DISCOVERY

Christmas

This month’s coffees are perfect for the cooler climes we become accustomed to during the winter months. Their warm and sweet expressions provide a welcome comfort on darker mornings, and in a period where many coffee lovers are able to share their passion with loved ones, we hope that these profiles can illustrate the potential of speciality coffee, without being excessively challenging. From our side, we are also proud to share the work of two of our longest term partners at this time of year, Efrain ‘Macho’ Naranjo, and Heleanna Georgalis.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuing support as a subscriber. We look forward to sharing another year of Brightness with you in 2022.

Christmas

Expert processing

This month we are presenting two coffees for you to enjoy over the Christmas period. Two returning favourites from trusted partners, with heavier fruit profiles to match the darker, cooler winter months.

Santa Rosa 1900 is a project by Macho and Herberth Naranjo, and for this lot they have used an interesting ‘Represado’ pre-fermentation before drying with mucilage still attached, as in a honey process.

At Moplaco’s Chelelectu mill in Yirgacheffe, whole cherries are dried carefully on raised beds, turning often to aid in even drying.

In both examples of expert processing by highly skilled producers, extra ripe fruit notes are added, alongside a heavier richness, in our opinion perfect for the Christmas period. At a time for reconnecting with family and friends, it is also our privilege to share the work of our close partners, the Naranjo family at Santa Rosa and Heleanna Georgalis at Moplaco.

Natural Heirloom

Chelelectu

We have been purchasing Ethiopian coffees through Moplaco for four years now, and have grown to trust their buying practices and the quality that they are able to offer, both in coffees they produce themselves, and those they purchase from neighbouring mills. This coffee is from one of Moplaco’s own stations, Chelelectu. The station is located just outside the town of Chelelectu, one of the major centres of the Kochere district. Although in the Kochere ‘Woreda’, coffee produced around Chelelectu is labelled using the designation of neighbouring Yirgacheffe. Although the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), has allowed more and more traceability in recent years, working in Ethiopia as a coffee buyer is still full of confusing anomalies like this. The cherries that this lot is composed of were collected from the village of Beloya, approximately a 15 minute drive north of the station. This natural process lot is showcasing some of the work that has been going on in Ethiopia in recent years, aiming for clean and ripe natural coffees, with much less of the hay-like ‘funk’ than previously. This lot holds on to the floral notes that we value in Yirgacheffe lots, while adding a soft and creamy berry-like base.

Honey Catuai

Santa Rosa 1900

This is the fifth time we have bought coffee from the Santa Rosa 1900 micro-mill, named for its location at 1900 masl in the mountainous Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. The mill is located only around 10 km from Altos del Abejonal, where we have worked with Mauricio Vindas for over 5 years. The mill processes coffee from several small farms owned by the Naranjo family, mainly tended to by Efrain ‘Macho’ and his son Herberth. This lot of Red Catuai is processed using a slightly strange method when compared to most of Costa Rica. You may recognise the idea from some of the Guatemalan lots we have shared over the past few years. In Guatemala often small producers don’t have the resources to pick and process coffee on the same day, so coffee begins to ferment in cherry overnight.

The process

Represado

At Santa Rosa, they use this fermentation method by choice, and call it ‘represado’, which literally translates as ‘dammed’, like damming a river. After the pre-fermentation, where the cherries lie in plastic bags overnight, the coffee is depulped and dried as a honey with mucilage still attached. This adds a little more ferment character to the cup when compared to a standard honey, greater sweetness, and a soft and complex fruit character you may recognise from some of our Guatemalan lots. Alongside this focus on processing, Macho is always keen to point out on our visits that coffee quality starts on the tree, so he places great focus on soil health and maintaining a population of bees to pollinate his plants. You can see our first visit to Macho at the Santa Rosa mill in 2015 in our ‘Brightness’ film.

This month's coffees

Fruity, Rich & Balanced

Chelelectu is a soft and floral natural lot processed at Moplaco’s Chelelectu mill, composed of cherries from the village of Beloya. Here we find a ripe and soft cup, with florals backed up by soft fruit.

This is the fifth time we have purchased from Macho and Herberth Naranjo, with a unique 'represado' honey process, the process brings an extra depth and richness to the typically clean and ripe Catuai.

DISCOVERY

Greetings from the team

Thanks so much for your continuing support as a subscriber, we look forward to sharing another year of Brightness with you in 2022,

Stay Bright and Curious,

The whole team at La Cabra