Bolivia, Caranavi
Nakhaki Estate Lot “C”
Nelson Olori, Farmer

Here is another fine micro-lot coffee from Bolivia. The complexity of this coffee starts with the first whiff from the cup. There are florals, chocolate and nut with meaty-earthy notes along with a typical coffee aroma. A touch of black cherry and caramel is also present. The flavors reflect Autumn: maple and brown sugar, caramel and fruit. A pinch of lemony citrus comes through too. The mouthfeel is thick, rich and balanced. There are hints of nuts and caramel on finish. This coffee is predominantly deep and dark with occasional bright notes.

The distinctive Nakhaki coffees come from the Uchumachi, Colonia Kantutani, Caranavi Province in the Yungas of La Paz, Bolivia. They are expertly tendered and carefully processed by this small group of organic farmers that protect their environment with shade trees and ecological processing. Their micro-lot coffees include Typica and Red Caturra varieties.

Importer comments: Citric acidity (meyer lemon), sweet, syrupy, balanced body with hints of dark chocolate, sugar cane and red wine. Its silky texture carries forward reminders of vanilla, floral essence and green apple.

This outstanding organic coffee starts with a sweet, fruity, floral smell combined with some dustiness.  The cup is balanced with a slight tilt toward the acidic, which fades fast.  The flavors are big with loads of dark, dark chocolate and bright cherries mixed with a fruit flavor that comes from the tropics – perhaps mango.  There are also subtle, delicate floral tones that sneak in.  The mouth feel is thick and viscous and provides a nice juiciness.  The finish is super clean with slight fruits, dark chocolate, and slight caramel and dulce-de-leche notes.  A superb Indonesian.

This exceptional and unusual coffee starts off with smells of sweetness, darkness and chocolate with numerous savory spices, and burnt sugar.  The flavors pick up where the aroma leaves off with wintry tones of well worn leather, old pipe tobacco, and bittersweet chocolate.  The mouthfeel is quite dry and papery with practically no acidity.  What emerges at the finish is the typical Sumatran cedar note, especially pronounced as it cools.  A great example of an aged bean.

This very interesting coffee starts with three very distinct stages of aroma: first the sweet fruit smell of the whole bean; then the flower perfume of the brewed bean; finally, the chocolate-caramel cup.  The flavors are touches of sweet fruit, hinting toward apricot, wrapped with caramel.  There is a combination of woody-nuttiness too (think cedar and hazelnuts) that continues into the finish.  The mouthfeel is smooth with medium-to-big body.  It is a very balanced cup, with light acidity and is the best coffee we have had from Mexico in recent memory.

El Salvador Finca Malacara
2008 Cup of Excellence #5
Roberto Dumont Alvarez (Chantuc, S.A. de C.V.)
Malacara Lote “B”

The first sniff of these beans say “nuts and toffee.”  Once brewed, there is a floral, sweet, tropical fruit aroma that continues into the cup.  The complexity of flavors flawlessly moves from one note to another, with the most prominent being strawberry.  This progresses to an orange citrusy acidity combined with pineapple and passion fruit.  There is a brightness that is present throughout which is nicely balanced with a creamy mouthfeel.  Most striking is the flavor transformation from hot to cold.  The cup cools into rounder tones including caramel and milk chocolate. Very distinct toffee/caramelized sugar finish. This is an exceptional coffee.

Top Jury Descriptions: citrus aroma (9), very clean and sweet (15), floral (12), tropical fruit (11), strawberry (10), sugar cane (7), peach (7), berry (7), chocolate (6), caramel (5), creamy (10), delicate (8), complex (12)
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Overview from Cup of Excellence
The history of this farm goes back to the beginning of last century with the Álvarez Prunera family’s great-grandfather.  On its 49 hectares today, the average age of coffee trees is 40 years, with densities of 3,500 trees per hectare and yielding some 25 quintals per hectare.

For third year in a row Malacara “B” achieved an award in the COE event. In the COE event in 2006 it placed 13th, in 2007 it ranked 20th and now in 2008 it has jumped to 5th place. With these awards won in a row, Malacara “B” shows the high quality of coffee that the estate produces.

The Alvarez family association, Chantuc S.A., helps support a school and a health center within the farm that was originally donated by the first Malacara’s owners. This farm is planted with 95% Bourbon and 5% Pacas on a sandy-loam soil.  Harvesting usually takes place between January and March, while flowering goes from April through May. The shade canopy is mainly made up of Ingas and mountain trees such as cedar, walnut, gravileo and avocado, among others.

There are two stories regarding the origin of the name of this farm: one says that “Malacara” was named after one local chief who lived in the area and who was known as the “Cacique Malacara”. The other talks about the relation between the farm appearance when Rafael Álvarez (grandfather of Francisco Arturo) bought it, and the face expression that his friends made when they saw the farm for the first time. The story told that it was so chaotic that everyone gave no hope on the farm and everybody made an “ugly face” or “Mala-Cara” because they imagined how difficult would be to establish a coffee farm there.

BBBD (Best Beans for the Best Dad)
Your Dad’s the best.  And he deserves the best.  So for Father’s Day, spoil him a little bit with a large bag of award winning coffee from El Salvador’s La Laguna Estate (description below).  A 2008 Cup of Excellence Winner, La Laguna is hands-down one of our most delicious beans, with a balance between caramel and fruit that pleases a variety of palates.  And in honor of Dad, we’re offering a large bag of this special bean for $5 off the regular price — $25 for 500 grams of one of the finest coffees the world has to offer.

El Salvador La Laguna Estate
2008 Cup of Excellence Winner Lot #7. On grinding and brewing, the aromatics are floral and reminiscent of baking spices. In the cup, this is a big coffee with a lot of flavor. The complex, winey acidity is perfectly balanced with exceptional structure and body. The thick and creamy mouthfeel carries the berry/fruit acidity straight through the cup. And as it cools, subtle hints of tart raspberries or pomegranate are drawn out. This is a supremely elegant and sophisticated combination of flavors with a nice dark tone running through the middle. The finish is like a slow trip down a long, winding road. Fabulous.

Jury Descriptions: strong aroma (12), Very balanced (13), very clean and sweet (16), floral (11), caramel (9), dried fruit (6), red raspberry (6), champagne (5), perfume (4), full and creamy body (14), juicy (14), long finish (7), improved as it cooled (11). Please Note: The number that appears in brackets next to a description it indicates the number of jurors that agreed with that particular description.

This superb Indonesian seems to evoke the rainforest. The fragrance begins with clean, semi-sweet and rather earthy notes. In the cup, the body is big with a smooth, syrupy mouthfeel.  The flavors start with a vegetal, earthy woodiness combined with a touch of fruit. The lack of acidity plus a hint of sweetness makes for a very smooth finish. The final reward is unmistakable chocolate.  In fact, as this cools, it is one of the most distinctly chocolate tasting coffees we’ve encountered.

The sweet smells from the cup evoke honey and peaches, and some of that is reflected in the cup as soft floral tones.  The dominant flavors that come through are dark and smoky chocolate notes combined with the more traditional nuttiness. The mouthfeel is smooth with no discernable acidity at all.  The finish starts off with a slight peppery edge in the throat, switching to a dark and earthy, long lasting aftertaste of quintessential coffee.  A very drinkable, not-too-complex decaf.

The first word that jumps to mind is wood.  The aromas are the first clue, starting with a distinct cedary smell combined with fruit, and meaty organics tones. This coffee is very dry, with a contrasting creamy finish.  There is a tiny tinge of tartness which suggests some acidity, but it is very slight and quickly fades to the background against a cocoa-wood combination – think dark chocolate covered walnut, if such a thing were to exist.  There is a smooth, watery mouthfeel with a mild, very long, dry finish that is dusty and powdery.  Another excellent Indonesian.

This coffee starts out with sweet and savory smells.  Evokes a cold winter’s day late afternoon lunch of beef barley soup and cherry jam on pumpernickel toast.  There are waves of flavor, including fruit and dark, bittersweet tones, with a slight black peppery edge. Reads like a Rhône. Very nice mouthfeel, almost velvety, and the finish introduces burnt raisin, with slight nuttiness, and a hint of currants.  There is acidity present, but not center stage – quite dry on the finish.  A superb coffee.

These are gorgeous beans, so large, even, and smooth, you could make jewelry from them. The coffee smells like dulce de leche, caramel with sweet nuts (marzipan and hazelnuts), mixed with sweet pipe tobacco and a slight saffron dustiness. The cup starts out with a satiny mouthfeel with great body. It is very balanced and elegant with a slight bright-lime acidity.  There is a subtle, consistent, fast fading, clean, smooth finish.  All the right things one expects from a great cup of coffee with no single dominant note.

Call central casting ask for a picture perfect coffee bean and this is what you get.  These are beautiful beans! The smells are sweet and spicy with buttery chocolate, cinnamon and cardamom.  Once you take a sip of this, you know that it is a special coffee –  it is very balanced, rich and smooth with milk chocolate, a touch of malty-musty-almonds and a citrusy-floral note.  What stands out is the magical mango-juice finish: just as the slightly dry acidity passes, out jumps the mango from side-stage, joined by sweet floral tones reminding one of lavender combined with the soapy sweetness of artichoke’s aftertaste.  Not just a looker, this coffee is a talented star with real depth and complexity: a rarity indeed.

The intense aroma is clearly fruit with sweet florals that run rich and deep, like a stroll through an orchard in bloom. The initial taste of passion fruit and other tropical fruits is what is immediately prominent, with a load of tart acidity. What follows is a wildly complex combination of peach-apricot nectar, honeysuckle and jasmine, with a sweet, grapy-violet note (like what one thinks of when one visualizes Choward’s Violet Candy). Then, there is the forever long, strong finish where the Seville oranges emerge.  This is a rare, unusual and impressive coffee that has a lot in common with a silver-tip Jasmine tea and one will be rewarded by treating it like that in the cup: no milk, maybe a little sugar.

Recommended Brewing Instructions
14g of coffee to 8oz of water
Medium-to-slightly-coarse grid
Single cup drip
200-205 degree water

The smells from the grind to the cup are perfumy-florals that evoke dandelions, a brown sugar sweetness, cocoa-chocolate and a mix of spices: savory and sweet, including a “red-hots” candy artificial cinnamon tone.  The taste is high and bright, with a dominant citrus acidity similar to a tart plum.  Although the scale is definitely tipped toward the bright, this coffee is actually quite balanced between acidic and silky, although it happens in sequence rather than simultaneously.  The combination dusty cocoa and silky chocolate flavors follow quickly as the cup moves into a subtle, long finish.  This is an exceptionally smooth cup.

On grinding and brewing, the aromatics are floral and of baking spices.  In the cup, this is a big coffee with a lot of flavor.  The complex, winey acidity is perfectly balanced with exceptional structure and body.  The thick and creamy mouthfeel carries the berry/fruit acidity straight through the cup.  And as it cools, subtle hints of tart raspberries or pomegranate are drawn out. This is a supremely elegant and sophisticated combination of flavors with a nice dark tone running through the middle. The finish is like a slow trip down a long, winding road.  Fabulous.

Snickers?  Lemonade?  You’ve got to be kidding!  The consensus here is milk chocolate with caramel and nuts mixed with a watery, citrus acidity.  Other layers include apples and a powdery cocoa experience.  We are thrilled to be able to offer this organically grown, artisanal  bean from one of our favorite importers.

Sometimes the first sip of a new coffee makes us giddy. The complexity in this bean is astounding. The tasting notes read like a Sauterne or a top notch Washington Riesling. Apricots and peaches abound. Smells like wild strawberries had a fling with the raspberry bush and that combo is what emerges on first sip. There is a lot of acidity but not in a sour or tart way — very crisp. The finish is extremely long and fruity. Extremely limited quantity.