In My Mug

Finca Noruega is located in the volcanic Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range, Apaneca, Ahuachapán. It consists of 27 hectares at an altitude of approximately 1,600 meters above sea level. This is quite high for Apaneca and it has an awful lot of shady trees (not trees of questionable character: trees that provide precious shade for the coffee trees). This makes the crop mature much more slowly than some of the other farms: this means the coffee really only comes into full production towards what is thought to be the end of the season in El Salvador. The farm grows both Bourbon, as in this case, and a small amount of Pacamara. In total the farm produces around 400 bags which is really not so big.

It's owned by our friends Carmen and Rafael who you may recognise from the other amazing coffee farms Finca Siberia and Finca La Fany. The name for this farm is one of those amazing love stories of boy meets girl. I'll let Carmen tell the story in her words...

"This farm has a romantic tint to it. Rafael´s grandparents met in San Francisco, California, when young around the 1930s. Sara Valdivieso Borja was from El Salvador and sent to school in California; she met Ralph Hoff, another student, who came to San Francisco to study all the way from Norway. They fell in love, got married and established their residence in El Salvador after renaming the farm Noruega (“Norway” in English) on behalf of the husband Ralph. He learned to work and love the land, and he made it prosper. They had an only child, Thelma, who continued the legacy through her 5 children."

A lovely story and a lovely coffee.

In the cup you get a beautiful blast of green apple acidity, that's followed right up with a buttery mouthfeel that dominates the mouth. It then goes in another direction of dark chocolate sweetness and a gentle white grape acidity that keeps you coming back for more.

• Country: El Salvador

This is from my early 2013 trip to Guatemala. We never bought directly from Guatemala before 2 year ago; this has become one of our strongest and amazing relationships.My friend in Guatemala has been buying from these guys for a couple of years now and was very keen for me to go meet them. Located around an hour's drive to the east of Guatemala City in the small town of Palencia, this farm sits at an altitude of around 1600-1800 meters above sea level. It's owned by Guadalupe Alberto Reyes who used to be the Mayor of Palencia and has helped to build and develop the town.

Palencia is not part of the 8 regions of coffee from Anacafe, but you can see a lot of development in that zone. San Patricio el Limon is a perfect example of this. I like being in places that are working to be hot and up and coming, as well as those that are established players.

The farm produces mainly Caturra and Bourbon, and does some experimentation with Pacamara.

In fact the experimentation comes from the motivation of “Beto,” who in the last three years has really focused on the farm. He wanted to take more care in every step they take, from picking to processing to shipping, and also in the agronomy of the farm. This is very much a family affair; his wife and son also work on the farm, along with Beto's siblings. In fact his son is actually studying agronomy at the local college, for the benefit of the farm.

The dedication and care in each step is reflected in the fact that they have built up a new wet mill so they can separate different lots and have control over the quality of the coffee. Previously the mill could just process one lot; now they are able to process many lots and keep separate day's pickings and varietals in their own parcels.

This coffee is a Caturra variety comes from one section of the farm called Pie Del Cerro, that nicknamed  "Poco inglaterra". Its Beto's favourite part, and has had the best production for many years, and is exclusively for us. Its the higest part of the farm at 1800 masl.

Since beginning to work with Beto he continues to invest in the farm, this year the visit showed us lots of new planting, and a lot of building work around the wet mill, he is also building a QC lab, and new accommodation for people working on the farm, it was a real hive of activity. 

Everytime I visit the farm Beto and his family are the perfect hosts, welcoming me around the farm and into his home, and always preparing the most amazing meal. When you travel as much as I do, mid-trip you find yourself longing for something big and home cooked and not from a restaurant or roadside pop-up cafe. This traditional Guatemalan meals are just the ticket and I always look forwards to the food, but mainly the company. 

So in the cup it starts off as sweet milk chocolate, with a wonderful satsuma orange acidity of the first time we tasted this coffee comes running back, along with a brown sugar sweetness, and a silky mouthfeel.

• Farm: San Patricio El Limon

Finca La Escondida is close to Lake Apanas, near the town of Jinotega. The straight translation from Spanish to English of 'escondida' is ‘hidden’. The farm is named because it is 'hidden' from the road by forest and trees, which makes it appear to blend right into the side of the mountain. It is a young farm: the first trees were planted there in 2006. La Escondida is planned around identifying the plots with individually different micro-environments resulting from factors such as soil quality, sun exposure and temperature range. This is one of the upsides of starting to plant a new farm.

This is the Catuai varietal, which you don't see so much in specialty coffee. The varietal was selected for this farm because it was thought it would do very well with the identified soil quality, sun exposure, temperature range and weather conditions in particular, given the farm's quite exposed on the side of the mountain.

Catuai is related to Yellow Caturra and Mundo Novo, and it's a hybrid that grows best at 800 metres above sea level. It is mostly prevalent in Brazil and central / South America. This is a dwarf variety of plant; it doesn't grow very high, and this is its most obvious distinguishing trait. Selected by the instituto Agronomico in the 1950s–1960s, it now accounts for 50% of the coffee acreage in Brazil and is widely used in Central America. It also benefits from the fruit not falling off the branch easily, which helps when there are strong winds or rain, or where wind breaker coverage is at a minimum like it is here.

Some of the downsides of starting a brand new farm can be that it may take a while for the quality of the cup profile to build up, it might take time to have the right facilities for processing and picking, and it might take time to train the staff for picking and processing. Not to mention that it might take a while to achieve the yield to go with it all. But this farm, for me, has hit the whole group of requirements running. As a result of their experience in the area, the Mierisch family have built a new mill with a huge investment, and they use some of the people already in place in the neighbouring 'San Jose' to blend together an Escondida team comprising experienced and new members.

I love this coffee for being so different to the others we have brought in. It's super clean, very zesty andzingy, with hints of raspberry and lime; but it also has a lovely body of caramel that sits on the palate for an age, and a delicious and long-lingering aftertaste.

• Country: Nicaragua

This is the third year of us having this coffee, and we are finding out more about the farm piece by piece. When we first found it in 2013 we had very little information on the farm; so much so that it didn’t even have a name!

I've been lucky enough to visit the farm on my trips to Costa Rica, and over the past 2 years I've found out lots more and also built a stronger relationship going forwards. Let me tell you what I know so far...

I first got to meet Carlos in 2013, at the exporter's office on the last day of my visit in Costa Rica. He arrived around 10 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 ever to take place for buying coffee.

"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 more than he had ever gotten before and left me with a home to return to in Stafford.

Back then this coffee was just called Carlos Arietta, because that was all we knew about it.

Last year on my return visit I got to spend some time with the family. I stopped for some lunch, hung out and asked lots of questions. First of all there's the mill, which is called Arbar, which is very close to the house. Here they have drying tables and a small nursery. They didn't have a deplulper, but more about this later. The mill is new; before 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 one being El Oasis, which provided the coffee we bought in 2013. The farm is located in the Western Valley region near to the town of Lourdes de Naranjo. It's located at 1,600 metres above sea level and contains mostly Caturra, and a tiny bit of Villa Sarchi, with plans to plant some small micro lots in the future. The farm produces between 700–1,400 KG a year.

Carlos runs the farm with his wife and his children, Maria Isabel, Yesica, Karen, Stephen and Jose Ignacio. He has owned this farm for 15 years but only started processing the coffee himself in 2014 (while still paying someone to pulp it for him — more on this later). He hadn't been able to present his coffee to a buyer previously, so he would send it to the exporter we use in Costa Rica.

Last year you may remember that 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 works out that there are 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.

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

This 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, then you should have a read about his trip in Roland Glew's Costa Rican Adventure.

In the cup it's like someone has slipped in a big glug of 5 Alive Tropical Hit fruit juice. It's all peachesand pineapples, with a really complex but delicious fruit sweetness.

• Country: Costa Rica

A staple; a huge, special coffee we love very much and we are pleased to see it back for its 9th season. A massive coffee.

I already loved this coffee before I got to try it at El Bosque. I mean that I was truly blown away with how good it tasted. However, my first visit to the farm in January 2007 made me love it some more because I got to meet the fantastic people behind the coffee.

Don Roberto and his two brothers have tried to move away from generic commercial coffee by raising their growing and milling standards, and you can really tell in the cup. During another visit in 2009, I got talking to Francisco about the Bourbon and asked if it would it be possible to split the red and yellow beans to compare the results. Of course, I could only really ask them to do this for me if we bought all of the coffee, and we were delighted to do so. Nowhere else in the world will you be able to try this famous coffee using just the specific Red Bourbon varietal.

Julian Flores founded Finca El Bosque in 1932. The 14-hectare extension of land was planted out with Bourbon varietal coffee and grew over the next few years with the purchase of additional land. Julian Flores died in 1947 and his only son, José Eladio Flores, continued in his father’s footsteps. In 1970, Jose bought another 23 hectares and planted the same Bourbon coffee varietal. Since his death in 1996, a third generation has taken charge under the direction of José’s widow, Martha Stalla, and their sons Julio, José, Francisco, and Mario.

The first two generations cultivated and sold coffee in cherry form only. Now the third generation has taken care to innovate and build a plant for processing the cherries in line with strict environmental guidelines. They have also diversified into growing other plants for local consumption such as avocado, roses, and lemons, as well as a new grass innovation.

El Bosque farm is located on a hillside running parallel and a way off from the main road near the capital, Guatemala City. It may be jeopardized by urban development in future, but in 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.

This coffee is a world exclusive; we buy every single Bourbon bean from this farm. The rest of the coffee we also bought this year and after the success of last year sent most of it for decaffeination. We are the only people you can get this current crop of coffee from.

In the cup expect smooth milk chocolate with a white grape acidity that's sweet and very pleasing, with hints of cherry and a spicy blast of black pepper in the aftertaste. Delicious espresso, delightful brewed coffee, and a real all rounder. 

• Country: Guatemala

This coffee comes from the Arusha, Arumeru district, in Northern Tanzania, on the lower slopes of Mount Meru (which rises to a whopping 4,565 metres). Arusha town centre is approximately 8 kilometres from the estates, but over recent years the urban sprawl has meant that the town has expanded up to the borders of the estates.

Burka was founded in 1899 by a German settler (a Mr. Rahn), who decided to plant coffee to send back to his native Germany. Burka covers 1,437 acres, of which 870 acres are coffee. The neighbouring estate, Selian, is also owned by the same group.

The estates have about 200 permanent staff as well as 200 daily causal staff; however, in the peak of the harvest season, there can be up to 5,000 staff involved in picking and processing.  All permanent staff are provided with housing on the estates (in four different camps), and the minimum salary is set at 20% above the government minimum requirement. Staff have social security and labour union membership included in their contracts, and an estate credit union also offers loans and advice for education, health, and house construction.

Each estate has its own nursery which educates over 100 children, and two primary schools also cater for over 600 children, who come from the estate workers' families and the neighbouring communities.  An on-site health centre with estate nurse and dispensary is available to meet the needs of all staff, and the estate has its own ambulance. It also has shops, sport facilities, churches, and a mosque.

Regular inter-estate and inter-camp football & netball matches occur, along with staff BBQs and other holiday celebrations. Workers are supplied with free firewood from stumped coffee trees, and fruit & nut trees are grown around the staff villages.

For the processing of this coffee ripe cherries are delivered to mill within 6 hours of picking, where they are graded, sorted, de-pulped and then fermented underwater for between 24-36 hours, depending on temperature, humidity and other factors. Burka has a natural spring which supplies the wet mill, which is then recirculated before disposal into seepage pits, constructed wetlands and settlement ponds. The mill at neighbouring Selian  draws its water from boreholes, which is then recirculated as above. The waste cherry pulp is mixed with worms and produce organic fertiliser, which is then re-used on the estates.

Parchment is then sorted and thoroughly rinsed in washing channels, and placed onto raised African drying tables. The drying period generally lasts for 5-7 days, until moisture level reaches 12% or lower, with regular turning, particularly in the first 48 hours to ensure even rates of drying. Parchment is transported to Moshi for milling and bagging, and then to Dar Es Salaam for export.

In the cup it's all about that mouthfeel, a super creamy cup that really reminds me of a massive fluffy marshmallow. There's peach acidity and brown sugar sweetness which overall makes it a bit like a toasted Flump.

• Country: Tanzania

This is one of my all time favourite farms back for a second year!  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. I will never say (although my friends know the true answer), but I say three, this is one of them.

I went to El Salvador in 2008 on a buying trip, visiting some of the farms that we buy from. I actually arrived the evening of the Cup of Excellence awards. 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 had 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 in Cup of Excellence the year before. Ernesto invited me to visit La Ilusión the next day. It was so great to finally meet someone I had communicated with so many times via email.

Neto bought La Ilusión 9 years ago. The farm has coffee trees averaging 19 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 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 sig drink then the washed (this coffee) as his espresso, such a stir that he won!  That year I had roasted the coffee for Alejandro that had been grown by Neto and there was a magical moment backstage where I was stood with Alejandro and Neto polishing glasses, the grower and roaster and barista all stood together preparing for the presentation, not too often you get such wonderful things happening!

In the cup I got fruit salad sweets (for those who don't know this is a very sweet fruits chewy sweet) all on the front end. A lovely pink lemonade acidity to match. Not over powering but completely inbalance with the whole cup. And this is what it does best, balance in the cup. Then it's the sweet sweet sticky chewy fruit salad aftertaste that just carries on and on and on.

• Country: El Salvador

The first time we came across this farm, it came as a very well presented sample that just landed on my doorstep. It came from someone who had visited the farm and offered to try to help find a buyer for them in the UK. We get lots of these and normally give them a try on the cupping table, but find they are just not good enough for us to stock. This one was quite different: the quality was amazing. So initially we stocked it, although we knew very little about it. Since that day, I've been to see Alejandro five times in El Salvador, the last two times stopping at his house with his family and enjoying a day at the beach. Alejandro has also been to see us in Stafford twice. We have worked with him on projects (some successful, others we will brush over); we have also told him what we would like to see from the farm (some he took on board, others he didn't he's the farmer after all).

Most importantly, he has become a very very good friend, and someone whose coffee I love and company I enjoy. Alejandro took over running the farm from his father a few years ago, having returned to El Salvador after travelling around the world as an investment banker. A very intelligent guy and a very good business man, he understood the farm needed to step up in work if it was to flourish: lots of work has gone into making this cup the quality one it has become. Part of this work last year was to separate the farm into tablons (the Spanish word for plot). It was separated into 8 plots, with 7 of them growing coffee.

This coffee comes from the highest part of the farm called San Jorge, which is about 3 manzanas with a production ranging from 25 to 40 bags of coffee. The tablon goes from 1,300 to 1,350 metres above sea level and is very hilly so difficult to pick.

Historically, the Owner's Selection coffee came from San Jorge (Alejandro told me his grandfather used to reserves some coffee for his personal use). It is interesting since from all his farms his grandfather used to own, over 250 manzanas, he picked San Jorge for his own coffee.

The coffee is 100% Bourbon, as 70% of plant stock in El Salvador is. This heirloom varietal is one of the reasons why coffee from this country is right up amongst some of the best in the world. They have the perfect climate and conditions for this low yielding, high maintenance strain.

The farm is based in the Apaneca-Ilamtepec mountain range near to the town of Turin in the Ahuachapan dept. During the non-picking season 16 people work on the farm, maintaining and tending to the plants. During the picking period this goes up to 50 people. The altitude of the farm is 1350m. The coffee is a washed process coffee, and is sun dried on patios.

This is a world exclusive for us and a coffee I'm certain you will enjoy. In the cup expect lots ofchocolatey sweetness like all great El Salvador Bourbons, but then there's a blast of oranges. I find this coffee balanced with a smooth and almost creamy body to it, in the aftertaste there's a waft ofpomegranate.

• Country: El Salvador 

El Libano is located in the traditional Guatemalan coffee region of Chimaltenango and is 21 hectares in size with 17.5 of them set aside for coffee production. Its owner is Herbert Estuardo Perez Liquidano, a third generation coffee producer on this farm.

Originally this farm was called La Pampa and was purchased by Mr Prudencio Perez Rosales in 1915. When he unfortunately passed away his daughters inherited the farm and divided it equally into three properties called La Pampa, San Juan and El Libano.  Herbert purchased El Libano in 1992.

In the early days of El Libano (or La Pampa I guess I should say) coffee was commercialized in cherry form with other farms and/or buyers who took it to local wet mills for the post harvest process. When coffee production at the farm increased, between 1958 and 1960, a wet mill was built on a lower part of the farm and drying fields were built in the higher parts. At that time, coffee was taken by workers on mules from the pulping area to the drying fields, down a narrow road, which as I'm sure you can imagine made work rather difficult. Later, in 1970, this was extended and thanks to increasing coffee sales they were able to buy a vehicle to let the mules get some rest.

Since then as I'm sure you guessed there have been many changes to the farm...they improved the quality of what they could produce via modernisation of the wet mill, the pulping area and in the drying process. In the drying area, they have increased the drying patios and added a guardiola dryer, which has the capacity of processing 40 quintales (4 kilos) of coffee. Besides producing delicious coffee El Libano also plays a really important role for the local people, the worked of the farm have been provided with equipped houses to live on the farm with their families and they've also built not just 1 but 2 modern swimming pools for workers and their families!

The farm sits at 1,350 metres above sea level and has a mixture of Typica, Catuaí, Caturra and Geisha, although this lot is just Caturra. It's our second year of working with this farm after working with them for the very first time last year, back then I said I had high hopes for the future and guess what, I was right ;)

In the cup you can expect to find a rather large Granny Smith green apple! It’s a super sweet superclean cup that finishes with a delicious aftertaste of mango.

• Country: Guatemala

An old favourite returns! But this time, it returns with a little more information.

Costa Rica Herbazu is a mill in the Naranjo region, which is the sixth canton in the province of Alajuela in Costa Rica. The canton covers an area of 126.62 square kilometres and has a population of 45,005 people.

Herbazu isn't a million miles from another of our old favourites: the amazing and lovely Licho! Like Licho, Herbazu is a family-run concern. It consists of 13 micro farms, owned by 5 brothers and 8 sisters who all have a say in the running and development of this farm/mill. I was lucky enough to visit Herbazu and meet some of the family in February 2011, February 2013 and again last year in January 2014.

When I visited I was fortunate enough to cup nearly 20 different lots of coffee from this farm (different days' picking, different parts of the farms, and different honeys of red and yellow); this lot shone head and shoulders, and little tippie-toes, above them all. On a blind cupping table of over 130 coffees this was one of my favourites. It was super special, and I hope you are going to feel the same about it too.

In the cup straight away you're going to get loads and loads of sticky-sweet toffee. Then there's a blast of lemon acidity (think sweet lemons) before the toffee marches back in with a massive hit of Nutella chocolate spread. There is a hint of candy floss there when brewed as espresso. Super sweet and delicious coffee.

• Country: Costa Rica