August 18, 2022

Our Newest GRAND CRU Coffee & A Great Nicaraguan

Our great Coffee Writer, Kelly, is out the next few weeks because she had a baby! If you see her when she returns, definitely congratulate! In the mean time, our Education Director, Rachel, will be taking over describing our coffees to you. Here's what she has to say about these new releases.

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I'm super excited to chat about these coffees with you. They're both pretty interesting and fun! Please shoot me a message back with something that stuck out to you!

Nicaragua Las Minas Natural

Story: Las Minas Natural is an exceptional coffee from our friend Luis Balladerez. This coffee comes from his youngest farm, Lo Prometido, which we tend to only receive two to three nano lots from each year. Lo Prometido sits at the highest elevation of all Luis' farms and has the highest degree of shade. This special combination creates an ideal growing environment for coffee, and it really shows in this lot.

Las Minas is a small designated area on Lo Prometido that is strictly planted with maracaturra. Maracaturra is a natural cross between the marigogipe and caturra varietals. It is believed that this cross likely originated in Nicaragua, which has an optimal climate for this particular coffee. This coffee is also a nano lot. Nano lots are areas, usually small, of particularly kept coffee. The attention and care that go into producing nano lots like this result in distinctly high cup quality and they are sold at a premium.

I had the privilege of traveling to Nicaragua early March of 2020 to visit Luis Alberto Balladerez and his family and other friends and partners. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. To be able to witness first-hand where a majority of our coffee comes from, to be able to tangibly feel the coffees as they are drying, to pick fresh cherries off the trees, to meet the men and women who take vigilant care of the coffees for months and months before they even reach us–it’s something I’ll never forget. One morning, as we were visiting Luis’ farm Un Regalo de Dios (meaning “a gift from God”), we gathered together, overlooking the farm, to pray and give thanks to the Lord. It was a true “on Earth as it is in Heaven” moment. I hope that some of you may have the opportunity to visit one day; not just for the sake of knowing the business better, but to experience the true and meaningful depth of what we get to take part in by working in coffee. Below is an image of a wet mill on one of Luis' farms where they begin processing their coffees.

In the Cup: Light Body, Sugary, Tropical Fruit Cocktail

GRAND CRU #75 Colombia Las Flores

These notes are from Kelly! She gave this one a write-up before she left.

Story: One of our favorite parts of our Limited release program is the opportunity it gives us to source coffees that are the result of extreme innovation. The right combination of variety selection, modulation in processing, and high quality cupping scores, can result in cup characteristics that we've never seen before.

This coffee is the brainchild of an agronomy expert partnering with coffee producers who grow unique coffee varieties. Jhoan Vergara grows yellow bourbon, a unique and more mild variety of bourbon, in the high reaches of Huila, Colombia. With the help of Professor Cesar, Jhoan found just the right combination of anaerobic fermentation and honey processing to result in a coffee that is sincerely unprecedented. This coffee has a layered sweetness to it, with an absolute explosion of spiced flavors. The finish has a profound amount of cardamom, cloves, and other sweet spices to it. We thought it was reminiscent of a poached pear or even a spiced cider!

In the Cup: Toffee, Poached Pear, Clove, Cardamom