loss in weight. The ground Colortrack score of 54.56 landed solidly on-spec for a moderately light roast. 

The cup was bright and clean, with lively apple and lemon candy notes underscored by mellower flavors of snickers bar, graham cracker, and milk chocolate. A steadfast coffee if there ever was one, and ready for its turn on the 2021 Crown Jewel menu. 

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. 

This particular mark comes through every year, though usually a bit earlier than this! I always enjoy the deep sweetness and gentle acidity of this coffee, and it’s one that I think of as being one of the most balanced, classic coffees out there. Most of the metrics for this coffee fall right down the center, and that makes for a fairly predictable roast. I wanted to spend the great majority of the time in this roast in Maillard, and made a few fun changes to my roast style to make that happen. 

I started off my roast with the green metrics in mind and gave this coffee a middling charge temperature of 385F, with full heat applied, and full fan from the start. Just before turning point, I turned off the fan, and reduced heat to 7.5A at 250F / 2:28. This coffee was really cooking!  

Shortly afterward at 265F / 2:43 I reintroduced fan to 3 on the dial, and to affect a sharp drop in delta/rate of rise, I cut heat to 0A at 285F / 3:10. This worked well, but the coffee still needed a bit more push to get it through first crack, of course. To make that happen, I turned heat back up to 7.5A at 315F / 3:45, effectively giving the roast a 30-second break from heat at the beginning of Maillard. Then, at 330F / 4:15 I cranked fan speed to full, and reduced heat to 5A at 360F / 5:30. This may have been a bit heavy handed, because this coffee lost nearly all momentum after first crack. Keeping heat at 7.5A may have benefited this coffee by allowing it to develop a bit more, to a slightly higher finish temperature. 

The cup was phenomenal anyway. A complete sugar bomb, this coffee was just like biting into a crisp caramel covered apple. Honey, brown sugar, sugar cane, confectioner’s sugar. Sugar sugar sugar. And what a clean cup as well. I could swear I never took a drink after this coffee left my palate. This coffee worked exceptionally well as a drip coffee, but I could certainly see it as an espresso or an old school thick and sweet French press. This is just a classic, clean, chuggable coffee! Drink it any way you can get it!

Brew Analysis by Elise Becker 

We’ve served previous crops of this delightful Crown Jewel in the Tasting Room at The Crown, and as such I was quite excited to see this one arrive! I’m quite fond of an easy-drinking, sweet coffee and this Guatemala certainly delivers on the sugar front. We brewed it up with the Kalita and the St Anthony Industries C70 for a conical vs flat bed brew comparison and the results were tasty! 

The Kalita yielded a higher extraction percentage and a pleasantly balanced, syrupy cup. We tasted plenty of dried fruit and molasses sweetness alongside a rich note of baking spice. The C70 brew was extremely clean and surprisingly tropical. We tasted ripe cantaloupe, papaya, and even a hint of stewed plum, and the coffee maintained a beautiful creamy texture while also delivering sticky, nutty sweetness like a slice of your grandma’s best pecan pie. This one is definitely a chuggable brew and would likely be an equally quaffable sugar-bomb served as espresso.