In My Mug

Finca San José is very much the pride and joy of the Rodríguez family and is now in the hands of a fourth and fifth generation of coffee producers. The story begins in 1815 when José María Rodriguez and Josefina Rodriguez (great-grandparents) planted the first coffee trees with their own hands.

Through the generations, the farm has passed through the hands of many committed farmers like José's son, Israel Rodriguez. He was then followed by Jose Maria Rodriguez, who took care of the farm until it came to Gloria Mercedes Rodriguez Fontán, the most recent owner.

Ever the strong woman, Gloria has overcome gender barriers in an industry that has historically been the province of men, and she personally supervises every step at the farm level. Gloria not only takes care of San José but, together with her siblings' support, she manages five other small farms which collectively add up to 38 hectares.

The mountain slopes of Finca San José are fully shaded by trees that help to maintain and preserve the crop and the surrounding environment. In addition to the trees' diversity, the farm is home to a variety of wild animals and birds, which can be seen in their natural habitat. San José is nested in the northwestern slope of an extinct volcanic crater, which holds a small lagoon inside it. The lagoon is named Nymph Lagoon, due to the abundance of water lilies.

At Finca San José, coffee goes through extensive quality control in addition to being grown under standards that support specialty coffee production. The unique microclimate conditions include an average altitude of 1,500 metres above sea level, an average temperature of 17°C, and rich and loamy clay soil; and the coffee grown is mainly Bourbon.

One of our most consistent coffees, this year it again delivers milk chocolate alongside dark cherries. Those two classic flavours are joined by almond on the finish, for a really more-ish result.

• Country: El Salvador

Clean cup: (1–8): 6.5

Total: (max. 100): 87.5

Roasting Information

I've been telling the story of Hasbean and Finca Limoncillo for many, many years now. I don't intend to stop any time soon because it's such a big, big, big relationship for me. 😊

So much of where we are today has come from this relationship. I'm really proud of everything that's happened in the past, and super excited for where we can go in the future.

Our relationship with Finca Limoncillo began in 2007, and back then we were buying their delicious coffee as part of a buying group. I loved it from the very first time I cupped it, and it was a coffee I just had to get. It was only after the auction closed that I discovered it was owned by a family in Nicaragua who were already good friends of mine, and indeed probably the only people I knew from the whole country!

The following year I visited the farm with our importers, and I spent the whole trip begging them to bring the coffee into the UK for us. Eventually, thanks to my supreme Steve pester power, they caved in (probably just to stop the flow of emails and phone calls!) and kindly did so.

This setup worked well for a time, but we received notice a couple of years ago that the importers were not going to be buying the coffee again (and for reasons other than the cup quality). This led to some frantic phone calls and a thorough search down the back of the sofa for loose change to fund buying twelve months’ worth of coffee all at once. There were many, many obstacles in the way of doing this deal, but we were lucky in that we were able to pull everything together in a very short amount of time.

The upside of all of this is that we now work directly with Finca Limoncillo instead of going via anyone else, and this is a relationship I’m super happy to have. This coffee has gone from a one-off Cup of Excellence buy to a fantastic long-term relationship that I'm so very proud to have.

Finca Limoncillo is located in Matagalpa and, at 171 hectares in size, it. is. huge! Situated at an amazing location, it boasts nine waterfalls within the farm and is owned by the Mierisch family; as I have already said, they’re good friends, and also well-respected producers in Nicaragua. They’re known for their experimental processing, varietal work, and exceptional coffee.

The fact that the family are friends helps us drill down into the details of what they do for the people who work for them. The information continues to prove to me that good people grow good coffee.

This is a Pacamara varietal coffee. Pacamaras are a little crazy on the cupping table. Pacamaras are exciting. I like Pacamaras! I could ramble on about Pacamaras for a while ... oh, wait a minute, I did! If you'd like to know more about this fantastic varietal, make sure to have a look at the article I wrote ...

As well as being a big ol' Pacamara, this is also a lil' ol' Peaberry; a thing that's normally big is a little smaller than you might expect. It's an interesting mix of unusual sizing that I hope you'll enjoy.

Normally the seed of the coffee fruit grows into the green bean that we all know and love from two fertilised seeds inside each fruit, but sometimes things are a little different and a Peaberry is born. When only one of the two seeds is fertilised, it produces a smaller bean that looks like a shrunken version of what we'd normally know as a coffee bean, and that's because only one seed has grown instead of two.

Some say Peaberry coffees are sweeter and more delicious than their regular cousins; some people even come to us specifically looking for these coffees because they crave them so much! I'll let you be the judge.

This reminds me of a Custard Cream biscuit - super sweet with a hint of vanilla in the background. There’s just a shoulder of hops in there too, along with a delicate orange acidity which balances it all beautifully.

• Country: Nicaragua

Clean cup: (1–8): 6.5

Total: (max. 100): 87

Roast Information

Brewing Tip

I find going a little finer than I normally would + allowing more time for the grinder to get its teeth into the bigger beans often leads to delicious results. Not quite as far as you'd push your grind for a regular Pacamara but still make sure to tweak what you're doing to help this coffee show off it's natural awesomeness.

The first coffee bush at Kiriga Estate was planted in approximately 1954 by colonial settlers. At about the same time, less than ten kilometres away along the same Kigio road, a young boy (Aloysius Gakunga, son of the chief for the larger Murang'a county) helped his father – Senior Chief Ndungíu Kagori – plant the first coffee seedling in the area. The area was known as Gaitegi village, Muranga Location 1 (Loco One). A love affair with coffee had been born!

Several years went by and the young boy grew up. He was riding his bicycle along Kigio road and, as he rode past the vast – by now well-established – coffee estates, he promised himself that he would one day own one of them.

He realized this dream in 1976.

The boy, or Mr A. N. Gakunga, sadly passed away in July 2014. By the time of his death, Mr Gakunga had passed his love of coffee and the mantle of Kiriga coffee estate on to Dr Brian Ndungíu Gakunga. Brian was his second child, and the eldest son out of his six children. According to Kikuyu cultural naming systems, Brian is named after Mr Gakungaís' father, who was both his grandfather and his pioneer coffee farmer.

• Dr Brian Gakunga is a coffee farmer who is well known in Kenyan coffee circles. He is a founding member and a former long-serving Honorary Secretary of the Kenya Coffee Producers Association, which is a national farmers' organisation that works to promote the economic and social interests of the coffee farmers through active participation in the national and international arena.

Kiriga Estate sits between 1,550 and 1,650 metres above sea level. It is approximately five kilometres from Thika town, which is an industrial town in the central province of Kenya. It's four kilometres from Blue Posts hotel, which has the famous Chania and Thika falls. Thika lies 50 kilometres northeast of Nairobi.

Administratively, Kiriga coffee estate is in the Gatanga constituency of Muranga county, and it's separated from Kiambu county by the Chania river.

Kiriga coffee is Arabica of predominantly SL28 variety (notable for its world-renowned cup quality). The farm has an estimated two hectares of Ruiru 11 variety (which has improved resistance to coffee berry disease and leaf rust); some K7 variety (similar characteristics as SL28, but with better resistance to leaf rust compared to SL28); and a field of the newest Batian variety. About 60% of the coffee that the estate produces is AA/AB.

All coffee activities at Kiriga are carried out at a factory level, from the coffee nursery to all the farm operations (pruning, weed control, nutrition, irrigation, basin digging, disease control, infilling, mulching, and planting). Wet mill operations are also carried out on the factory level. Kiriga delivers both parchment coffee and Mbuni (naturals) to the commercial dry mill for milling and grading, in preparation for sale at coffee auctions and via indirect sale.

In addition to growing coffee the estate also has, I was told, shoats (sheep and goats), a dairy, and the potential to keep fish. It's all about diversity, and what's more diverse than a 'shoat'?! The estate is also occasionally visited by two hippos, in addition to some bird-life, while also being the home of a family of monkeys.

Kiriga irrigated all its coffee trees – despite the crippling electricity costs involved – during the dry season, in order to ensure their high standards were maintained despite the weather.

By the end of 2015, the estate had changed the cycle of its coffee trees by removing the old heads and growing new heads, which in return gave a higher yield of bold beans with the characteristic 'Kiriga coffee characteristics'. Over 40% of the 'old heads' had to go! This is way above the recommended 25%, and we expect to have decreased yield but increased quality as a result.

At Kiriga they talk about having a 'Kiriga Family'. It's a big family that includes up to 180 people at the busiest times of year! Thirty percent of the total workforce is made up of resident families who live on the estate. Fifty percent of those know no other home. The remaining percentage consists of smallholder farmers who commute daily and depend on the estate for survival. There are smallholder farmers who have been part of the family since 1976 and have no desire to work anywhere else, commuting a whopping 10 KM (or more!) daily – past other estates – just to work at Kiriga.

Something really amazing I wanted to tell you about is the Kiriga Welfare Fund. In the past, the estate saw its workers get turned away from banks when they tried to acquire loans for dealing with family issues or emergencies. To help his 'Kiriga Family', Brian encouraged the workers to set up a welfare group with him as its patron, and Brian has provided money for loaning out to staff according to their most pressing needs.

Many of the estate farms around Kiriga have been sold off to make housing estates. Whilst this is a challenge for the future, in the immediate period Brian is actually finding it helpful, because there are more skilled pickers available (who were working on the other farms).

During my visit to Kenya in 2015, I was fortunate enough to spend some time chatting with Brian. I even managed to record some of it, too! Make sure to have a listen. 😊

Hasblog: An Interview with Brian and Peter from Kiriga (Part 1)

In the cup this is fruit squash! It starts with blackcurrant, but seamlessly morphs into orange. There is a shoulder of fresh strawberry in the background. It's super clean and super refreshing.

• Country: Kenya

Clean cup: (1–8): 8

Total (max. 100): 90

Roast Information

Brewing Tip

The Don Joel Micromill is owned by Allan Oviedo Rodriguez and his family. Right on the border between the Central and Western Valleys in Costa Rica, Allan has been producing coffee there for 18 years. Growing up in a coffee family, Allan learnt the traditional producing methods with his father (Don Joel) and brothers but also saw the difficulties this lifestyle had, with poor returns and increasing cost of living.

When his father passed away, the farms were split up between the family and Allan, working the La Cumbre farm, decided to change how he did things. Building the micromill he named for his father, he set about replanting with a focus on taste quality. It's no surprise that the varietals he chose will be familiar from our range - Caturra, Catuai and Villa Sarchi.

With a mix of a willingness to try new things, an eye for detail and the ability to learn quickly, Allan was able to build a great reputation for consistently and cleverly grown and processed coffees.

A few years ago, Allan was able to invest in expanding his growing area and added this farm - Carmela - alongside La Cumbre. Despite a difficult year for coffee growing in the Western Valley (with high temperatures, unseasonal rain and ash from Poás volcano among the challenges), Allan managed to get a great crop from Carmela.

Carmela is a 3-hectare farm, planted mostly with Villa Sarchi and some Typica. Situated around 1600 masl, it's only 5 minutes drive from La Cumbre but on the opposite edge of the hill. Even in these short distances, Allan's noticed significant differences in the weather, giving each farm it's own character.

Like many producers in Costa Rica, Allan works in a semi-organic way - reducing the use of sprays as much as possible. One of the tricks he does to help this is creating his own fertiliser, using native microorganisms to create a base before including some trace nutrients for the plants which he can then spray on.

This has got a really intense sweetness which reminds me of boiled sweets. There's a big hit of red apple and it finishes with a spoonful of white sugar.

• Country: Costa Rica

Clean cup: (1–8): 6

Total (max. 100): 87

Roast Information:

We're now into our fourth wonderful year of having coffee from Ana Sora, and I'm as excited this year as I was back in 2016! This coffee represents lots of time and energy working at the farmer's gate in Ethiopia, and it's one of the most unique coffees I've ever tasted.

My inbox has been full of emails asking for more, more, more Ana Sora! Well, here you go folks. 😀

We also have a washed version of the same coffee, which you can find here. Make sure you try them side by side if you get the chance, so you can enjoy the delicious variations that the different processing methods bring to the cup.

This private farm is owned by Israel Degfa, a second-generation coffee grower from Ethiopia and as coffee farms go, it's a very new farm: it was only formed in 2013. It's located at a whopping altitude of between 1,900 and 2,350 metres above sea level. It's a gorgeous but somewhat tiring walk to get there! (It's not all just holiday snaps, this coffee buying malarkey!)

Situated alongside the river Turo, the farm used to only produce naturally processed coffee. However, over the last year, the farmers have taken advantage of the water source and have begun producing washed coffee too.

It is unusual to find private farms of 250 hectares in Ethiopia, and even more unusual to find them at such high altitudes. The altitude helps with the slower maturation of the coffee cherry and allows more time for the plant to develop, which contributes to the super unique cup profile we see in coffees from Ethiopia.

Coffee growing is popular in this area, and Israel also sources coffee from the surrounding area. That area is populated by smallholder farmers who speak Oromife and are of Oromo ethnicity. Israel believes in helping these farmers through education in husbandry, and also through financial assistance.

Cherries are hand-sorted for unripes and overripes before they go into floatation tanks, where they're covered with water. Any cherries that float are removed. Whole, ripe cherries are then dried in the sunshine on raised African drying beds, which are laid out on hessian cloths for about 15–18 days depending on the weather conditions. The cherries are covered with plastic or shade nets during the midday heat and at night.

It's a unique coffee from a unique relationship, and I'm massively excited to share this coffee with you once again.

Do you like blueberries? I hope so!!! This coffee is all about the blueberries: think drinking blueberry juice whilst eating a blueberry muffin. It's not just the flavour of blueberry though. It's got a silky texture that reminds me of fruit juice, and a delicate lemon zest on the aftertaste, which is a perfect complement to all the blueberries.

• Country: Ethiopia

Clean cup: (1–8): 7

Total: (max. 100): 92

Roasting Information

This farm was brand new to us only a few years ago, and we're really happy to have been able to continue getting coffee from Las Delicias every year since. Although the farm itself is still relatively new to us, the people behind it most certainly aren't. In fact, we've been working with them for over ten years now.

The Mierisch family (whom you may remember from such farms as Limoncillo, Mama Mina, Escondida and Milligros) have worked with us over that time to bring us delicious coffee, and continue to do so year after year. 😊

Much of that deliciousness is thanks to their amazing processing, and Eleane Mierisch is in charge of that. She works in the family business, but she's never owned her own farm. Never, that is, until two years ago, when she acquired Las Delicias all for herself.

The farm is located in the region of Jinotega at an average altitude of 1,450 metres above sea level. It's located next to another Mierisch farm that you might have heard of, which is called San José. We've had coffee from there a few times; we're definitely hoping to see more in the future, too.

Eleane knows the area very well, and she knows the land and what it's capable of producing. Add to this her passion for coffee, and you can start to understand why she wanted to produce coffee on a farm of her own.

The Longberry varietal is the fruit of some of the amazing experimental work that's taking place at Limoncillo, another Mierisch farm (as if I even need to tell you that!) To explain a little bit of the story behind it, I'll hand over to another Mierisch that I just so happen to know. Oh hi there, Erwin!

Here my 'story' begins back in mid-2001. I sound like a grandfather ...

As far as we can tell the Longberry varietal is a Typica-type coffee because of its bean shape, as is the Geisha. Its physical appearance is a uniform seed that is elongated and has been described by several of our customers as an 'Ethiopian Long Berry type'.

The first thing I get with this coffee is the texture – it's creamy. That's backed up by the flavour of single cream, but sitting alongside a clean pear. On the finish it's got a little dark chocolate too, delivering a very elegant cup.

• Country: Nicaragua

Clean cup: (1–8): 7

Total: (max. 100): 88

Roasting Information

Situated on a hillside which runs parallel to the main road to Guatemala City, sits El Bosque. Due to it's proximity to the Capital, it faces threats from ever-expanding urban development but for the time we have been working with El Bosque, prices and returns for the farm have made it a much higher concern for the brothers, and they are very motivated.

Before I'd tried this coffee at El Bosque, it was love at first taste, I was absolutely blown away by how good it was! However, my first visit to the farm in January 2007 really cemented this, because I got to learn more about the awesome people behind the coffee.

In 1932, Julian Flores founded the farm and the fourteen-hectare extension of land was planted out with Bourbon varietal coffee, which was cultivated and sold in cherry form only. Over the next few years, with the acquisition of more land, the farm continued to grow. Julian Flores passed away in 1947 and his son, José Eladio Flores, inherited the farm and continued his father’s legacy of growth. By 1970, José had bought another 23 hectares and continued to grow and sell the same Bourbon coffee varietal. After his death in 1996, a third-generation has taken the farm on under the direction of José’s widow, Martha Stalla, and their sons Julio, José, Francisco and Mario.

Now, this third-generation, headed up by Don Roberto, has focused on innovation, and they have built a plant for processing the cherries in line with strict environmental guidelines. They have also branched into cultivating other plants for local consumption, such as avocados, roses and lemons as well as growing a new grass innovation.

There's a big toffee at the start of this - it's really chewy with a sweetness which reminds me of treacle toffee. As soon as that initial toffee goes, there's a hazelnut which jumps in, before it finishes with a little dark chocolate.

• Country: Guatemala

Clean cup (1–8): 6

Total: (max. 100): 87

Roasting Information

We're now into our fourth wonderful year of having coffee from Ana Sora, and I'm as excited this year as I was back in 2016!

My inbox has been full of emails asking for more, more, more Ana Sora! Well, here you go folks. 😀

In the past we only had a naturally processed coffee (check it out here!) from the farm. This year we also have a washed version. Make sure you try them side by side if you get the chance, so you can enjoy the delicious variations that the different processing methods bring to the cup.

This private farm is owned by Israel Degfa, a second-generation coffee grower from Ethiopia and as coffee farms go, it's a very new farm: it was only formed in 2013. It's located at a whopping altitude of between 1,900 and 2,350 metres above sea level. It's a gorgeous but somewhat tiring walk to get there! (It's not all just holiday snaps, this coffee buying malarkey!)

It is unusual to find private farms of 250 hectares in Ethiopia, and even more unusual to find them at such high altitudes. The altitude helps with the slower maturation of the coffee cherry and allows more time for the plant to develop, which contributes to the super unique cup profile we see in coffees from Ethiopia.

Coffee growing is popular in this area, and Israel also sources coffee from the surrounding area. That area is populated by smallholder farmers who speak Oromife and are of Oromo ethnicity. Israel believes in helping these farmers through education in husbandry, and also through financial assistance.

The classic washed Yirgacheffe flavours are right there: black tea with a bergamot edge. The classic floral notes are there too, reminding me of apple blossom. There's also a delicate baker's chocolate in the finish, and a white sugar sweetness that lifts this into something very special.

• Country: Ethiopia

Clean cup: (1–8): 7

Total: (max. 100): 89

Roasting Information

I took my very first trip to Kenya back in 2014. My aim was not to meet producers but rather to get an insight into how the market works, and how we can improve the quality of the coffee we buy from Kenya.

Much of Kenya's coffee comes from cooperatives, which means it's tough to go to visit a person or build a long-term relationship. That said, it is possible to get something interesting going and to work on projects together by speaking with the leaders of the co-ops and washing stations.

Othaya Farmer's Cooperative is based at the Gatuyaini wet mill, just north of Othaya town. In the town there's a cupping room (and a talented QC person) and a new addition: a small roastery (where they hope to develop a market for their coffee inside Kenya). Othaya has many different wet mills in the co-operative, and we buy from one of the smallest – Chinga. Situated just south of Othaya town, the mill was built in the 1960s on the banks of the Gikira river.

The mill has some 783 members, and each member owns only a small piece of land of an average 0.3 acres. Members of co-operatives pick their coffee cherries and deliver them to a local mill like Chinga. At Chinga, the workers collect the cherries and, when they have enough, they put them through the washed process as a batch. Such a batch is called an Outturn.

For each Outturn, the cherries are sorted before being depulped and emptied into large vats filled with clean, cold water. The cherries ferment there until the remaining fruit parts have come away from the beans. They get floated (which separates out the ripe, dense beans from lower quality ones) before being dried on raised beds.

When I think Kenyan coffee I think blackcurrant, and that's in there. But there's also citrus, which makes me think of pink grapefruit and blood orange, and a little nudge of pomegranate. It's crisp and refreshing, but a little caramel on the aftertaste leaves a lingering sweetness.

• Country: Kenya

Clean cup: (1–8): 7

Total (max. 100): 89

Roasting Information

Brewing Tip

Rafael and Carmen De Silva were the first producers I ever met in El Salvador, and Finca La Fany was the first farm I ever visited in El Salvador. This is a relationship that goes all the way back to 2003, and I consider this to be a real foundation stone coffee for Hasbean.

Finca La Fany has been producing coffee in El Salvador since 1870, and it's belonged to the same family from generation to generation. Situated on the Santa Ana volcano, the farm provides work for 24 families in the community. It's in a biological corridor that stretches for 27 hectares from Mexico to Panama. It grows mostly Bourbon, but also has a small amount of Pacamara.

Carmen and Rafael continually invest in the milling of their own coffee and improving the facilities they have, which has really driven this shade-grown coffee to just get better and better year after year. We think you can really taste the continuous development in the cup; this is one of our all-time favourites, and it's one of the coffees that we'd be absolutely devastated to lose if we were ever unable to get it.

This is one of the cleanest Natural processed coffees you'll find. It's green apple with just a hint of a cider edge to it, and shifts into raisins on the finish. As it fades, there's chocolate in the aftertaste, which pulls you back in for another sip.

• Country: El Salvador

Clean cup: (1–8): 8

Total: (max. 100): 87.5

Roast Information