2024 February Box

Featured Farm: Concepcion Buena Vista

This month we have a featured origin and specific farm from Guatemala. Producers David and Eddy Solano are the 4th generation coffee producers working on their family farm Concepción Buena Vista. Both of them are coffee experimental enthusiasts and professionals. David is a mechanical engineer as well as a 3 time back to back National Barista Champion. He is currently in charge of the operations at their wet mill, La Joya while Eddy manages their logistics and exports. This month we have an insightful offering as these two coffees are the same variety from the same farm, ultimately leaving the processing as the key differentiator between these coffees. This is a perfect set to showcase the importance that post-harvest coffee processing plays into influencing the cup profile you experience.

Red Bourbon Washed

This coffee serves as a baseline for this roastery select subscription set. It is a lovely washed red bourbon that you would expect to find from a quality producer in Guatemala. With characteristic stewed fruit in the cup along with a sweet nutty base it is easy drinking and a fantastic archetype of a washed coffee from Guatemala and thus providing the reference by which we can compare with the processing found in the next coffee.

From David Solano:

"We selected the La Joya red Bourbon trees because they have a very dense natural tree shade. It’s mainly a flat topography giving a less erosion on the ground and as a result, it’s one of the best Bourbon lots on our farm. The brix needs to be between 25-26%. Once they arrive to the wet mill, they are submerged in clean water to wash out any possible dirt or contamination that could affect the development of bacteria inside the fermentation tanks. Once all cherries are clean and classified by density, we depulp the cherries and the move them to open fermentation tanks where the coffee beans are fermented for 48 hours. Following the initial fermentation in the tanks, the coffee goes to the drying patios for 7-10 days, with constant movement every hour."

Origin:

Chimaltenango, Guatemala

Reminds Us Of:

Apple, Prunes, Ferrero Rocher

Brew:

Filter, Modern Espresso

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We recommend Recipe A in our brew guide

Red Bourbon Pineapple Yeast Anaerobic Natural

This coffee was processed not only as an anaerobic natural, but a lot that was innoculated with a yeast that David Solano and his team had cultured from pineapple. As this coffee is the same variety from the same farm, it could be considered to have the same 'terroir' as most would consider it. However, this coffee is now showcasing how intentional processing methods can influence the flavour profile. It is an excellent example of how careful processing can add to and shift the inherent qualities of a coffee into something uniquely more but still the same.

From David Solano:

“This specific lot of anaerobic with pineapple yeast, it's the first time developing at our farm. It’s the first time that we have our microbiology lab at the farm, and our goal is to create a more consistent maceration lot and create replicability between batches, we believe in order to change the name of “experimental” to “maceration” or “pineapple yeast anaerobic” name, we need to be consistent and create a stable and replicable protocol to achieve it. We started to investigate the different ways to ferment coffee, those options are oxidation, fermentation by bacterias or fermentation by yeast, so that opened up our experimentation rabbit hole. We tried natural yeast of peach, apples, kiwi and pineapple and the pineapple yeast was the one that yielded the best result.”

"Once the cherries arrive to the wet mill, they are submerged in clean water to wash out any possible dirt or contamination that could affect the development of bacteria inside the fermentation tanks. Once all cherries are clean and classified by density, we place them inside a food grade fermentation tanks that can hold up to 2,500-2,600 pounds of cherries. We use food grade tanks in order to keep the tanks as clean as possible so we don’t risk cross contamination from batch to batch. The tanks are equipped with a pressure valve, a relief valve, pH meter and temperature meter. The interesting aspect about this coffee is that is easily misunderstood that this coffee was fermented using whole pineapple chunks or the actual pineapple fruit in the coffee during the fermentation process, but thats not the case here. We didn’t want to risk contamination at any phase during this process, and the yeast developed in our microbiology lab from the pineapple is far more effective at reaching the objective. We got fresh pineapple fruit and extracted the pineapple pure and let it ferment in order to develop a healthy population of yeast. When the population was healthy, we separated the proper amount of yeast needed for every specific batch produced and continued to feed the “yeast village” with high sugar media so it would keep feeding and reproducing for the upcoming lots. Once the pineapple yeast mossto is created, we add the mossto solution and then seal the fermentation tanks with the coffee cherries for 70 hours."