Day one was calibration day. We started with an introduction to Cup of  Excellence from John Thompson our head judge, which was quickly followed by a solutions calibration- there were 9 solutions on the table and we had to pick which was which from:

Ordinary Acids

Ordinary acids with sweetness

Body

Rough Mouthfeel

Smooth Mouthfeel

Astringent

Complex acids with sweetness

Complex acid

Sweetness

This was fun, until I hit the bowl that was body- it was like drinking a bowl of spit. It looked like water but was thick and had ‘body’. It was all kinds of gross (I got most of them right except I got the acids mixed up).  After this we cupped two tables. The first was 3 bowls that were designed to fall within 3 main scoring categories  – high 70’s- low 80s, mid 80’s and  high 80’s -early 90‘s. This was so we could get a idea of what to expect of  a coffee within a score range. I think this was incredibly helpful to get an idea of what to expect within those ranges. The final table was a table of 6 bowls for the final calibration cupping. It was apparent that we were going to find more than one type of processing on the tables in the next couple of days, which made for interesting discussions. During our post cupping discussions one of the national cuppers told us more about honey process. In Costa Rica they have what they refer to as the honey process which is basically just a variation on pulped natural (or semi washed) but with varying degrees of mucilage left on. The percentage of mucilage is set by calibrating the pulpers to allow the correct amount of mucilage to be removed.

White = 25% mucilage

Yellow = 50% Mucilage

Red = 100% no ferment

Black = 100% and is allowed to ferment a ‘touch’

Both Red and Black is dried on African beds at about 24-28º at lower altitude

Gold = 100% no ferment, on African beds but at higher altitude at 17º so the drying time is longer.

(disclaimer- over the next couple of days I noticed a little bit of disagreement about the honey process. Some people think its rubbish, some think that it depends completely on the ripeness of the coffee and you could never set out to do a particular process without knowing the coffee first, and some love it!)

After calibration we went to Micros Plantas. They are a tissue culture lab for ornamental plants that sell mainly to the  US and Dutch market, exporting 10 million plants a year. They are working with Exclusive Coffees at reproducing rust resistant varietals using tissue culture. They do this by ‘cloning’ approved plants. They start by cutting a section of the leaf and placing in a firm media (which is the nutrition source).

Leaf in firm media

Once cells start growing they place it into a liquid media to encourage growth of the embryos. When they start growing they are placed into a firm media where the embryos  start to multiply and grow further before they sprout and are placed in the nursery.

Cells in liquid media

The whole process takes 1 year and after this it can be planted straight into the  farm as its root structure is much stronger than standard plants. The success rate of these is 95% as opposed to seeds which have a 20% fail rate. The pros to this process is consistency, low price, resistance and success rate. Plants cultivated in this way can reproduce in the traditional way, but it is recommended that they don’t as you don’t know where the pollen is coming from and thus you can weaken the genetics. Micro Plantas hope that in 3-4 years they will build a program called ‘relationship coffee’ which will be micro lots with specific cultivars for specific buyers that will remain consistent across years. Micro Plantas also certify plants so if they die they will be replaced free of charge assuming that specific procedures have been followed once planted on the farm. They are also continuing to research rust resistance so that more work can be done for future cultivars. I think that this idea certainly has some pros and cons but is very interesting and it will be interesting to see where it goes.

Next we took a quick trip to the Exclusive Coffees dry mill. Exclusive Coffees started with dry processing for 15 micro mills and now have around 80. Their dedicated team of cuppers cup up to 4500 Costa Rican samples a year- if anyone knows Costa Rican coffees it has got to be these guys. Wayner, one of the cuppers (who is also on the CoE jury), has done a really interesting study with 5105 samples about altitude vs varietal. I think with a couple years more data this will be fascinating and I hope he can publish it som where for us all to read when he has reached a conclusion.

Ladies hand sorting at Exclusive

Milled coffee being weighed into bags ready for dispatch.

Samples library

Cupping table 

Day Two

Day two was the first day of competition. There were only 31 coffees passed by the national jury so it was an easy couple of days- round one was spread over 4 tables and 2 days. The first day threw up some surprises, especially as far as processing goes. I’ve come to expect only washed coffees to be on the tables but there were certainly a couple of honey processes in there. As a jury we seemed to be MOSTLY in agreement, but of course there were a couple of outliers as you’d expect. The taste descriptors (my favorite part) were fairly subdued for this competition, but I love hearing what people from all over the world come up with for these!

In the  afternoon we went to the Sonora Estate, which is where our Finca Cacao came from. We used in last years Red Brick and it was also used by Jordi in the Spanish Barista Championship last year in Vienna. The farm is 100 years old although the family have not owned it for this long. They produce approx 700 bags a year and during peak season have 70-80 pickers who live in the houses provided. Decades ago some of the coffee trees were pulled down and sugarcane grown instead – hence they also have an old sugar mill on site. They found some bourbon trees that managed to escape being ripped out and they cultivated some more plants from these. They still have these original 100 year old bourbons growing on the estate (although they’re not producing coffee). You can read more about the Sonora Estate in Anettes blog.

Nursery at Sonora Estate

Diego Guardia showing us a baby Geisha.

Coffee waiting to be milled at Sonora Estate

Drying patios at Sonora Estate- coffee is pumped to the patios by the blue pipe at the far end.

Old unused sugar mill at Sonora Estate 

On day 3 after cupping we went to Cafe de Altura, which is a mill situated in San Ramon. Cafe Altura is HUGE, they predominately do more commodity quality coffee but in the last couple of years have started trying to improve their systems so they are able to do more micro lots. They produce 60,000 bags a year and work with 800 producers, and are one of the largest mills in the country. Although the mill has been there for 100 years, a couple of years ago it went bankrupt. This was when Don Luis rallied some producers together and they went to the bank, got a mortgage and bought the mill so they would have somewhere to keep processing their coffee. There are 534 shareholders of the mill and they managed to pay off the whole mortgage in 8 crops. The terms of being a shareholder is that you have to deliver 1800 fanegas per season (a fanega is approx. 55 liters of cherry).

During peak season, Cafe de Altura can produce 3000 bags a day, coming from any of their 38 receiving stations that are spread out around the area. 35% of their production comes from the Tarrazu region. Cafe de Altura is also where the Cup of Excellence coffees have been stored during competition, and after competition they will be dry milled (if needed) and packed, ready to go out to the highest bidders at auction.

Francisco explaining how the cherry gets delivered.

one of a couple of huge depulpers.

Depulper for Microlots.

Destoner.

Mechanical driers

Density sorters

Bagging machine.

Coffee dried and in parchment ready to be milled.

Cup of Excellence coffees under lock and key waiting to be milled (if needed) and then they will be vacuum packed and sent out to the winning bidders in the auction.

Cup of Excellence coffee with security tags to ensure the coffee is the correct one.

Top ten coffees being cupped.

Without these people the competition would not run!

WINNER!

The auction will happen on the 19th of June, I can’t wait to see where the coffees go!

- Jessica MacDonald

It was great to see old and new friends, producers we’ve worked with in the past as well as produvers we will be working with this year for the first time.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Friday – UK Brewers Cup

This is a relatively new competition and one of our favourites.  John, Marty and Sang Ho all competed and all did a great job.  Marty and John placed placed 6th and 4th respectively and we were delighted when they announced Sang Ho as the winner.  Sang Ho competed using our Cup of Excellence coffee from Rwanda – the Vunga.  Not only a talented roaster here at Square Mile, but also a very talented man when it comes to making coffee.  He went on to prove this by placing 2nd in the UK Latte Art championship later the same day.  Amazing!

Sang Ho will compete in Melbourne in the World Brewers Cup in May.  We’re excited!

A stunned Sang Ho announced as winner (Photo courtesy of Kate Beard)

Saturday – UK Aeropress Championship

This is a semi-official competition, run at the Coffee Hit booth during the show.  Gary, who works in our production department, did a great job.  Despite only having made his first aeropress a few weeks ago (and only working in coffee a few months now) – Gary placed third!  Congratulations go to Isa Verschraegen of Talkhouse Coffee on winning, and to Christian Baker from Association for placing second.  It turns out all of the top three had chosen the same coffee to brew – our La Buitrera.  Thank you!

Gary with his trophy, alongside a happy Jess

Sunday – UK Barista Championship

John Gordon was once again competing, having won the title in 2010 and 2011.  The finals this year were of an astonishingly high standard, and we were all absolutely delighted when they announced John as the winner!  John will travel to Melbourne to represent the UK again in May, and we think he’ll do (as he always does) amazing things.  John, Jess and Sang Ho all worked incredibly hard on the routine and turning John’s vision for competition into a reality. What he presented was fresh, interesting, engaging and of course very, very tasty!

John competed with a component coffee from Red Brick – La Serrania – which is a peachy delight of a coffee!

The one constant behind all three events, and these successes, is Jess.  She roasted all the coffees for everyone, and does an amazing job week in and week out at the roaster.  She’ll be travelling with John and Sang Ho to Melbourne too, and all at Square Mile are incredibly proud of these combined achievements.  This weekend was a great effort, full of camaraderie and support.  Plus (in between the nerve wracking bits) it was tonnes of fun!

Three time UKBC Champion John Gordon! (Photo courtesy of Kate Beard)

UK Competition Coffee Pack

We decided it would be fun to release a little boxset of the three coffees: the Vunga, La Buitrera and a limited run of John’s competition La Serrania roast.  They come with a little information about each coffee and the competitions, and we’ve made them a little more accessible at £30 for all three.  We hope you enjoy! It will be available for about a week from today so be quick!

UK Competition Coffees – £30 (3 x 350g)

New year, new Sertão!

This lot of Sertão is brought to us by the Pereira family who are no strangers to producing stellar coffee, having taken 3 top spots in the 2005 cup of excellence. This is the largest estate they run and has over 519 acres designated just for coffee production. We think this has a much more ‘classic Brazil’ taste than the Tijuco but is equally tasty in its own way.

From this new Sertão you can expect an intense brown sugar sweetness, followed by a lovely malt with toasted hazelnuts and a hint of vanilla in the finish. Get yours in the webshop here.

The first farm to visit was to Finca Las Flores, one of the coffees I’d just cupped, enjoyed and noted down chocolate raisins for. Owners Jorge and Maria Lanza arrived with a sandwiches and soft drinks before we bundled in the car and headed to the farm, situated about a 30 minute drive up the side of the El Cielito mountain outside of Peña Blanca. As we climbed there was not only rain. We drove straight into a thick fog, making visibility a bit less than desired for narrow mountain tracks. Rain and fog at this time of year is unusual, and I can imagine it causes a lot of problems for people trying to dry their parchment carefully. I was wondering how to keep myself dry too, but thankfully I was able to borrow one of the raincoats that the family provides for all the pickers to wear when needed. Maria explained that most of the producers here don’t live on the farms, but may have a farm manager on site to look after the picking and milling. The farm manager onsite at Las Flores is Gerardo, and he lives there with his wife and two small boys. The family has been growing coffee for 23 years, but Las Flores has only been in their care for 3. They bought it to have a farm to experiment with varietals, and although there were a few coffee trees there before, most of the plants I saw were 3 years old or younger.

Jorge and Gerardo

Lempira

Gerardo walked us through the raised drying beds that they just built inside 10×3 meter long greenhouses. Not just for producing cleaner coffee, the raised beds are also intended for helping them dry slower, fast drying times being one of the problems we often see in Honduras. Hopefully the investment of $750 per greenhouse will be worth it. From the look of the parchment I saw they are off to a good start, but time and space will always be weighed up against cost. While walking around the fields and looking at coffee trees, we were served some home grown and brewed coffee with sweet bread, slowly  warming us up a bit from the cold weather. I’m not sure what we were drinking, the trees with cherry were mostly Caturra and Catuai but they also have a few Lempira trees with their characteristic looking leaves. About 2 manzanas of Pacamara had just been planted too. This year was their first harvest and picking was still happening,  but the crew had the day off due to the bad weather. I could see how the rain had caused problems for the quality too, many of the cherries had swollen up causing the skin to burst.

Drying beds

Foggy coffee fields

I also had the chance to go to Marcala spending a day at the Marcala coffee festival, bumping into more international coffee buyers and cuppers during their “Best of Marcala’ competition. But the main purpose of this trip was to visit farms and mills that we might want to work with, and  just outside of town is Beneficio El Espino, where a group of 4 families share equipment and drying space for their coffees. This year, they’ve invested a lot in the building of new polytunnels for drying, on top of getting hit fairly hard by roja. But the coffees they produced were good, several of my favourite lots at the cuppings came from here. The mill is at 1300 masl while their farms are up between 1500-1700 masl. Especially one lot (the one in the yellow bags in this picture) came up as a favourite for me, so I hope to be getting that in in May!

Francisco Antonio Castillo, Mario and Carlos Mejia

Nursery

El Espino mill

Next to visit was the COMSA cooperative, short for Cafe Organico Marcala S.A. de CV, Some of you will remember this coffee from one of our previous Red Brick recipes. They were founded in 2001 by a few growers who wanted to add value to their crops, and has since grown to mill for over 300 members. Wanting to continuously to improve they just built massive secadoras solares to a cost of of $3500 per unit, one unit holding around 460 parchment. They also had the first demucilager I’d seen on the trip.

Comsa mill

Comsa Patio

Demucilager

Giant drying beds, secadoras solares

Giant warehouse

Raking in the secadoras solares at COMSA

The very last farm visit on my Central American roundtrip was Joel Oliva’s farm El Chiflador, named after a nearby waterfall. They grow Icatu, Sarchimor, Lempira , Catuai and Bourbon, and is an organic farm. They prepare all their own compost on the farm, using pulp, parchment, manure and ash, and parts of the farm look well kept and healthy. But here too they’ve had a complicated year due to the rust, and walking around the farm you can really see the adverse effect this disease has had on may farms. From one plot to the next the trees will be full of leaves and ripe cherry, then naked and barren where roja swept through. Some varietals have stood up better than the others, and Joel is planning to replant more of the resistant varietals.

Joel Oliva

Rust / No Rust

Rusty leaf

Compost heap

I was picked up by Erwin Mierisch, a friend and producer we’ve worked with before but not yet had a chance to visit. He and his family own several farms and run the mill Don Esteban, milling for themselves as well as a few other growers in the area. The mill is about 13 km outside of Matagalpa, the farms are in Matagalpa and Jinotega, and recently they also bought a couple of farms in Honduras. Questioned on the drying practices, I was relieved and interested to hear that they are working on building 3-tiered drying beds, as well as doing more experiments on how to combat the typically huge humidity changes in the area. Generally the goal is to dry slower and in stages, to stress the coffee less and preventing it from aging quickly in storage.

Don Esteban dry mill

Bags piled high at Don Esteban

Eleane Mierisch, mill manager

Erwin and crew setting up a cupping

Across my visit I spent a lot of time cupping day lots from the various farms on offer, trying to identify the lots we want to buy this year. I was pleased to find several tasty coffees that will fit with our profile, so I hope to have a container ready to ship by the end of the month.

I also wanted a chance to visit some of the farms we’ve had on offer before, and hope to have on offer again, such as Escondida, San Jose and Mama Mina. On site at Finca Escondida in Lipululo, Jinotega, sits the Escondida wetmill that pulps both for that farm and next door San Jose, as well as 3 other neighbouring farms. Escondida used to be a cattle farm, but now has various plots with varietals such as  Ethiosar (also referred to as Ricardo), Java and Red Caturra, Bourbon and Caturra Estrella. The farm spans altitudes of only 975-1230 masl, but is very well shaded and well managed by Boanerje Martinez Montenegro.

Pulper at Escondida mill

Tablon Cielo

At Escondida they also have a varietal garden, with trees such as Don Will (a Guatemalan variety that their grandpa brought with him when he moved to Nicaragua), Geisha, Laurina, Hibrido de Timor, Caturra Estrella, Red and Yellow Pacamara, Biachar Agobio, Ethiopia Maracuya, Africano and Bourbon Africano and Java.

Don Will variety

Ethiosar (Ricardo) variety

Further up the road from Escondida you find Finca San Jose, running from 1250 to 1400 masl. Here you’ll mostly find Caturra, Caruai and a bit of Java. There were also a few Yellow Pacamara trees, which from the taste of the cherry wasn’t as sweet as for example the Caturra, but will be interesting to cup nonetheless. We ran into a picking crew sorting the less ripes of the day’s picking, loading finished bags onto a tractor ready to take it down to the wetmill. From this farm you have a great panoramic view of Lake Apanác, a reservoir created by the dam on the Río Tuma to the north of Jinotega.

Lake view

Sorting the daily harvest

In Laguna Verde, Jinotega, you’ll find neighbouring farms Los Altos and Mama Mina (also called La Minita). Los Altos came under the Mierisch’s ownership only 4 years ago, taken over from a cousin who wanted to move into politics rather than coffee growing. The area has a lot of cloud cover so there is very little need for shade trees, and the altitude of 1274 to 1400 masl keeps the temperature nice and cool for the Catuai, Caturra, Maragogype, Pacamara and Mundo Nuovo trees. At Los Altos they also built dorms for the pickers, since the location is a bit more remote than most the other farms.

Los Altos

Los Altos

Agnes. Always time for a cuddle.

Further along the road from Los Altos you’ll find Mama Mina, which was named after grandma Mina McEwan. This is where the wetmill for that farm and Los Altos currently sit, but they will soon be moving it to Los Altos and improving the equipment as they do. If you fancy getting an impression on what it’s like to travel around in the back of the truck between these farms, I shot a bumpy video of the drive from the nursery at Los Altos, through the fields past the dorms, ending at the start of Mama Mina. (And believe me, this is one of the best roads I’ve been on!)

Grandma Mina McEwan

Mama Mina

Mama Mina approach

Mama Mina mill

I also went to Ocotal to visit the Las Segovias mill, which processes a lot of the Nicaraguan Cup of Excellence winning farms from the Nueva Segovia region. It is headed up by Luis Alberto Balladarez, who also has his own farms’ coffee processed here. When we cupped some of the coffees on offer, his farms were consistent stand outs, so I hope to get some of those lots in this year.

Cupping with Luis Alberto

Las Segovias

With Claudia Lovo the sales and marketing manager we drove to Mozonte to see Luis’ farms Un Regalo de Dios and La Esperanza and the wetmill where they are pulped. As we walked around the fields with farm manager Filadelfo Lopez, picking was still going on and I was interested to learn that these guys sometimes purposefully pick to various levels of ripeness according to the preferences of their customers, depending on whether they want more acidity, body or sweetness. What I could see left on the trees was a lot of burgundy, full of both sweetness and body. Starting picking at 6am, there are two collections/deliveries to the mill at 11am and 4pm. Using loud whistles as the signal to gather, pickers started appearing with their sacks for the 11am collection, and I got some footage of how they track yield and calculate wages. They are paid by buckets called latas and normally fill about 7-8 latas of 28kg a day. While the government standard is 33 cordobas per basket, here they will earn 33 cordobas against picking only ripe.

Filadelfo

Measuring cherries

The wetmill was built 4 years ago and is one of the cleanest mills I’ve seen in a while. Someone was nearly permanently hosing down the tile and scrubbing everything clean, and even if the cherry is transported in bags, the back of the collecting truck was thoroughly cleaned between each delivery too. The cherries we’d seen being collected was to be processed as honey and once thoroughly cleaned they fired up the Penagos pulper.

Un Regalo de Dios mill

Draining in cajillas

Claudia and cajillas full of parchment

Most of the 200 pickers hired during harvest are male. While I’m not sure if this is a Regalo thing or if this is a typical Nicaraguan deal, that is the first time I’ve come across a gender based hiring of pickers in Central America. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that they all get accommodation together in a big house. Of the 40 regular staff you’ll find more women, among others these ladies who come in at 2 am every morning to start preparation of the 600 fresh tortillas they serve along beans and corn just for the pickers’ lunches! (and they get breakfast and dinner too!)

I also got to visit Santa Gema, another Mozonte farm belonging to a young producer called Mario Jose Vilchez Urbina. His nursery and mill is at Santa Gema, so we started there with having a lovely lunch and a chat about his farms. He already has three years of placing in the COE behind him, and also runs fincas Santissima and Escondida. He’s had Santissima since 1995, acquired Santa Gema in 1999 and took over Escondida in 2007. We had a chance to cup his coffees together at Las Segovias later on, and this is definitely the sort of producer we’d love to work with, quality focused and looking to continuously improve.

Mario Vilchez

Santa Gema mill

Santa Gema (spot the flowers, he also produces Calla lilies!)

Cupping with Mario

The micro mill revolution in Costa Rica is something that you will hear discussed. It is one of the ways producers here can wetmill and also dry mill themselves, adding value to their coffee in a challenging commodity market. The old model, where the farmers delivered cherry to the larger coops and mills, meant that they were completely dependent on the commodity market for prices. When the market is good they will get $200-240 per fanega, but now when the market has been very low, they have been getting half or less, and certainly less than their cost of production which is about $120-130. The only way they can help themselves is by skimping on things like fertilizers and pesticides, replanting of trees, or labour costs in picking only ripe. The Costa Rican tree stock has been technically, not naturally, developed, and needs a lot of input to yield well. So then you end up with old and badly kept plantations, that can’t produce as much, so the growers have even less income. Lower altitudes like lower Brunca and Guanacaste have been all but wiped out by the rust, and parts of the West Valley, Central Valley and Tarrazu have also been hit.

The ones that have made the move into micromilling their own coffee have found a waiting market in the specialty sector, received good prices and been able to pay for the fertilisers and sprays needed to continue to produce and select the best qualities. Producers are also moving higher up the mountains to escape the warming climate. From the 1st micro mill 12 years ago, today there are 150. They’ll probably reach 200 in the next 3-5 years, and the demand for boutique lots should continue to grow as specialty roasters also flourish.

Coopedota in Dota Valley

The first stop was one of the larger mills in the famous Tarrazu region, Coopedota. They process for about 800 farmers in the area, who each have an average of 2 hectares each.  3-4 families might group together to help eachother get everything picked in time. The growers that deliver here are generally finishing up the last picking now, having mostly escaped too many rust problems this year. The mill was quiet on arrival but later in the afternoon, producers started coming in with their cherry deliveries, either in bags or simply filled in a big box on the back of a truck.  At the peak of the season, 3-400 growers deliver each day. By law, Costa Rica pays for cherry by volume and not weight. If the delivery is a larger one, they measure in fanegas, big metal boxes with a sliding lid. One fanega holds about 250lb cherry. If the delivery is smaller, they might measure in cajuelas instead. 20 cajuelas make up 1 fanega. and 1 fanega cherry results in 1 quintale green coffee.

Coopedota is headed by Roberto Mata, and currently does about 50.000 bags of green per year. 10 years ago they started doing microlots, creating 52 sectors in the Dota Valley to differentiate between. Currently they’re successfully processing 30-40 microlots per year. The mill is carbon neutral and complies with the strict environmental policies in the country. They even shut down the plant between 5pm and 8pm every night, so that the local community can have enough electricity to get their dinners cooked without the electrical suppliers needing to generate more power from anything other than the hydroelectrics they normally use. Thankfully, we were there at a time where there was at least enough power to run grinders and kettles, and Roberto and roaster Carolina laid on 2 big tables to cup in the lab.

Cherry delivery

This guy!

It’s funny when you’re a green buyer and travel a lot, you always run into your fellow coffee buyers wherever you go. Costa Rica was no exception, and at the Exclusive offices there were cuppers from Europe, the US and Japan. The company is 5 years old just like us, and is run by Francisco Mena and his partner Juan Ramon. Cupping at this place is great but brutal, while you’re on your first 12 cup table they are already grinding and pouring water on the next 12 cup one, so you just don’t get a break and your tastebuds get fatigued very quickly. But, you get to see a lot of samples which is always good!

One of the greatest part of traveling in Costa Rica is that everything is so close, and you can cover a lot of ground in one day. I had a list of mills I already wanted to see, and found a few on the cupping table that I wanted to check out too. I was able to cup some coffee from Finca Genesis with the owners daughter Maria, and we arranged to see her later that day.

But first priority was always going to be Herbazu (HERmanos BArrante ZUnega), which is a mill whose coffee has been very close to us from the beginning in 2007. The brothers and extended family that make up this mill also run Sin Limites and La Perla, and they’re in the middle of building a 4th mill called Perla de Cafe. They finished picking and processing the week before, so Oscar and his wife Diana who took us on a tour of the quiet facilities, the fields and the warehouses. Juan Ramon credits the Herbazu team for launching the micromill revolution in Costa Rica, and being an inspiration for many of the others who followed. Changing the way many people in Costa Rica think of coffee, they’ve given coffee producers a new way of competing in an increasingly tough market. What is great to see is that many more from the younger generations are still seeing the value in coffee production, and are staying with it rather than leaving to forge other careers in the city.

Herbazu

Assaulted by puppies

African drying beds

Nursery

Oscar and some little trees that I’m very excited about…!

Bodega

After Herbazu we went to see Maria at Finca Genesis, where she lives with her parents Oscar and Olga, children Santiago and Sunalini (yep, named after Sunalini Menon) and about 10 dogs in all different sizes. The farm is small and beautiful, full of trees and flowers, and lovingly kept milling equipment. They use a Penagos pulper that saves water, and dry on patio and raised beds/trays that they can move around. They have a separate set of clean shoes that they wear when working on the patio, and the dogs were impressively trained to never go onto it! I’m really excited to hopefully bring in some of this coffee, normally it all goes to a roaster friend in the US, so I’ll have to ask him nicely if he’ll share!

Clean patio, clean parchment

Maria del Pilar Mendez, Finca Genesis

Oscar, Olga, Santiago and Sunalini

Cupping her lots with Maria

Next to visit were Ricardo Perez ,who owns Finca Santa Lucia which we had a couple of Christmases ago, and Marvin Rodrigues, owner of Los Anonos, at their mill Helsar de Zarcero.
They started up in 2004 and now receive cherry from about 40 farms. With the unstable weather due to climate change, they started the season 22 days earlier this year than normal, so are nearly done with the milling. Over a cup of coffee (truly the best coffee I’ve ever had at a mill/farm btw) and some snacks we chatted about the various processes they do. They’re in a fairly humid microclimate, so find it hard to do honey process well, but in return they have patios, raised beds and driers to allow them to do washed coffee really well.

Helsar de Zarcero

Mill

Covered patios

Ricardo, Juan Ramon and Marvin

Another mill that was on the list was El Puente, on the side of the Santa Cruz mountain, in Santa Cruz de Leon Cortez. The 4 families of Mendez, Mendez, Naranjo and Rivera share ownership of this mill, and they get deliveries from 10 farms in total, among them La Pena and Santa Cruz. We were met by Rodolfo, Ephrahim and his wife Maria and Alexis, who put on a great spread of fruit and chicharrones  before we took a walk through the buildings. They  dry on covered raised beds, and plan to start dry milling on site as well.

El Puente from afar

Honey

Rodolfo, Ephrahim and Alexis

Honey, Natural, Washed

Next was Bella Vista and La Loma, which some of you will remember from a couple of years ago. La Loma is in Llano Bonito de León Cortés, at 1950 meter above sea level and its coffee variety is 100% Caturra. The farm belongs to a coffee growing family by tradition and is currently run by Hector Bonilla Solis and his family. For shadow they use poro and guineo trees and they plant avocado as an alternate product. All the farm care is manual and there is no use of insecticides or pesticides, in order to protect the environment and the workers health.
Harvested cherry is picked and milled on the same day. The coffee is processed at the Don Mayo mill which is owned by the Bonilla Solis family, with Luis Pablo being the Manager of Production at the mill.

Foggy La Loma

Hector and Jose

Tiny Geisha plants

Bella Vista

Cherry?

Scary drive

Gorgeous Costa Rica

Talking through how we presented their La Loma

I had a chance to sit down with Hector, his son and grandson after dinner, and was able to show them a bit about what we do and how we presented their coffee La Loma when we had it in house last.

The micromill of La Lia in San Lorenzo de Tarrazu is named after Doña Lia, Luis Alberto and Oscar Monge’s mother. They built it in 2007 to get a bit more stability in the price they were receiving.They knew their farms produced quality but wanted a closer control over the rest of the chain. Luis worked in the landscaping business inthe US for a bit, but returned to Costa Rica and bought a farm and built a house with his savings. The mill is set on the farm called San Lorenzo, and they also have El Dragon, San Isidro, La Trinidad, Sta Rosa 1900 and 1700, Sta Marta and Sta Rosa Tarrazu. At the cherry reception they have two fanegas set up so they can split between qualites from the start, as some farms might be coming to the end of harvest while others are only starting. Their Penagos pulper can get through 500lb of cherry per hour, and had it’s last day of this season’s operation yesterday. They also have an impressive nursery with varietals like Villa Sarchi, Caturra, SL28, Geisha, Red and Yellow Pacamara, Red, Yellow and Pink Bourbon.

La Lia patios

La Lia

Luis raking

Nursery

Oscar and Luis

Oscar

Stacked

Next up was the town of Santa Maria de Dota and the mill Monte Copey at 1800 masl. A 4 year old mill, Enrique Navarro and family run this processing facility to deal with the cherry from Fincas La Bandera Calle Copey, Halcon, Cascada and Encino. They do washed, natural, honey and also some Kenya style washing.

Monte Copey

Covered beds

Kenya style washed parchment

I also got to visit the Los Angeles mill, where I possibly spent most of my time rolling around with Jack rather than taking notes… But Ricardo Calderon and his family were very welcoming and hospitable! They mill for Fincas Estrella, Granadilla, Girasoles, Flores, La Casa, Bisunga, Cedral, Las Nuber, El Colegio, San Carlos, Ortiz and Pastora.

Jack

Los Angeles micro mill

Literally across the road from Los Angeles was the second to last mill of the Costa Rica tour, and owned by Ricardo Calderons brother Omar. Built only last year, Granitos de Altura del Ortiz is also run by the extended family, mainly the 4 daughters. They milled for Ortiz 2000, Ortiz 1900, Neri and Granadilla this year. After a quick walk around, it had gotten quite dark so were invited back to Ricardo’s house for some homegrown granadillas and other snacks, and a chance to try Doña Lourdes’ home made sugar cane/condensed milk/coffee liqueur, very tasty!

Granitos de Altura de Ortiz

Ricardo and Omar

Johanna, mill manager

Last on my Costa Rica trip I went to see the Sonora Estate, who produced the Finca Cacao you might remember from last year. Owners Alberto Guardia, wife Anna, son Diego and pack of dogs in all sizes and shapes were lovely and welcoming, put on a great lunch and gave us a tour of the estate. They make mostly honey process here but can still do washed as well, and both wet and dry mill on site. Sonora used to be a sugar mill, and the old equipment is still there and in use annually. We’ll try to get some of their panela in next time they harvest the sugar cane! The estate is well irrigated as they have their own water source coming in straight off the mountain, and a hydroelectric generator produces most of the electricity needed on site. The nursery was full of healthy looking trees ready to plant out next year, 45 of the 90 hectares is already coffee but there is always need for regeneration and expansion. With Chica the dachshund underfoot, we did a quick in house cupping of some of this years lots, and we’re just awaiting more samples now to see what we might be able to bring in this summer!

Alberto Guardia

Chica!

Diego

Bodega

Nursery

Finca Filadelfia

Parchment arriving via waterchannels from the mill

Patios

We spent some time walking the farm, seeing the stark differences between some of the plots that were sprayed for roja and those that were not. On one side of a given road you had beautiful, strong and healthy plants full of foliage, while on the other side of the road there would be nothing but bare branches, a ghostly spread of trees that had no chance against the devastating disease. Some experiments with ‘injerto’; grafting arabica stems onto robusta roots, were taking place in the nursery, just like I saw in El Salvador. Picking was nearly over but some areas were still carrying cherry. There are 65 permantent workers at Filadelfia, but during harvest they bring in about 200 people to help.

Margarita picking

Marta giving the tour

Sorting unripes

Promising flowering for next year

I like having the chance to roast my own samples when I’m traveling, so I can taste the coffees at a roast level that best allows me to find what I’m looking for. The lab at Filadelfia is big and well equipped, so I spent some time on the sampleroaster trying to work out how to dial in the greens we were looking at. It can be tricky working with very fresh samples, but I was happy with what I could get out of them and just a few days ago we finalized the short list of which coffees we’ll bring in this year.

While in Antigua I also took the opportunity to revisit the Bella Vista Mill, meeting up with Luis Pedro Zelaya who gave a quick tour of some of the new facilities they’d built since my last visit, and put on a full table of samples to cup. Like I was to see in many places across my trip, they have built new three tier moveable african drying beds inside a greenhouse structure, near tripling the amount of space they would have compared to patio. The coffee stays clean and protected from the elements, the drying is gentle, and as the parchment dries it’s moved up the tiers. While this good size mill has 14 fermentation tanks, they are also making some experiments for new ways of utilizing tanks for small lot separation. They wetmill for about 30-40 farms, and drymill for even more.

Luis Pedro

Cherry delivery in the dark at Bella Vista

While we were the cupping the sun went down, but the receiving station was still in operation. A truck with bags of cherry pulled up, and as the guys unloaded the sacks, handfulls of coffee were sampled from each bag and given to a girl sat on the side for inspection. Based on how many underripe, ripe and overripe cherries she sorted from the sample, she recorded the numbers and calculated how much the mill would pay. If she counts more than 80% ripe, they pay 5 GTQ more than the street value, and for 95% ripe and up they pay up to 30 GTQ more. There is also a premium paid if the coffee is all Bourbon. This way they encourage not just the highest quality but also the separation of small lots, to meet the increasing demand from specialty roasters like us.

I was also able to go back the the Serben mill and cup with the exporters at Servex, the same crew who processes all of the Cup Of Excellence lots in Guatemala. Genaro and his team are in the middle of planning and constructing new warehouses and and a new roastery for their own local roasted coffee brand, which will house their two beautiful vintage Proabat roasters. In the cupping lab it was great to catch up with Arturo Aguirre Jr. from Injerto and Renardo Ovalle from La Bolsa, who had their coffees on the table to check on the quality of their crops. I was happy to find some firm favourites, and will soon be cupping some more to decide on lots for purchase.

The last cupping before we headed to Huehuetenango was at Anacafe’s offices in Guatemala City. It was nice to see a couple of familiar faces in the lab, and here too I cupped some great samples. Encouraged by the prospect of visiting some of these farms in Huehue, the 5am start and 7 hour drive to get there would be a bit less insufferable. Still, the roadworks and speedbumps every hundred meters quickly get very, very annoying. Since La Bolsa, the first farm we were headed to, is actually only about 15 kilometer from the border, I think I’ll fly into Mexico next time and drive across! You can actually see the very straight lined tree-less band that is the border as you drive to the farm, it cuts across the mountains at almost comical angles. No following the natural shapes of the landscape here.

La Bolsa belongs to Renardo Ovalle who I have known for years, but this was my first visit to the farm. Unfortunately he had to stay in Guatemala City so couldn’t be there, but we had a chance to chat over dinner the night before the drive. The first thing I heard when I got there was laughter coming from the school, and the sound of flutes from the coffee fields. While they work, the pickers leave their kids in the care of the school staff, and currently they’re looking after about 30 children. They’re taught both theory and practical skills, implementing their knowledge by learning about things like baking and food safety, basketweaving and piñata making.

Some of the children are still too young for the school!

The flute sounds from the coffee fields is how the pickers communicate with each other, telling each other which rows to pick and where to go next. The farm forms a sort of horseshoe at the end of a valley, and gets limited hours of sunshine leading to a fairly slow maturation of the cherry and slow drying. They have their own spring coming out of the steep mountain side, and have built an extensive aqueduct system to ferry this water around the land. The channels act as density sorting points as well, carrying cherry and parchment to their respective mills and patios. The higher grown, prime cherry normally spends 36 hours in the fermentation tanks, 12 hours in post soak, and up to 25 days on the patios. They also use mechanical driers for some of the coffee that grows down at 12-1400 masl.

La Bolsa

Tablon Injertal

Water source and dam

Mercedes, the 24 year old agriculture student that guided us around, took us on a hike of some the 11 plots that make up La Bolsa: Isla, Zacatonal, Huerta, Injertal, Ventana Grande, Ventana Chica, Encuentros, Cabro, Jocotillo, Frijola I and Frijola II. The terrain is very steep, and as we climbed we could see how the lower grown trees were less affected by roja then the higher ones, aligning with the impression from El Salvador that the disease is getting more hardy.

Patio at La Bolsa

Back down on the mill site, the pickers were bringing in the day’s harvest, and we got to see how they track the logistics of everything that comes in. The pickers here are paid by volume, measured in cajas. 1 caja is 45 quintales or about 100lb cherry, and they normally pick 2.5-3 cajas per day. For this they earn around 16-17 USD daily. After they are emptied, the bags are washed in clean water, hung up to dry and ready to be filled again the next day.

Measuring cajas

The last farm I had time to visit was one of the farms from the cupping at Anacafe, called San Antonio Chaguite. Way off the main road, the 27 km long bumpy dirt road to the Finca took two hours to complete.  Back when Williams grandfather owned the farm, the trip to get cherry down to the nearest mill would take 20-25 days to complete, by mule. It sounds gruelling, but one good thing that came out of it was the chance to stop over and woo Williams grandmother in one of the villages along the way. We might be making great time cruising along in a Toyota 4×4, but no one gets engaged under those conditions.

Pachuco

William

African beds under shade

Guillermo and Hannibal, the logistics manager

My favourite lot, only 5.5 bags of parchment! Hope I can afford it!

Well picked

At 18-2100 masl, this is one of the highest farms I’ve been to, and the elevation means they are only a quarter of the way through harvest when most everyone else is wrapping it up. Owner William Perez and his son Guillermo took us on a walk around the estate, which is divided into 4 farms: Los Pinitos, Las Americas , El Moreno and La Cascada. The ripening looked nice and even, a good sign. Mostly clear of rust, there were still a few trees that had been hit by antragnosis, being dried out from the cherry to the trunk. But other parts were full of trees so heavy with cherry the branches had to be propped up and supported not to snap off.

William and Guillermo Perez

Turning over parchment

At El Moreno, they’re building a new wetmill and setting up new driers, and wanting to experiment more with drying times, resting the parchment and finding ways of improving the quality across the board. El Moreno is also the site of the nursery, where besides their normal stock of Caturra, Bourbon and a little Pacamara, they are experimenting with more rust resistant trees intended for the more humid areas of the estate. Although still early in their harvest, I’m excited about the samples I’ve seen so far and look forward to the ones coming out of the peak of the crop.

Nursery at El Moreno

We found this coffee to have amazing balance with a lovely ripe peach and caramel sweetness, followed by delicate florals and a fun lemony quality that reminds us of lemon starburst.

You can get your very own birthday bag of coffee, which is limited to 50 bags only here.

But the coffee itself you have to go out of town for. Santa Ana is the home of J. Hill, the mill that for the last few years have processed Aida Batlle’s coffees for her, and supplied us with many other lots such as the Majahual, a regular component in our espresso.

Manager Mario Mendoza at J. Hill

Stitching up bags

Piling them high

Not even close to capacity, which would be 70.000 bags of parchment

After a quick cupping to check that the quality of Majahual this year was up to standards, we drove to the farm to have a look at the conditions. El Majahual is the overall name for what used to be just one farm, but is now on the 3rd generation of the Murray Meza family and as such has been divided between kids and cousins. Roberto and his siblings own and run Majahual, Sierra Nevada belongs to Edward and Liliana, and Arturo Meza Hill owns La Florida. In a full season they might have 250 people come in to pick the coffee, so they offer facilities for the local community, staff and their families, such as a school, a kitchen and a health station with a full time nurse and a doctor twice per week. The pickers are paid by 25lb arroba (basket) and normally fill 5-6 arrobas per day from around 40 trees depending on yield and ripeness. The minimum wage is $1 per arroba, but Majahual pays $1.50 and expects the picking to be of ripe cherries only.

Majahual

Majahual thankfully aren’t among the worst sufferers from this year’s roja (rust) problems, but they will still have to stump between 15 and 20% of the trees. They’re estimating that next year’s harvest will be down by about 50%, and that it will take 2-3 years for the crop to recover. That is if there aren’t any other diseases or climactic challenges in that time. The rust hit all of Central America hard this season, some farms have been wiped out completely and will have no harvest for the next few years. It’s heartbreaking to drive trough the farms and only see dry, naked branches, some places only the shade trees and wind breaker hedges are left. The rust is like aids for the trees, it doesn’t necessarily kill it directly, but it breaks down the tree’s immune defenses and leaves it very vulnerable to many other diseases, like antragnosis. The strain of Roja they saw this year has been very aggressive and resistant to the sprays people have used in the past, and has attacked farms at higher altitudes than normal, another consequence of climate change. If you don’t catch it early enough and don’t spray every 20-25 days, the rust will make the trees drop all its leaves to protect itself, effectively killing itself in the process.

Rust

Antragnosis, drying the cherries up before they have the chance to ripen.

Rows of wind protection

Brown soil and bare trees between wind protectors and shade trees

Back at J. Hill I had the chance to walk around their nursery, where they’re doing some experiments on rust resistant coffees like Obata ,Catucai, Oro Verde and Sabia Tardio. They’re also doing some grafting of Arabica on to Robusta roots. They nursery holds about 500.000 plants, and the young trees sell for 50 cents a piece.  Farmers are encouraged to replant 5% of their trees per year, to keep up the yield and health.

Nursery at J. Hill

Yellow Catucai seedlings

Nursery dogs

All the water used at the wetmill is filtered and pumped up to three enormous sediment tanks where the separated solids are collected for use in the nursery, wormery and the compost. Even when the wetmill is not processing, the 5 meter deep pools stay filled between seasons to keep the bacteria alive, and the smell of rotting is quite intense. The first tank is full of brown, gunky water and covered in a lid of brown slime. In the second tank the water is more a light beige colour, with patches of mud coloured foam floating on top. By the third tank, the water is green, with no foam or clumpy brown slime floating.

Much more pleasant then to return to the cupping lab and dip into some samples of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and and Los Alpes, three of Aida’s farms and one of our most anticipated coffees in the year. As usual we’re buying Kilimanjaro, and even from just the smell of the grounds, it’s going to be a great year!

Kilimanjaro preship sample. Approved!

Miss Aida

Majahual preship samples. Also approved!

Wanting to have a look at Aida’s trees and how they coped with the roja, we set off to Fina Tanzania, her newest farm. Purchased only two years ago, most of the investment so far has been in improving the roads leading to it. (You know you’re in for a bumpy ride when Aida unbuckles her seat belt and puts her driving gloves on.) Most if the income from this farm still comes from the Pepito and Jocote fruit shade trees. Salvador, the farm manager, oversees the 19.62 manzanas and is currently focusing on digging cajuelas, holes in the ground between trees and rows that will allow more organic matter to gather and add nutrients to the trees. Also in process is the re-terracing of the steep hills, planting yucca for erosion control and renovation of the nursery. The farm got hit fairly hard by the roja, and 50% of the trees will have to be stumped. All the trees here are bourbon and will be replanted with both the orange and red varieties.

A lucky chacho cherry!

Finca Tanzania

Next on the tour was Kilimanjaro, where we got a chance to see the pickers come in with their bags for hand sorting. What was being poured out onto the plastic sheets looked beautiful, deep red and burgundy cherry just bursting with sweetness. But under Aida’s eagle eyes, bags were sorted and sorted again till only the truly best cherries are put back on the truck headed for the mill. It’s a lot of extra work, but Aida also pays $3 per arroba, and her crew knows that the better they pick the less time they have to spend sorting afterwards.

This farm will get away with ‘only’ stumping 20-25%, perhaps in part due to the fact that it’s the highest farm on the north side of the volcano and enjoys a slightly cooler climate.

Finca Kilimanjaro

Pretty good for a first pass

The ones not ripe enough

Third up was Los Alpes, which in fact was looking healthier than ever. The farm has come on leaps and bounds in the last three years, and manager Lorenzo has a lot to do with that. The trees are tall, and the ripening even, so the roasters picking up Los Alpes this year are a lucky few!

Los Alpes

Last but not least was Finca Mauritania, where sadly about 50% of the trees will probably need to be stumped. The 400 Jocote trees providing shade will help keep income flowing a bit, but it  goes without saying that times are going to be harder for growers over the next few years.

The kids at Mauritania

Back at J. Hill we arrived just after the cherries from Kilimanjaro had been delivered, and as the dusk set in a smaller micromill was fired up to process the cherry before dark. The cherries going through now was to become our Pulped Natural selection, so I was really happy to see the quality of the picking and the low portion of floaters being separated out at the various stages. I can’t wait for this coffee to arrive!

Leaving Santa Ana after spending a few days there, the next place to visit was Apaneca and Gloria Rodriguez’ Finca Nejapa. When we pulled up in the yard we just caught the delivery of the last pass of picking. Most of the coffee here is bourbon and typica, but they’ve also recently come across some trees they can’t classify, so have started a few small projects cultivating the seeds from these trees to get a better idea of cup profile. Nejapa is made up of three plots: Roma, Santa Maria and Los Vientos. A lot of  new planting is about to take place, and Gloria has a unique way of getting the land cleared of excess trees and shrubs. She offers the land to local families, who against the work of clearing it, can have the land for a year to grow corn or other crops. She gave one of these new plots, Hamburgo, to her son Roberto, and a lot of the new unknown varietals will be planted here.

Finca Nejapa

Last pick of the season

Interesting way of cutivating

Thick old coffee root

Kids will climb trees

Tired from trekking around in hilly coffee fields, it was good to get back to San Salvador and a couple of days of roasting and cupping. Before moving on to Guatemala I also had a chance  to meet up with old friend Luis Rodriguez who runs Cafe Caracol in Santa Tecla with his lovely wife Maria Jose, and was treated to great tapas and delicious cocktails. El Salvador never disappoints and is still a favourite producing country to visit! I found more coffee I liked than what I can squeeze into one container this year, but that’s a luxury problem that I’m sure I can solve!