Description
Our seasonal house espresso sourced through long term relationships. This current iteration is a community lot comprised of coffees from our friends at Las Etíopes and their neighbours. We taste orange, blackcurrant and brown sugar.
CULTIVAR: Catuai, Caturra, Catimor
PREPARATION: Washed
LOCATION: El Porvenir, Jaén, Cajamarca
ALTITUDE: 1,750 – 1,900 masl
Las Etíopes is a small 3 hectare farm owned by Simon Brown and Merlith Cruz situated in the village of El Porvenir in Jaén, Cajamarca. The farm sits at an altitude of 1,750 masl and reaches 1,900 masl at its peak, and is planted with Catuai, Caturra, Catimor and a small amount of Pacamara. Simon bought the farm in 2021 and at the time it was already planted with these local varieties, which when combined with the organic matter rich soils and humid climate produce a coffee with a pronounced acidity and great body.
This lot is made up of coffee from Las Etíopes farm and from their neighbours, or “outgrowers”, in the area. Most of the coffee farmers in the area sell to intermediaries (also known as aggregators or coyotes in Central America) who buy their coffee in cash at their door, often at the local market rate, and then drive it to the city where they sell to exporters. The team at Las Etíopes have set up a small wet mill this year in order to process and dry cherry bought from the neighbouring farmers, premiums are paid for the quality of cherry selection to incentivise good picking and in order to pay more sustainable prices to farmers, certainly more than intermediaries would pay them.
Currently, producers aren’t used to selling coffee in cherry, since everyone buys in dry parchment, so as a result, some producers are still home processing their coffee, but these producers are selected and checked beforehand to ensure they follow good processing and drying protocols.
Coffee is picked, floated and rinsed and then pulped into wooden fermentation tanks. These tanks have been used on the farm for more than 10 years and when cleaned and maintained regularly they are great for fermenting coffee and give the coffee a signature profile due to the microbial community that live in the wood. Coffee is fermented in the vessel for 72 hours before being washed and dried on raised beds for a period of 10 to 15 days. Once dry the coffee is cupped and blended with other lots based on the cup profile.
