by Isabella Vitaliano
Welcome to our Specialty Green Coffee Cupping Series on Thursdays where we highlight recent arrivals. We select several coffees to cup at The Crown and provide more in-depth tasting notes, coffee background, and usage recommendations.
31870 PERU FT-FLO/USA ORGANIC ANDINOS SIERRA VERDE
From this Peruvian lot, we get a classic blend of flavors like black tea and chocolate brightened up by lemongrass and lemon. Albeit a little simple, it makes up for its slightly nuanced flavor and thick aftertaste. This could provide some sparkle as a blend component for a light to medium roast drip or espresso as it has a nice acidity. Avoid taking it to the second crack as the acidity could become imbalanced and the nuance dissolved under extra caramelization.
Producers typically manage their coffee on small plots of land, intercropped with shade trees, bananas, corn, and beans. Peru’s rich coffee culture is deeply rooted in cooperative structures, particularly for small farms. A prime illustration is Asociación de Productores Cafetaleros Andinos Sierra Verde (Sierra Verde), with dedicated coffee producers located around Santo Tomás, Cajamarca.
After farm-level processing, Sierra Verda takes on an essential role in aiding small-scale producers. They spearhead investments in critical infrastructure, encompassing road enhancements, the establishment of local warehouses, and the meticulous preparation of coffee for export. This combined effort ensures traceability and maintains quality control during post-harvest phase.
30989 PAPUA NEW GUINEA ORGANIC TIMUZA A
Robust and full of body this PNG would make for a lovely medium to dark roast. Simple notes of chocolate bolstered up by cooked cherries, cashews, and almond butter. Put in the hopper and prepare it for a good ole Italiano-style espresso or serve it as a dark roast option on drip. The weight of this coffee would also contribute nicely in moderate percentages as a blend component or even a Brazil substitute.
Timuza Coffee Cooperative represents over 200 small farmholders of the Lamano tribal group, located in the Eastern Highlands Province. The average farm is 1.4 hectares per, family with adjacent gardens for the cultivation of food crops such as sweet potato, taro, and cassava. Farmers have received training and assistance in financial management, gender equality, and standards for processing through local partners. The harvest takes place from April through September, with a selective harvest of ripe cherry, manually pulping fermentation in traditional bilum bags, washing, and full sun drying. In 2016, Timuza placed 1st in the National Cupping Competition.
30796 Honduras Siguatepeque Alpino SHG EP
This is the Central American coffee your inventory needs. Both palatable and versatile, this coffee has a wide range of usage and roast profiles. It can handle the scrutiny of a light roast and be taken do second crack with optimal results. Simple but solid, the team got notes of lemon, oolong, peanut butter, and raisin. A clean and balanced cup that customers can enjoy in any brew method of their choice.
This lot is sourced from members of a Honduran cooperative, COHORSIL that was started in 1980 by a group of vegetable farmers who decided to diversify their farms and began growing coffee. Due to the region’s ideal weather conditions and high altitudes, COHORSIL started exporting its coffee to the specialty market in 2001. The wet and dry mill has a certification in quality management systems from the International Organization for Standardizations (ISO-90001). The group also has an organic fertilizer production plant that uses coffee pulp as the base ingredient and California earthworms to promote decomposition.
30988 Papua New Guinea Organic Konkua A
Robust and full of character, this PNG can hold down a medium to dark roast profile. With an exceptionally full body and notes of dark caramel, chocolate, dried peach, and mild herbal notes this coffee would pair great with cream and sugar. Would fit in well as a baseline blend component and creating a bit more caramelization will add a complimentary sweetness to the cup.
Kainantu is one of the first main highland towns on the westbound Highlands Highway – the rugged, and only, official rout connecting the East coast of Papa New Guinea and its industrial port of Lae with the island’s central rainforests. Kainantu is still a major trading post and consolidation point for coffee from throughout the eastern highlands, and the closest urban center to the surrounding highland expanse of villages and small-holder coffee gardeners.
Between the two communities that make up this lot, there are 137 smallholders and collectively 313 hectares of planted coffee. Cherry is picked and hand pulped on sight. “A” in PNG simply denotes a blend of screen sizes, which is independent of the coffee’s quality, and is a common physical grade for smallholder coffee.
30509 Ethiopia Yirgacheffe 2 Washed FT-FLO/USA Organic Oromia
Almond butter, blueberries, chocolate, white peach lightly floral, and a touch of lemon: this Grade 2 Ethiopia meets grading expectations and then a little more. Easily servable as a single origin offering, this G2 is deeply chocolaty and can be taken as a light roast to a more medium-style profile. Add a little zhuzh to your menu by putting it on espresso, drip, or pour-over. The options are endless with this one.
Oromia regional state is Ethiopia’s largest, including more than 110,00 square miles and 25 million people. It includes Ethiopia’s massive capital city, Addis Ababa, along with 65% of Ethiopia coffee coffee-growing region territory as of 2014.
The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) is an umbrella organization established in 1999 by 34 cooperatives interested in centralizing recourses and gaining leverage in the export market. As of 2020, OCFCU supports more than 400 individual cooperatives – more than 400,000 households.
OCFCU has been Fairtrade and Organic certified since 2002 and ever since has been one of the world’s largest suppliers of Fairtrade coffee.
29257 Costa Rica RFA West Valley La Candelaria Estate
This central is a solid addition to your menu with classic flavor notes of almond, honey, and orange with a little almond flavor and a touch of lemongrass. We recommend keeping this in a medium to medium plus roast range as it might be a bit imbalanced on the farther ends of the spectrum. Add it to a blender in modest quantities to add a little bit of life to the cup profile.
La Candelaria estate is large for Costa Rica standards at 150 hectares of blended coffee production and natural forest preserve. Hans Aeberhard, the owner and manager since 1980, runs both a native wildlife protection program and a reforestation program on the estate. In addition to maintaining Rain Forest Alliance certification, the establishment seeks to make an impact as well as provide economic aid to nearby rural schools.
31678 Ethiopia Guji 3 Natural Derikocha
From graham crackers to mild raspberry and strawberry we have a range of flavors in the cup. Slight pulpy on the aroma, you expect this one might take you for a wild ride, but the cup was a little softer than one would expect. Keep these flavors in the medium range to support those fruit flavors with a bit more sweetness. The profile and green are on par with expectations for a Grade 3 Ethiopia.
Guji is a distant and heavily forested swath of land stretching southeast towards the Oromia region. It is a primary forest thanks to the Guji trade, who have for generations organized to reduce mining and logging outfits where they can, in a struggle to conserve the land’s sacred canopy. Compared to other coffee-heavy regions, large parts of Guji feel like prehistoric backwoods.
Coffee is produced by various smallholder farmers throughout the Derkidame community. Farms tend to be very small and are traditionally diversified between coffee and subsistence crops and grown with organic methods.
The highlands farming communities in this part of the country can be at turn Edenic in their natural purity and startlingly remote. Coffee farms in this part of Guji are extremely high in elevation, even for Ethiopia. One can regularly reach heights of 2600 meters, and yet the scenery remains as fertile and bustling as anywhere.
30508 Ethiopia Yirgacheffe 2 Washed FT-FLO/USA Organic Oromia
A solid Grade 2 offering this gentle and clean profile has base notes of caramel, citrus, orange creamsicle and butterscotch. With a hint of floral and sweet herbal that adds a little bit more intrigue to the cup. Repping the single origin status we recommend keeping this on the light to medium roast range to preserve the softer and more subtle flavors.
The Oromia regional state is Ethiopia’s largest, with over 35 million people. It makes up over 65% of Ethiopia’s coffee-growing territory as of 2014. There are several famous coffee regions included in full or in part in Oromia.
The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) is an umbrella organization established in 1999 by 34 individual cooperatives interested in centralizing resources and gaining leverage in the export market. As of 2020, OCFCU supports more than 400 individual cooperatives- more than 400 households, by far the largest unionized farmer organization in the country. Premiums from coffee exports are returned directly to farmers, and the union also funds organic farming programs, mill equipment purchases, and food security programs.
OCFCU has been Fairtrade and Organic certified since 2002 and ever since has been one of the world’s largest suppliers of Fairtrade coffee. The lot is a mix of fully washed indigenous heirlooms, dried on raised beds.
