In My Mug

This coffee's farm is located in a region that is well known for some of the most interesting coffees, as well as some of the most renowned coffees, in Guatemala, Antigua.

It is produced by Alex Illescas, and he grows it on his grandfather's farm. His grandfather has owned the farm for just over 50 years, working the land and selling the cherry along as a commodity coffee because they have no mill with which to process their own coffee. The farm is located at 1,400 metres above sea level in Ciudad Vieja.

Alex had an idea that he wanted to produce amazing, interesting and challenging coffee for the specialty market. So, with the blessing of his grandfather and with help from his uncle, he used the farm to experiment with varietals and processing methods to see what might improve cup quality. This coffee is the result of those experiments. It's dangerous to do something like this, so the lots are small – but they're large enough that this could have caused financial hardship if something had gone wrong. The lucky thing is that, in the cup, this gamble has really paid off.

When I visited Alex you could see how excited he was, and you could see how proud he was about the coffee. All the time I was there I was praying the coffee would be as good as the story, and I'm pleased to report that it's even better.

In the cup expect a boozy body that's like sherry mixed with cream, a candied lemon and white sugar sweetness that finishes off with blueberry muffin.

• Country: Guatemala

Clean Cup: (1-8): 6.5

Total: (max 100): 89

Roasting Information

"Quick Look" Guide

The Vieira Ferreira family has specialised in coffee production for three generations and is now headed by Adolfo Vieira Ferreira, whose attention to detail and commitment to producing top-class specialty coffee is second to none.

The farm employs a high number of skilled workers to carry out most of the production process by hand, in order to guarantee quality. They do everything, from soil preparation for planting to hand-picking the ripe cherries. In return, the farm looks after its workers. Permanent workers and their families live on-site and are provided with schooling for their children, professional training and environmental education.

The farm also takes environmental sustainability seriously and abides by all Brazilian environmental protection laws. Its native forests are set aside as protected reserves and are often visited by tourists, school children and ecologists. The farm also regularly plants new trees, particularly around its water sources, in order to maintain the local ecosystem.

Passeio’s coffee is picked by hand only when the cherries reach an advanced stage of ripeness, to avoid processing green beans.

Every now and again a coffee varietal comes along and I know nothing about it, every time it happens I'm reminded why I love coffee varietals and their complexity so much. It’s always kinda been my thing; I went through a spell of writing lots of them up (see here).

This varietal of this coffee is Arara and it originates from the crossing between Yellow Catuai and Obatã (Hybrid of Timor) varieties. It was developed on an experimental farm of the Procafé Foundation in Varginha, Brazil.

The experiment has been part of an on going project in Brazil where many new varietals are being discovered – Procafé found that Arara is one of the most successful to date in both yield and in cup quality – so much so that the Arara seeds are the most requested at Procafé for new seedlings! It’s excelled so much even at this early experiment phase.

The next stage of the experiment is to see how it performs on farms and on a larger scale in the planting dissemination.

Arara is a yellow fruiting coffee, with a high resistance to leaf rust, good productivity and high quality potential.

In the cup dark chocolate is dominant in a big big way, like high % cocoa dark chocolate. There's also brown sugar, hazelnut, walnut and dark chocolate is back on the finish but this time it's very Cadbury's Bournville.

• Country: Brazil

Clean cup: (1–8): 6

Total: (max. 100): 86

Roasting Information

Quick Look Guide

Due to the complications within the Bolivian coffee industry, many of the smaller Bolivian farms we have worked with in the past are no longer producing coffee. Whilst this has created some challenges for us, it has had a much more significant impact on our exporting partners AgriCafe, who have been working with these growers for many years. As a result AgriCafe have decided to begin farming for themselves, in an effort to demonstrate what can be achieved with the application of more modern techniques and a scientific farming approach.

The farm is named in honour of Don Carlos, the oldest and most unconditionally awesome employee of AgriCafe. He was there at the start of the specialty coffee trend and, together with Pedro, helped to build the wet mill in Caranavi. To show their gratitude for all his good work, the company decided to give him partnership of the farm.

Finca Don Carlos is a very unique farm planted with all the care and dedication of Don Carlos himself. The farm sits at an altitude of between 1,546 and 1,650 metres above sea level, and it is located in Caranavi, which is the capital of the Caranavi province in the Yungas region of Bolivia.

In the cup this is super clean and transparent, think white grape juice with extra spoons of sugar mixed in. In the aftertaste there are delicate apricots and summer fruits. Super long aftertaste.

• Country: Bolivia

Clean cup: (1–8): 7

Total (max. 100): 89

Roasting Information

"Quick Look" Guide

This coffee's farm is located in a region that is well known for some of the most interesting coffees, as well as some of the most renowned coffees, in Guatemala, Antigua.

It is produced by Alex Illescas, and he grows it on his grandfather's farm. His grandfather has owned the farm for just over 50 years, working the land and selling the cherry along as a commodity coffee because they have no mill with which to process their own coffee. The farm is located at 1,400 metres above sea level in Ciudad Vieja.

Alex had an idea that he wanted to produce amazing, interesting and challenging coffee for the specialty market. So, with the blessing of his grandfather and with help from his uncle, he used the farm to experiment with varietals and processing methods to see what might improve cup quality. This coffee is the result of those experiments. It's dangerous to do something like this, so the lots are small – but they're large enough that this could have caused financial hardship if something had gone wrong. The lucky thing is that, in the cup, this gamble has really paid off.

They chose the honeying process, because all they needed for that was a pulper and some space to dry the coffee. Alex used his uncle's roof on his home in town as the drying patio, and they took it in turns to keep the coffee turning and moving.

When I visited Alex you could see how excited he was, and you could see how proud he was about the coffee. All the time I was there I was praying the coffee would be as good as the story, and I'm pleased to report that it's even better.

In the cup you're going to find a fruity and sweet coffee, at the start there's cherry and a little bit of mixed berry tied up with a brown sugar sweetness and malty finish.

• Country: Guatemala

Clean Cup: (1-8): 6

Total: (max 100): 87

Roasting Information

"Quick Look" Guide

Finca San José is 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 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 north-western slope of an extinct volcanic crater that holds inside it a small lagoon. The lagoon is named Nymph Lagoon, due to the abundance of water lilies.

San José has seventeen full-time workers performing several activities, such as shade tree and coffee pruning, vegetative tissue renewing, and weed control. All of this work is done skillfully by hand. Approximately 60 more seasonal workers assist in the harvest process, earning their livelihood from picking and selecting coffee cherries only at the peak of ripeness. The people who harvest coffee have extensive experience and share a commitment of growing a superior quality coffee.

Gloria believes in maintaining highly motivated staff; the farm's permanent workers are receiving almost 10% above the legal wage, while the seasonal workers received almost 50% more during harvest due to the importance of this specific task for the coffee's end quality.

One of Gloria’s major blessings is to have Antonio Avelino as her farm manager or 'mandador'. His level of commitment, knowledge and shared philosophy of quality makes him an integral part of this effort.

At Finca San José, coffee goes through extensive quality control in addition to being grown under standards that support specialty coffee production. The unique micro-climate 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 is grown mainly to Bourbon variety.

Some other works done to the farm this past year included three foliar fertilizations and two soil fertilizations, including one of organic fertilizer named 'Huisil', which is based on soil studies to ensure specific requirements. Where possible, workers ply the farm with stem bending or 'agobio', and they perform coffee shade pruning to balance sunlight and shade requirements under sustainable levels. They also perform weed control, mainly manually.

One of Gloria’s commitments is to reinvest an important share of the economic benefits from this activity into the farms, impacting the people who toil the fields and maintaining the quality of the production chain from seed to cup.

In the cup this coffee hits you with Cherry Cola, both acidity and sweetness wise. It's so dominant that unless you look you will miss the cherry and chocolate finish, a delicious espresso.

• Country: El Salvador

Clean Cup: (1-8): 6

Total: (max 100): 88

Roasting Information

"Quick Look" Guide

La Pira is located in the high altitude Dota Valley of the Tarrazu region: an area that was known for producing great coffees. This relatively young estate is only 50 years old and is owned by the founder’s son, Carlos Urena Ceciliano. He has worked the farm for 18 years; however, he has worked in coffee all his life.

We first found this coffee in the Cup of Excellence in 2009, and we were pleased to be reunited with it only recently after a lot of effort and hard work. Last year year it proved tricky to secure, stretching both my pocket and patience, but it was well worth it, thankfully this year things were a little less stretchy!

After inheriting the family farm Carlos worked for many years as a certified organic coffee producer, but he realised doing so was just not possible on this farm. Organic coffee is good, but not possible for everyone. The yield was very very affected. So Carlos looked for alternatives, while still holding the organic principles very close to his heart. For instance, instead of using chemicals to control the weeds, sheep roam freely amongst the coffee plants and eat the weeds (and strangely leave the coffee plants alone). They work as automatic and mobile "fertilisation units" (nature’s a wonderful thing). This has eliminated the need for herbicides. This is the kind of thinking Carlos has about coffee.

When I visit the farm Carlos often tells me about how he wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea of how he can improve production, change the way the coffee is harvested and processed, and how systems can be improved upon. I too suffer from this type of sleep deprivation, relating to ideas popping into the head, so I can empathise about this.

During one of these late night bursts of inspiration, Carlos thought that using the coldest water he could would be the best way of processing the cherry. During the night the Dota Valley gets a really sharp, cold breeze, and it runs through the whole farm. He had noticed the way the water on the mill roof, which sprinkled from processing, was almost frosting up. So he created a sprinkling system and a zinc ramp that the water runs across before hitting the cherries in the fermentation tank.

I am convinced that these little details are what makes this coffee so very very special, and you can taste it in the cup. I don't think it’s the processing so much, but Carlos' care and attention to the very smallest detail.

We have chased this coffee ever since we first had it many years ago from the Cup of Excellence program. Due to its low yield it's been tough to get our hands on it, but I pestered the exporter we partner with in Costa Rica so much that I got my wonderful and wicked way! In every Skype call and every email I begged them to sort this one out. Even after visiting it wasn't easy, and what is here is a really small lot, but I think you will love it.

In the cup expect green apple like acidity, with delicate florals, mixed with caramel and toffee sweetness, a very special coffee.

• Country: Costa Rica

Green apple, floral, caramel, toffee.

Clean Cup: (1-8): 8

Total: (max 100): 90

Roasting Information

"Quick Look" Guide

The Rwenzoris are famously known as the ‘Mountains of the Moon’. They stretch for 120 km along the Western Ugandan border with the D.R. Congo. The snow capped peaks reach 5,109m asl with glaciers forming rivers which feed the valleys below. The area is home to the Bakonzo tribe, a proud and strong people that have farmed the foothills of the Rwenzori for generations. While Uganda produces large volumes of low-grown robusta coffee, the high altitude, fertile soils and plentiful rainfall of the Rwenzoris provides perfect growing conditions for fine Arabica coffee. Coffee offers the Bakonzo farmers a stable income that allows them to support their families and develop their homes with many farms also produce cassava, maize, beans and groundnuts for local consumption and additional income.

The Bakonzo Farmers are located in the West of Kasese District. The Bukonzo county is divided into many sub-counties including Kisinga, Kyondo, Kyarumba, Munkunyu, Mahango, Nyakatonzi and Isango. The area has many small towns situated on the lowlands, which are joined by good road networks. These towns provide ideal locations for coffee processing and are home to many farmer groups and processing facilities including Kisinga station which focusses on specialty Arabica production. Farms are, on average, 2 acres in size with families working by hand before collaborating with other groups in the community to process and market the coffee, an approach known as ‘share farming’.

The farmers harvest their coffee by hand, carefully selecting the ripe cherries. The cherries are then pre-sorted, before being floated in a tank of water. The high quality cherries sink to the bottom, while the less dense cherries float on the surface. The floaters are removed leaving only the best cherries for processing. These are then sun-dried on raised tables for the first week, after which they are transferred to tarpaulins for the remainder of the drying period. Farmers carefully turn the cherries throughout the day ensuring uniform drying. Once dried to the required moisture content, the coffee is hulled at primary processing facility in Kisinga Town. After hulling, the coffee beans undergo a final sorting, removing any black beans or defects. The coffee is then bagged and transported to Kyagalanyi’s new dry mill in Namanve on the outskirts of Kampala. Here it is prepared for export through Mombasa.

In the cup you get punched full on by blueberry and blackcurrant, mixed in with a dark chocolate bitterness and sweetness. This coffee really shows its colours in the espresso and milk drinks where it takes on more red berry notes with some blueberry pie.

• Country: Uganda

Total: (max 100): 88

One of my all-time favourite farms returns! We welcome it back with the widest of arms, it's so, so special. I often get asked what my favourite coffee of all time is but I will never say exactly (although my friends know the true answer). However, I do narrow it to three coffees, and this is one of them.

I went to El Salvador in 2008 on a buying trip, and I was visiting some of the farms that we buy from. I actually arrived the evening of the Cup of Excellence awards, and after the ceremony I was walking around when this guy who seemed very popular came over to me and introduced himself. He was Ernesto or, as I would come to know him, Neto. He'd just won the Cup of Excellence competition with his 'La Ilusión' farm, the sister farm of 'Alaska'. Alaska is a farm we had bought from via the Cup of Excellence the year before. Ernesto invited me to visit La Ilusión the next day, and it was so great to finally meet someone I had communicated with so many times via email!

Neto bought La Ilusión nine years ago. The farm has coffee trees averaging nineteen years of age and is growing 95% Bourbon (70% is red Bourbon and 25% is Orange Bourbon). The remaining 5% is a combination of other varietals, and it is possible to spot some Typica and Kenya trees.

The farm is run using environmentally friendly practices because they are trying to maintain a balance with the surrounding ecosystem, which is part of a natural fauna corridor crucial to migratory and native birds. This is very important for Ernesto because La Ilusión neighbours one of the most important national parks in El Salvador, known as 'Los Andes'. It is nestled on the Santa Ana volcano and delineates his farm with dense pine and cypress forest, which itself provides a special micro-climate for La Ilusión.

The naturally processed version of this coffee was used by the 2011 World Barista champion, Alejandro Mendez. He caused a bit of a stir in the world of barista competition by using the naturally processed lot in his milk drinks and his signature drink, and then using the washed version (this coffee) as his espresso. He caused such a stir that he won! That year I had roasted the coffee for Alejandro, and it had been grown by Neto. There was a magical moment backstage in which I was stood, polishing glass, with Alejandro and Neto; the grower, roaster and barista all stood together, preparing for the presentation. It's not too often you get such wonderful things happening! Aah, the wonders of barista competition. :)

In the cup I get Fruit Salad sweets, a lot of white sugar, and candied lemon. A very clean, sweet and delicious coffee.

• Country: El Salvador

Clean cup: (1–8): 8

Total: (max. 100): 94

Roasting Information

"Quick Look" Guide

We had very little information about this farm when we first found it in 21013 – so little information that the coffee didn’t even have a name! Back then all we knew was that the coffee was grown by Carlos Arrieta and it was delicious, but since then I've been lucky enough to visit the farm on trips to Costa Rica and, over the past few years, have found out lots more. Let me tell you what I know so far ...

I first got to meet Carlos at the exporter's office on the last day of my visit to Costa Rica in 2013. He arrived around ten minutes after I had cupped the first table of coffees, where I had found one lot that was making me sing. It just had to be his coffee.

Here ensued the worst negotiation to ever take place in the history of coffee buying ...

"How much do you want?" I asked.

Luckily at this point a grown-up from the exporter's office stepped in and made sure I didn't give Carlos my house, car and pension plan. We agreed a price that rewarded Carlos with more than he had ever got before and left me with a home to return to in Stafford.

The year before last I got to spend some time with Carlos and his family. I stopped for some lunch, hung out and asked lots of questions. First of all there's the mill, which is called Arbar and is very close to the house. It has drying tables and a small nursery, but it didn't have a deplulper (more about this later). The mill was brand new, and before it existed they would just sell their coffee to the local coop and so have no interaction with the coffee.

Then I found out that they own two small farms; this coffee is from the farm El Manatial, which was a new farm to us in 2014 but is now back for yet another year after being a massive favourite over the past few years. The farm is located in the Western Valley region near to the town of Lourdes de Naranjo. It's located at 1,600 meters above sea level and contains mostly Caturra, Catuai + a tiny bit of Villa Sarchi, there are also plans to plant some small micro lots too in the future. The farm produces between 700 - 1,400kg a year.

Carlos runs the farm with his wife and children, Maria Isabel, Yesica, Karen, Stephen and Jose Ignacio. He has owned this farm for sixteen years but only started processing the coffee himself in 2014 (while still paying someone else to pulp it for him). He hadn't been able to present his coffee to a single buyer previously, so he would send it to the exporter we use in Costa Rica and, thankfully, that's how we found him!

You may remember that two years ago the coffee was priced a little differently; our normal, nicely rounded-down price was not there. The coffee should have been sold for £7.50 (we negotiated a small price drop from the previous year because we bought everything from both farms, and this worked out that there were some economies of scale compared to the £10.00 of 2013), but we charged £7.88. Well, this was so that we (by “we” I mean “you”) could buy Carlos and his family a depulper for his next harvest. This meant he didn’t have to pay someone else to pulp his coffee, and he could gain more control of his amazing coffee.

I lent the money to Carlos, because I promised you would pay it back (and you did!). You can go and see what your generosity bought at the blog post here.

Last year one of my roasting team, Roland (of 'Roland's Daft Fact' fame), travelled to Costa Rica to be on the jury for their Cup of Excellence competition. If you ever wondered what a coffee roaster from the UK would get up to if let loose in Costa Rica, you should have a read about his trip in Roland Glew's Costa Rican Adventure.

In the cup you can expect the traditional amazing Costa Rican milk chocolate and caramel sweetness but here it's doing a dance partnered with a delicate apricot and peach acidity. In the finish there's also a super clean hit of pineapple.

• Country: Costa Rica

Clean cup: (1–8): 7

Total: (max. 100): 91

This coffee comes from the Abahuzamugambi ba kawa Maraba Cooperative (what a name!!) in the Huye district of the southern province of Rwanda.

Abahuzamugambi ba kawa Maraba is one of Rwanda’s first coffee cooperatives that today manages four washing stations: Sovu, Kibingo; Kabuye and Cyarumbu. Now counting with 1,372 members, the cooperative has grown to encompass various sectors of the Huye district, providing not only services associated with the milling and marketing of coffee but also improvement of local livelihoods through providing health care and other social programming.

Maraba itself was created in 2001 – one of the first coffee cooperatives (if not the very first) to arise in the wake of in of the devastating 1994 genocide and the 1990s world coffee crash. Sovu washing station began operating in 2005: currently around 500 producers deliver their cherry here and the washing station produces about 18 metric tonnes of exportable green coffee annually.

Most of the small scale producers with whom Maraba works own less than a quarter of a hectare of land, where they cultivate an average of only 250 – 300 coffee trees each as well as other subsistence food crops such as maize and beans. The cooperative gives these small farmers the chance to combine their harvests and process cherries centrally.

Before the proliferation of washing stations such as Sovu, the norm in Rwanda was for small farmers to sell semi-processed cherries on to a middleman, and the market was dominated by a single exporter. This commodity focused system – coupled with declining world prices in the 1990s – brought severe hardship to farmers, some of whom abandoned coffee entirely. Today, it’s a different picture. Farmers who work with Maraba have seen their income increase substantially and for the last 6 years, Maraba has won at least one lot to the Cup of Excellence competition.

The level of care that Maraba takes over the processing is impressive. Cherries are hand-picked only when fully ripe and then pulped that same evening using a mechanical pulper that divides the beans into three grades by weight. After pulping, the coffee is fermented overnight (for around 12 hours) and then graded again using flotation channels that sort the coffee by weight (the heaviest – or A1 – usually being the best). The wet parchment is then soaked in water for between 18 and 24 hours to stabilise moisture content.

As at most washing stations in Rwanda, women do the majority of the hand sorting. This takes place in two stages – on the covered pre-drying tables and on the drying tables. Washed beans are moved from the wet fermentation tanks onto the pre- drying tables, where they are intensively sorted under shade for around six hours. The idea is that greens (unripes) are still visible when the beans are damp, while the roofs over the tables protect the beans from the direct sunlight. Next, the beans are moved onto the washing station’s extensive drying tables for around 14 days (depending on the weather), where they are sorted again for defects, turned regularly and protected from rain and the midday sun by covers, ensuring both even drying and the removal of any damaged or ‘funny looking’ beans. After reaching 11% humidity, the coffee is then stored in parchment in CWS purpose-built warehouse prior to final dry-milling and hand-sorting at the Cooperative’s brand new dry mill in Kigali. Each coffee that arrives is also cupped by the Q-graders of Maraba’s exporting partner, Rwashocco.

Lots are usually separated out by days. Upon delivery as cherry, the coffee receives a paper ‘ticket’ that follows the lot through all its processing. This ticket bears the date of harvest and the grade (A1, A2 etc) of the. This simple but effective practice is a crucial tool in controlling quality and ensuring the traceability of lots. In addition to the great work that the cooperative does with quality improvement and assurance, they also have various social programs that greatly contribute to the livelihoods of their members. School fees and medical insurance are provided along with training in quality and productivity in cultivation of coffee.

Rwanda is a country that has a troubled past. In the early 1990s, coffee was Rwanda’s most lucrative export with the country exporting 45,000 tonnes of it in 1990. Events in the 1990s, however, decimated Rwanda’s coffee industry. Most importantly, the 1994 genocide claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans, destroying Rwanda’s economy and erasing much of the specialised knowledge needed to export coffee profitably. Simultaneously, world coffee prices plummeted in the 1990s due to increased worldwide production and consolidation of purchasing by multinational corporations.

In the cup this starts off very sweet with a typical Bourbon sweetness, makes me think of Dolly Mixtures, a really sugary sweet coffee. This is followed up by creamy lychee and milk chocolate on the finish.

• Country: Rwanda

Clean Cup: (1-8): 7

Total: (max 100) : 88