New Coffee: Capão by Glacimario Santos
Leading with a light brown sugar sweetness, this pulped natural selection follows with milk chocolate, cashews and nougat. Approachable and softly textured, this coffee is reminiscent of cocoa and milk.
Glacimario Santos owns and manages Fazenda Capao, having studied agriculture, and subsequently taken over the farm from his father. Over the last 20 years the coffee growing area has expanded to 3 hectares of the total 25 hectares that comprise the farm. Despite the similar name, this is a different farm to the one we bought from last year.
Sat about 1280masl near the city of Piatã in the region of Bahia called Chapada Diamantina, the farm has perfect conditions for growing coffee. The mix of clay and sand in the soil is monitored and analyzed annually to ensure the Catucai seedlings will have optimal nutrients to establish and yield to their best potential.
Once in fruit, the trees are selectively picked and the cherries are pulped each day going straight onto patios to dry. The farm’s total production is currently around 70 bags, and this year more than half of them have made their way into our warehouse. We hope you enjoy!
Rosettas for Japan- fundraiser throwdown!
Our friends at Notes Music & Coffee are hosting a fundraiser to raise money in support of the victims of the Japan earthquake. We hope to see lots of you there, Sunday April 10th, 6pm!
New Coffee: Colonia San Juan – 8 Estrellas, Bolivia
Colonia San Juan – 8 Estrellas, Bolivia
Red & Yellow Caturra, Fully Washed (£9.00/350g)
In this Red and Yellow Caturra lot, expect notes of brazil nut, toffee and chocolate brownie, complemented by hints of juicy fresh pear and baked apple, all underpinned by a dense, custard-like, melted icecream mouthfeel.
For the third consecutive year, we’re very pleased to offer this coffee from Colonia San Juan 8 Estrellas – Juan Ticona’s family farm, outside Canton Entre Rios, in the Caranavi region of Bolivia. Senor Ticona has been producing coffee at this farm since the early 1970’s, and employs 10 people during the six-month long picking season. Every tree is passed over several times, to ensure that only the ripest of cherries are being hand-picked each time.
Colonia San Juan is just 10 hectares in size, with 5 of those hectares being dedicated to a natural forest reserve, with a small stream running through the farm providing fresh water. As a result, a wide variety of animals can be found on the farm, most especially tapirs and parrots who love to eat the fresh coffee cherries.
After picking, these Yellow and Red Caturra variety cherries are delivered in baskets to the wet milling facility of the Buena Vista mill in Caranavi. Once in parchment, the coffee is moved to the dry mill in La Paz and prepared for export. It arrives here in London in a giant ziploc bag, inside a jute bag ensuring the coffee is well protected the entire journey.
For more information, and to order, visit the web shop here: http://shop.squaremilecoffee.com/products/colonia-san-juan-8-estrellas
New Coffee: Villa Loyola, Colombia
Villa Loyola, Colombia
100% Caturra, Fully Washed (£7.50/350g)
This 100% Caturra lot from Gerardo Arango’s 2008 Cup of Excellence Colombia winning farm, Villa Loyola, brings an abundance of dense fruit sweetness in the guise of raisins, prunes and figs, while a subtle but integral apple-like acidity really brings the cup to life. A well-structured base layer of molasses means the coffee finishes well and lingers pleasantly.
Around 10 hecatres of this 18.5 hectare farm is dedicated to 40% shade-grown coffee production – this lot being exclusively Caturra variety. The farm itself was a gift from Manuel Delgado to the Compania de Jesus church over 100 years ago – Gerardo Arango being the Priest Director of the church – who remain the farm’s owners to this day.
Over the last 20 years, a greater attention to coffee growing has seen quality improve dramatically. With Eduardo Valencia as administrator of the farm, a combination of an elevated focus on technological advancement, as well as seeking help and advice from the Committee of Coffee Growers of Narino, Villa Loyola placed first in the 2008 Cup of Excellence Colombia competition.
Improvements to the salaries and living conditions of Villa Loyola’s permanent and temporary workforce continue, and children are not permitted to work on the farm, having to attend the local school, instead. Around 7 hectares of the farm has been dedicated to growing ‘guadua’ – a large, thorny bamboo – by the Environmental Control Center of Narino, to be used as a construction tool in coffee farms in the region.
For more information, and to order, visit the web shop here: http://shop.squaremilecoffee.com/products/villa-loyola.
New Coffee: Blackburn Estate – Clouds of August
Blackburn Estate – Clouds of August 2010 Microlot, Tanzania
Kent & Bourbon Varieties, Fully Washed
(£9.00/350g)
Last year we were delighted to offer a wonderfully vibrant and juicy microlot from the Blackburn Estate in Tanzania, called Shades of September. This year, we’re exceedingly happy to be able to offer another microlot from the same farm – this one being called Clouds of August.
This Blackburn Estate microlot from producer Michael Gehrken brings notes of clove, cashews and toffee in the cup, tied together by a silky raisin, Medjool date and molasses sweetness. Rounded out by a hint of Middle Eastern spices and baker’s chocolate, this coffee is simple, sweet and delicious.
Clouds of August was picked from August 3 – 13, 2010 by around 65 of Michael’s 138 staff, who were supervised by experienced pickers Christian Burra and Amsi Demay. Trained to pick only the ripest cherries, the pickers collected a total of 2,228 ‘tins’ of coffee, weighing 54kg each, over the 11 days.
With their own wet mill on site, the day’s cherries were pulped each afternoon, then fermented for 14 hours before grading and washing in spring water from Mount Oldeani. The harvested cherries were then carried to raised African drying beds, and sun dried to 11.5% humidity, before being conditioned in bins, and finally transported to Moshi for dry milling
Production roasts of this coffee begin Monday, February 7th, and will roast every subsequent Monday and Thursday from then. For more information, and to order, visit the web shop here: Blackburn Estate – Clouds of August.
New Coffee: Toarco Jaya, Sulawesi
Toarco Jaya, Sulawesi
Jember S-795, S-33 Washed Peaberry
(£7.50 / 350g)
We’re very pleased to welcome this most recent addition to our range. An unusual coffee given it’s provenance, this Toarco Jaya peaberry selection contradicts a great many of the stereotypes surrounding Indonesian coffee. While outstanding in its own right, this coffee took us somewhat by surprise, and it’s on very high rotation in the Square Mile morning brewing rota.
Wonderfully clean and complex, in the cup this Sulawesi peaberry has the dense, sweet, citrus quality of Sicilian blood orange, while on the nose expect fresh-baked butter croissants and just a hint of milk chocolate. Combine this with the Toarco Jaya’s marshmallow mouthfeel, and the resulting cup is layered, balanced and complete.
This coffee constitutes something of a rarity, in that it’s a fully washed coffee from Sulawesi, where the more traditional wet hulling process is nearly ubiquitous. With this coffee, we see the results of a partnership between a Japanese coffee company and local investors to establish a wet mill in Sulawesi, resulting in coffees with greater complexity and more clarity of flavour than is usually seen from Indonesia.
Coupled with this processing, this coffee benefits from being grown at significant altitude. While the Toarco Jaya wet mill is at around 1000masl, a great amount of the contributing smallholder farmers have their farms between 1250 and 1750masl, making them some of the highest growing coffee trees in Sulawesi.
Toarco Jaya also provides on-going education and training to their smallholder farmers, assisting them in maintaining their trees through good farming practice, and helping train their pickers to select the ripest cherries from the tree. We think that the combination of altitude, education, and exemplary growing and processing practices really strips away the negative characteristics people have come to associate with coffees from Indonesia.
Available now in the web shop: http://shop.squaremilecoffee.com/products/toarco-jaya
Christmas Webshop & Opening Hours
Christmas time! We’re excited because things get so busy, plus we get to grab a few days off in amongst the madness.
The webshop will roast and ship on the following days:
Monday December 20th – OPEN – WEBSHOP AS USUAL
Thursday December 23rd – OPEN – WEBSHOP AS USUAL Please note that while Royal Mail are delivering on the 24th, only Special Delivery orders are guaranteed to be delivered before Christmas.
Monday December 27th – CLOSED – NO WEBSHOP
Thursday December 30th – CLOSED – NO WEBSHOP
Monday 3rd January – CLOSED – NO WEBSHOP (Public Holiday)
Tuesday 4th January – OPEN – We will be roasting and shipping what would have been processed the day before.
Thursday 6th January – OPEN – Webshop resumes normal scheduled service.
We’ll try to keep on top of any enquiries between Christmas and New Year so if you have any questions just drop us a line at webshop@squaremilecoffee.com
Have a great Christmas! We’ve some very exciting coffees coming up in the New Year that we’re really looking forward to sharing with you!
Congratulations to Indie Coffee
We’ve been a bit slow to post this but congratulations to Peter Duggan of Indie Coffee for winning the British Street Food Award for best hot drink.
Indie Coffee are located outside on Church Street, near Edgeware Road and has quietly being serving oustanding coffee, and getting nothing but great reviews.
He also has one of the best carts in London – a repurposed Indonesia Jewellery cart! If you’re in the neighbourhood we’d strongly recommend stopping by – open Tuesday to Saturday.
Limited Edition Espresso: Sweet Shop
Last year we created a fun espresso blend called Juice. This year we’re doing a one-off roast of a blend we are calling Sweet Shop.
The idea was to blend for a different reason – to see how far we could go, to see how much sweet delicious fruit we can cram into a cup. Some may say there is too much in here – for us there’s never enough!
The blend takes three of our favourite coffees – each capable of a different range of vibrant sweet flavours – and blended them together in equal parts. Some may be nervous about the acidity in the espresso but these coffees are roasted very careful to showcase their sweetness above all else. (Though if you prefer low acidity espressos then this probably isn’t for you.)
The recipe is:
1 part Kangocho AA (Kenya)
1 part Tegu AA (Kenya)
1 part Yirgacheffe (Ethiopia)
In the cup look for notes of:
Refreshers, pear drops, cola cubes, blackcurrant fruitella, cherry lips and sherbert lemons. This is an intensely fruity espresso blend, very sweet and with a balanced and pleasing acidity.
(click for full size - and you can expect a t-shirt of this very soon too! Artwork courtesy of David “El Grifo” Gibbons)
A few very important things – please read before ordering:
We are roasting a limited amount of this on 31st of August only. If you place an order for Sweet Shop that has other items the whole order will be held until that date, then fulfilled.
As we say above – this is a limited run. We expect to sell out of it in the next week, as it has been available to pre-order already to our newsletter subscribers and over 70% has already gone. (We like to say thank you however we can!)
Sweet Shop Espresso – £9.00 (350g)
Changes to Webshop
Just a quick post to let you know that we’ve slightly changed the cut-off time for our webshop orders.
We roast and ship on Mondays and Thursdays, so for a Monday roast we must receive the order by midnight Sunday and for a Thursday roast by midnight Wednesday.
If you have any questions or comments then do please let us know.