Tuesday 19, January 2010
Isais Cantillo Osa has been a 1st prize Cup of Excellence winner in Colombia with coffee of unique and complex beauty. Don Isais grows heirloom San Bernardo, Bourbon and Typica along with some Caturra. La Esperanza is located in the town of Suaza in the southern Huila Province. Isais’ shaded pre-drying is one of the critical elements of his coffees unique mouth feel. He nurtures and protects his coffee at one of the most vulnerable moments which creates more body and higher levels of sweetness. A rose petal aroma awakens the senses, leading to exuberant and balanced flavor notes of pineapple, raspberry, honey and cashew before finishing with a sultry sweet caramel finish.
La Piramide Reserva is comprised of the highest scoring coffees from the farmers of the ASORCAFE producer’s association. The farmers that make up ASORCAFE reinvest the premiums Stumptown pays them into their farms. As a result, quality each and every harvest has improved, but this lot represents the the best of their best. It's a tiny lot, so, if you like super sweet, juicy coffees, try some soon. Highly floral aromatics lure your senses into a heavy bodied cup full of watermelon, kiwi, homemade Colombian panella and white grape flavors.
La Piramide is produced by the farmers of the ASORCAFE producer’s association in Pedregal de Inza de Cauca. Over the course of the last three years, these producers have been able to buy more land, plant more trees, construct proper drying apparatuses and improve their standards of living with the premiums that Stumptown paid for their high quality coffee. As our model project in the region, we sent our own employees to Pedregal to learn from these farmers. Dried floral and red currant aromatics are presented in this cup alongside flavors of cranberry juice, raspberry leaf and orange zest with a sweetened cocoa finish.
Giovanny Liscano’s five lots from the 2008 harvest scored 89 points each on our cupping table, just one point shy of micro lot status. All five lots were added to our La Piramide blend becoming the backbone of that coffee last year. This year, Giovanny built parabolic beds to dry the coffee and improved his processing enough that three of his lots achieved micro lot status, which were then combined to become La Loma. Delicate floral fragrances highlight scents of ripe currant and blackberry as an introduction to flavors of blackberry, black cherry, toasted almond and chocolate offset by sparkling lime.
Alberto Rojas and his brother Alfonso produce coffee on their ten acre farm in Gaitania de Planadas de Tolima. The Rojas brothers have only been cultivating coffee for a handful of years now but have quickly become perennial micro lot producers for Stumptown. The coffee is depulped in traditional, manual depulping machines before being fermented in tiled tanks and slowly dried under the roofs of parabolic drying beds. High percentage cacao, caramel, maple, almond and sweet citrus notes are the staple flavors in this coffee.
Bwayi is one of the pearls in our East African Direct Trade program. We’ve been working closely with this group of farmers over the past three years. In addition to improved cherry selection and a return to double fermentation, a la the Kenyan style, we’ve now installed a pre-drying stage to the Bwayi process. This addition has given the coffee’s mouth feel pronounced depth. Our quality control team cupped through each day of the harvest to construct this lot of coffee. Violet and raisin aromatics open the flavor gates to perfectly clean notes of plum, black cherry and orange zest that are complemented by a syrupy body.
Stumptown has spent the last three years working directly with the farmers of the Kinyovu washing station in Burundi’s northern province of Kayanza. Over the course of these three harvests cherry selection improved. The fermentation process was changed to double fermentation with soaking extended to 24 hours. This season the folks at Kinyovu have even added a pre-drying stage to their process which increases the weight of the coffee’s mouth feel. Peach blossom aromatics invite the senses to swan dive into a cup laden with ripe peach, white grape, lemon zest and brown sugar flavors.
The Gatomboya Factory faces the Gaturiri Factory directly across the valley. Both washing stations are part of the Barichu Cooperative union. 700 small holder coffee farmers make up the membership of the Gatomboya Factory. Each farmer grows only SL28 and SL34 on their high altitude farms. Coffee cherries are selected for optimum ripeness then graded meticulously at the washing station before being accepted and processed with the utmost care in true Kenyan fashion. This classic Kenya profile moves seamlessly from a creamy apricot aroma to rhubarb pie, black cherry, fruit punch and a clean chocolate finish.
The Muyongwe washing station, located in the northern Rwandan province of Gakenke, is part of the Tuzamure Kawa cooperative system. Over 1200 small holder coffee farmers deliver their cherry to Muyongwe. Some of the farms are located above 2000 masl. Our Muyongwe coffee is 100% Bourbon and is traditionally fermented in tanks, then washed and dried on raised beds. This lot was carefully constructed by our cupping team, which cupped over 90 samples from the washing station and selected only the finest quality. Intensely sweet citrus, vanilla and cacao aromatics are sublimely transformed into complex cup flavors of green grape and dark chocolate.
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