This farm keeps winning accolades year in year out. They won the award for best Rainforest Certified coffee at the SCAA meeting in Minneapolis earlier this year, and have been named as the number 2 coffee of the year 2008, so I guess I had to try and get some and find out what all the fuss is about.
The first thing of interest is the varietal that they grow. At the basic level we have robusta and arabica, however when you get past this you discover a whole new list of coffee types. The most popular are Catuai and Typica, however this estate uses a varietal that goes by the intriguing name of Geisha.
What does all of this mean to the roaster and to the final taste in the cup?
Well our impression of the bean is that it is slightly softer than other typical central American coffees, so we dropped the coffee into a slightly cooler drum than normal, and then roasted the coffee as we normally do, this technique we hoped would allow the flavours to develop at a slower rate. Finally as we went past the first crack of the bean, we watched the development carefully and pulled the coffee out of the roasting drum just as the second crack started.
The result is a wonderful coffee. I had an Americano and the sweetness and flavour resulted in one of the most memorable coffee drinks I have ever had.
The judges were right this is a truly great coffee and I hope it's here to stay in Europe.
Handle with care!
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