Latin America

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #25.

We enjoy reviewing coffees from El Salvador, a country which has lost over 90% of its native forest cover, with 80% of its remaining tree cover represented by shade-grown coffee. Be sure to check our previous backgrounder on El Salvador coffees, which includes several reviews and the importance of the country to birds, with a number of links. Our latest tasting from El Salvador is Allegro Coffee Roasters Santa Adelaida.

Santa Adelaida cooperative is located south of San Salvador, in the Balsamo mountains near the San Salvador volcano, at an altitude of about 1200 meters. Nearly all the 500 members grow the bourbon variety on approximately 650 hectares.

In 2003, Allegro chose Santa Adelaida as one of their High 5 recipients. The High 5 For Farmers program provides support directly to the farms where the organic coffee is produced by providing $10,000 to growers to complete much needed community based projects in education, health care, agricultural programs and farm development.  The 2003 project helped the co-op recover from hurricane damage.

The coffee is Rainforest Alliance certified and certified organic, and can be purchased at Whole Foods Markets.  It was a light roast, and provided a snappy, juicy start, followed by medium-bodied sweetness.  Tasters detected hints of maple candy and caramel.  It had a really nice, creamy mouthfeel and a lingering finish.  It was a classic Central American, with just enough nuances to be considered a bit more interesting than many others from similar origins and making it our favorite El Salvador to date!  3.75 motmots.

See also Coffee Review’s 2003 review, when it scored 88 points.

Please see the update of the review of the Cerulean Warbler coffee in the original post. Rather than post a second review, I wanted to make sure anybody reading the first one with all the background information sees the updated information.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #21.

Counter Culture Mesa de los Santos, Colombia.
This coffee is certified by both Rainforest Alliance and Smithsonian — rest assured your purchase supports biodiversity if it complies with the strict environmental rules set forth for Smithsonian Bird-Friendly certification. It is also certified organic. In fact, Mesa de los Santos (actually, the name of the farm is Hacienda El Roble) is a model for sustainable coffee.  The 500 acre farm, in the same family for four generations, has largely been replanted from former pastureland.  There are now around 50 species of trees providing multi-layer shade for the coffee. The farm owners fund a biannual biological research project, which evaluates the farm’s biodiversity. New bird species continue to be detected on the farm.

The location of the farm is also about 30 miles from the important Cerulean Warbler reserve I’ve written about, about 150 miles closer than the source of Thanksgiving Coffee’s Cerulean Warbler coffee that was reviewed here. The Counter Culture is also less expensive, especially if you factor in the waste from the defects in the Cerulean Warbler coffee, discussed in that review.

The hundreds of workers are also well cared for, earning 65% more than country’s minimum wage and receiving all health care, and the farm funded the local school. The web site includes an entire section on birds.
Mesa de los Santos coffee is quite popular, and is carried by a number of roasters.  I trust Counter Culture to take great care of their beans, and they came through as always.  CC roasted the Mesa de los Santos light. Aside from a few oddly-shaped beans (fewer than five per two-tablespoon portion), it was free of defects. We reviewed it 5, 8, and 10 days past the roast date stamped on the package.

This coffee was subtle-bodied, with a nutty (almond-y?) complexity and distinct soft butterscotch notes in the cooling cup. The description also mentioned “buttery” and I very much agree with that description. So often, flavors are superior in the French press and muted in drip-brewed preparation. The Mesa de los Santos was an exception.  It started with a bright crispness but again gained the sweet, soft notes as it cooled. Two reviewers didn’t like it piping hot, but within five minutes were won over as the gentle flavors emerged. We concluded, therefore, it would make a great morning coffee, especially for a commuter.

One reviewer (perhaps because he has a short commute!) had another vision of when he’d drink this coffee. He pictured a bright, dew-drenched May morning, he would be setting out for a bird survey, anticipating the migrants he would encounter. “…There might be a White-eyed Vireo singing across the meadow…” he mused, thoughtfully sipping. We give this a solid 3 motmots.

Brief review at BCCY. Review of two Mesa de los Santos lots purchased green at Coffee Cuppers.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #20.

Thanksgiving Coffee Co. Cerulean Warbler Coffee.

Update: We re-reviewed this coffee, and the results of the second tasting are below the first.

Background:

This coffee is being marketed as part of the Save the Cerulean Warbler campaign.  I wrote about the importance of shade coffee farms to Cerulean Warblers in this post, which introduces the conservation status of this beautiful bird, and the establishment of a Cerulean Warbler reserve in Santander, Colombia. I followed it up in a post about the Save the Cerulean Warbler campaign, and provide more background on this coffee.

As I noted in that post, the Cerulean Warbler reserve is in Santander, but this coffee is sourced from COOPERAN, a cooperative in southwestern Antioquia province (see that post for a map). This coffee is not certified organic, and is labeled shade grown but is not certified as such by Rainforest Alliance or Smithsonian.

Review of first bag:
This is listed as a light roast, but all beans were generally dark and there was oil on most of them. I say “generally” because there were a fair number of lighter beans, too — it reminded me a bit of a “black and tan” blend, except that the beans were not uniformly dark and light, there was a range of colors, so much so that I wondered if the batch didn’t roast evenly. Or it may not have roasted evenly because there was also an easily-seen variety in the size of the beans.  I showed these beans, without comment, to several people, who immediately made the same observations.

Very disappointing to me were the large number of defects in this coffee.  I doled out five two-tablespoon (~12 gram) portions of beans and sorted through them. The average portion had 23 “bad” beans (113 total) — mostly broken beans, shells, and insect damage, but also some malformed beans and a few sticks. The pile amounted to two tablespoons, or 25% of the total volume (click to enlarge the photo at left, a portion of the defects).  If this is a representative sample, then no matter how kindly I look at it, using the SCAA’s standards for imperfections, this is off-grade coffee, far from specialty grade. This was shocking to me, and I can only hope this bag was from a bad batch (the defects appeared throughout the bag).

Fortunately, it tasted better than it looked or smelled. There was no roast date on the package; there was a modest bloom when the hot water hit the grounds in the French press.  In the cup, it was a bit thin-bodied despite being prepared in the press. There were no distinctive flavors, and it was just semi-lifeless. It quickly became bitter when it cooled.  It was less bitter when brewed through a paper filter, but was nonetheless unremarkable.  We ran this coffee by more people than usual, because the cause — helping the Cerulean Warbler — is one we strongly believe in.  But the average rating still came out to only 2 motmots.  Maybe this was a bad batch of coffee, but if so it shouldn’t have made it out the door. We’d be willing to try it again, but frankly are unwilling to pay for another bag.

Review of second bag:
We received a new bag of this coffee from Thanksgiving Coffee, which they sent after seeing the review.  It was clearly roasted with more care than the first bag. (I had a coffee expert look at the photos of the beans, and he agreed it was a problem with the roasting, including a too-fast and hot roast that causes beans to explode; the divots that I thought might be insect damage were in fact from a rapid roasting process.) The bean size and roast color were much more uniform.  The smell was far more pleasant, as was the flavor. A few people noted they thought that there was something really special in this coffee that could be coaxed out with an even lighter roast.  Maybe Thanksgiving would offer this coffee in more than one roast in the future! Anyway, a new round of tastings boosted the rating to 2.75 motmots.

ABC also contacted me and once again emphasized that their Colombian bird conservation counterparts, ProAves, is inspecting the Antioquia farms where the coffee is currently sourced to insure the coffee is grown under shade.  And, they are working hard to transfer the sourcing of the Cerulean Warbler coffee to the newly-purchased shade coffee farm adjacent to the Cerulean Warbler reserve in Santander.

I encourage you to support the Cerulean Warbler campaign by donating directly to the American Bird Conservancy.

We will be tasting this coffee again when we receive news of the switch, and look forward to providing updates on the success of the Save the Cerulean Warbler campaign!

See this review for an alternative coffee from Santander, Colombia closer to the reserve and certified organic, Rainforest Alliance, and Smithsonian Bird-Friendly.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by OrdinaryPeople, #19.

Finca El Jaguar is a family-run farm in Nicaragua’s Jinotega province, 188 km north of the capital Managua. The farm is also a registered private reserve under the Alianza Para Las Areas Silvestres (ALAS), a bird conservation organization. It includes 70 acres of protected cloud forest, 60 acres of managed forest, and over a dozen coffee plots totaling 34 acres.  Another 35 acres is grassland.  The coffee is certified organic.

El Jaguar offers eco-lodging, with birders and researchers welcome. The farm is one of seven sites in Nicaragua with a wintering bird banding program, part of the important MoSI project (Monitoreo de Sobrevivencia Invernal – Monitoring Overwintering Survival).  This project is an essential tool that enables researchers to gain insight into what bird species winter in an area, the habitats they use, and their overwinter survival. Another Nicaraguan organic shade coffee farm and ecolodge is working on establishing a MoSI station, Finca Esperanza Verde. Their coffee is sold in the U.S. as Counter Culture Matagalpa Cafe San Ramon.

We have already posted on the importance of Nicaragua to birds, Nicaraguan coffee in general here.

Thus, it is a pleasure to review a coffee from a farm that represents what we focus on here at Coffee & Conservation — Allegro Coffee Roaster’s Finca El Jaguar, available at Whole Foods Markets. Finca El Jaguar was a recipient of Allegro’s High Five for Farmers program in 2003, which donated $4,000 to make improvements to the local school.

Allegro’s Finca El Jaguar is a light roast (full city), with a great, fresh, slightly nutty aroma. It was very smooth, and while not endowed with many distinctive flavors, it had a nice body and enough richness for one reviewer to comment that it would make a great afternoon cup. This is not a coffee that will knock your socks off — it has a classic coffee profile variously described by our reviewers as “simple,” “benign,” and “soothing.”  The Risky Kingbird noted, “It’s not too complicated — and I appreciate that.”  We gave it 3 motmots.

This coffee also garnered 90 points at Coffee Review.

I will add that the MoSI stations across Latin America and the West Indies operate on a shoestring, with local researchers enduring hardships and primitive conditions to do this important work.  You can sponsor a station for a winter season for only $300.  For more information sponsoring a MoSI station, visit the Institute of Bird Populations web site.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #16.

The two major natural foods markets, at least in our region, are Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.  There are more TJ’s close to me, but I’ve always been a bit frustrated by their coffees.  Determining origin on most of their self-branded beans is difficult, if not futile.  Some of their offerings are okay (the Organic Bolivian is decent), but even Coffee Review found most to be average (notice also the lack of origin info on most). More on TJ’s in this post.

Whole Foods, on the other hand, is much more transparent. Although they carry several additional brands (varies regionally), including Intelligentsia and Counter Culture’s Sanctuary line of shade coffees, Whole Foods features coffees roasted by Allegro Coffee Company in Colorado. Allegro is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Whole Foods, acquired in 1997.  The Allegro web site has a page where you can download their social responsibility scorecard and coffee sourcing report.

Today’s review is of Allegro’s Organic San Marcos from Honduras. It is a Special Reserve selection. Growers of Special Reserve coffees receive $10,000 to fund community initiatives.  This coffee is from the COCOSAM cooperative in San Marcos de Colon, Choluteca department in southwestern Honduras (red on map). Around half the growers of this nearly 100-farmer co-op grow certified organic coffee.  The varieties grown are bourbon, caturra, and catuai.

This is a light roast (full city). There was no roast date on the bag, but a “best used by” date of 3/23/07 and the healthy bloom when prepared on 16 January indicates a 12/23/06 roasting, or thereabouts.

As a mixed lot from a number of farms, I did not expect it to approach the excellence of the single estate Honduran El Puente from Counter Culture, one of my favorite Central American coffees. The San Marcos is also grown at a lower altitude than the El Puente, a factor that might also argue for points off the flavor profile. But the tasting panel agreed this was a really enjoyable coffee.

Like nearly all Honduran and Guatemalan coffees we’ve sniffed, the San Marcos had a beautiful aroma.  I don’t think I’d ever get tired of smelling beans like this, although the coffee rarely lives up to the (small) room-filling fragrance.  At any rate, the San Marcos had a profile typical of good Central Americans: hints of vanilla, milk chocolate, and caramel.  This coffee was very smooth, almost buttery, with an especially creamy mouthfeel that we thought added a lot to the experience.  This was, unsurprisingly, most pronounced when prepared in a press.  It was also excellent brewed, although I’d skip the paper filter and use a gold filter to preserve some of the creamy smoothness.  We give this 3.75 motmots.

Since they are so accessible to many people, we’ll be reviewing at least two more Whole Foods/Allegro coffees in the future.

Caffe Pronto Guatemalan Maya Ixil.  I received this coffee from Caffe Pronto just before the holidays, so I did not have a chance to let the panel taste it, so I can’t provide the usual review.  But this coffee’s sustainability begs to have it mentioned here at C&C.  This is bourbon variety coffee, grown organically under native shade trees, and certified Fair Trade.

The Maya Ixil cooperative is located in Quiche Dept. (map), east of the popular Huehuetenango, north of Atitlan, sort of out of the way.  The coop was formed in 1998, and now 124 families have improved both the quality of their coffee and the quality of their lives. The Cuchamatanes montane areas in this region are known for their endemism, especially of amphibians.

I’m very fond of the chocolately tones in Huehues; I had a hard time detecting chocolate in this coffee. It was mild, with a distinctively silky, creamy mouthfeel, and when made in a French press, revealed just a flash of some sort of sweet, fruity taste which did not strike me as a berry flavor.  It was also very nice brewed, and maintained a pleasant taste even when cooled off. If you are looking for a very approachable, environmentally-friendly coffee that also supports indigenous people who have suffered through years of conflict in this relatively remote region, give this a try!

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #10

Counter Culture Honduras El Puente – Marysabel Caballero.  Counter Culture’s Peter Giuliano calls this coffee the Purple Princess “because its perfume and silkiness seem feminine and regal, and the aromas and flavors of the cup—lavender, plum, grape, incense—all seem purple.” I was eager to try this coffee.  Not only did the description seem intriguing (especially for a Central American coffee), I had not yet tried a Honduran.  Importantly, it was also shade grown — and farm owner Marysabel Caballero fosters a hectare of native forest for each hectare of shade coffee she grows.  She has 17.5 ha in coffee at this time.

Caballero’s farm, Finca El Puente, is in southwestern Honduras, La Paz department, near the city of Chinacla; coffees in this vicinity are often marketed under the name of another nearby municipality, Marcala (see map, click to enlarge).  Cataui is the variety grown.

El Puente has a great pedigree in the Cup of Excellence competitions.  It garnered third place in 2004 (under Dulce Nombre) and moved up to second place in 2005.  It slipped to 8th in 2006 (although still scoring 88.91), yet it went for a higher price at auction than any of the other winners.

This was the most subtly complex and distinctive Central American coffee we’ve tasted.  The beans smelled of chocolate — very specifically milk chocoloate, like a Hershey bar — and delicate floral tones. Like many of the coffees we’ve tried, the chocolate doesn’t come through in the cup.  Instead there is a honey-like sweetness and most interesting winey/plum/berry notes after it cools briefly.  This reminded us of African coffees.  I posed this question to Peter, and he told me that Marysabel believes her beans get this unique taste from the repeated washings she gives them with fresh, natural spring water.  Peter notes that “it is common in Kenya to soak coffee in manychanges of fresh water, and coffees that are treated this way frequently have asilky, fruity flavor not unlike the Purple Princess.”  Alas, he says this is speculation, and the mystery of the Purple Princess endures.The Purple Princess comes in at just a feather under 4 motmots, and is easily my most favorite Central American coffee so far.  Highly recommended!

Speaking of motmots, the Blue-throated Motmot, which has the smallest range of the motmots, is found in La Paz dept. Other interesting or restricted range birds found in the vicinity of El Puente are Bushy-crested Jay, Blue-and-white Mockingbird, and the spectacular Resplendent Quetzal.  The (U.S.) federally endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler winters in Honduras, including in La Paz.  The preservation of forest at El Puente takes on added importance in light of the rich bird life of the area.

You can read a review of Counter Culture’s 2005 El Puente crop at Coffee Review.

Map adapted from those at Wikipedia.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #8.

I have been interested in trying coffees from Finca Hartmann since I traveled to Panama a couple of years ago.  Finca Hartmann is in the Chiriqui highlands in the Boquete region, and most of the land is in shade coffee.  It is a popular birding destination, and researchers are welcome (they offer a field station for use) — many associated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute have published papers on research conducted there, some with Hartmann family members as co-authors. Over 280 bird species have been recorded at the finca, and Christmas Bird Counts typically yield around 200 species.  It is an example of a finca with a great deal of concern for preservation of biodiversity that has not been certified shade or organic.  We tried several Finca Hartmann coffees from different roasters.

Paradise Roasters Palo Verde.  This coffee placed sixth in the 2006 Best of Panama competition — the same competition in which the Hacienda la Esmeralda won first prize. There are two “sections” to Finca Hartmann, and Palo Verde is the smaller, southernmost one on the property. This was a medium roast, with no oil on the beans.  I detected some sort of very sweet, fruity aroma in the beans that I found really nice.

As is typical, we tried this in the French press, Aeropress, and as a brew. Something had to have gone awry in the press, because it was pretty bad.  It fared better as an Americano from the Aeropress, and as a brew, where it was a nice, smooth, sweet, classic coffee, with a hint of chocolate.  In general, nobody was overwhelmed by it.  It was variously described as “unspectacular,” “not a lot of depth,” and one taster said, “I’m not moved by it.” I think I’m beginning to foster snobs.  2 motmots. Also available green, for which there is a review at Coffee Cuppers.

Mayorga Coffee Roasters Hartmann Estate.  This coffee was billed as a medium roast, but was leaning much darker than the Paradise Roaster selection, with all beans showing quite a bit of oil.  The coffee beans were quite fragrant, and the coffee itself fresh from the French press had a slightly fruity fragrance — a couple tasters suggested cherries.  This was a very well-balanced, smooth cup, without any distinctive characteristics, a classic cup.  “It’s just a good cup of coffee,” Nighthawk suggested.  I think a lighter roast might have coaxed some more interesting aspects out of the bean. 2.5 motmots.

Cafe Pronto Panama Boquete SHB, Hartmann Estate. This coffee was received a mere two days after ordering (truly pronto!), but had been roasted five days prior to ordering.  Thus it was 8 days old when we tried, within it’s fresh period, but perhaps “middle-aged.” Nonetheless, when the water hit it in the French Press, it produced a moderate amount of bloom, and was the hands-down winner of the three.

It was also a medium roast, with some beans showing a bit of oil.  The beans, both whole and ground, were very fragrant, sort of spicy, one of the most appealing aromas we’ve had from a Central American bean so far.  Very hot, the coffee delivered a juicy, almost mouth-watering first few sips.  It stayed just as good as it cooled, medium-bodied, with a very soft mouthfeel.  I wasn’t sure what to think when I saw this descriptor from the roaster, but it is certainly an apt adjective. Brewed, it was also tasty, but lacked some of the pleasant subtleties found when prepared in a press pot.

We could call this coffee well-balanced, but “harmonious” might be a better description.  As in many “classic” coffees, there were not a lot of flavors that jumped out.  Yet it stood out from the other Finca Hartmann’s.  Let’s call this a Classic ++ rated at 3.75  (nearly 4) motmots.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #7.

Paradise Roasters Calama Marka Bolivia Cup of Excellence.

I had not actually intended on reviewing this coffee, but once a couple of us tasted it, we were so impressed we had to tell you about it. Calama Marka came in first place in the 2005 Bolivia Cup of Excellence competition, and a number of roasters (the now-familiar “Small Axe” cooperative) won the auction lot.  We tried it from Paradise Roasters, where it is also available green.

Calama Marka is a small farm, only 4.5 ha in coffee, in the Yungas region (in the central cordillera northeast of La Paz) where the majority of Bolivian coffee is grown.  This farm only grows typica, and although the farm is not certified organic, like most of the small holders that make up this area, it is passive organic and described as “nature friendly.”

The beans themselves, roasted to a medium brown without oil, had a candy-like fragrance. It was even more pronounced once freshly ground. One day, I ground a little too much, so I dumped the extra in my commuter French press to take the work the next day.  Many hours later, after only a few minutes in the car, the vehicle filled with this coffee’s enchanting aroma.

As usual, we prepared our first run in the French press.  For quite a few minutes, it evoked silence.  Finally, Risky Kingbird broke the spell.  “I am really enjoying this coffee!” he said.

It is beautifully balanced, smooth, with a lush, creamy mouthfeel.  Very hot, there is an initial juicy, citrus pulse. From first sip to last, it is full of chocolate, caramel, butterscotch, and hints of vanilla notes, especially as it cools.  You cannot come closer to a sweet, flavored coffee without adding extra ingredients.  There is an intriguing complexity that is subtle and delightful, like simple but great poetry.

There was not a hint of bitterness, not even in the last pour from the press, not even when I brewed it and left a quarter-inch in the pot to cook for a half-hour.  Every pot and cup was superior, even when the beans were past 10 days old.

Not only did everybody love this coffee, it got several “5 motmot” ratings. This is beautiful coffee.

But there’s more to this story…
There’s a bit of the star-crossed lover aspect to this coffee.  We have found true love, but will we ever be able to sip it again?

First, the farmer, Juan de Dios Blanco, was killed in a car crash shortly after he won the CoE.  Miguel Meza at Paradise Roasters told me that Juan’s wife is still operating the farm, but he does not know if she will continue to produce and market coffee.  Miguel was planning to visit the farm during the 2006 CoE competition, but the program was cancelled, which brings us to the next tragedy.

The coffee growing regions of Bolivia are also coca growing regions. In order to discourage coca growing and provide alternate sources of farm income, USAID has provided funding and support to promote specialty coffee in Bolivia.  Sponsoring the Cup of Excellence program was part of that effort, as the recognition and high price of winning coffees at auction are powerful incentives for farmers to improve their crops.  That the Bolivian CoE program was a stunning success is evident in the superb Calama Marka reviewed here. According to USAID, by 2003, over 5,000 families improved coffee harvest and post-harvest techniques, increasing their income by an average 38%; this in a country where 58% of the population lives in poverty.

Then the political situation in Bolivia changed, in a way that was not to the liking of the Bush Administration.  An article at Trade Aid summed it up:

Bolivia won’t be having a Cup of Excellence competition this year. Why not? Funding for the event has been provided previously by USAID, the main aid program run by the United States government, but this year USAID will not be contributing. Unhappy with the outcome of the presidential elections in late 2005 which installed Evo Morales in office instead of their own preferred candidate, the United States has
withdrawn funding as part of their wider campaign to hurt the Bolivian economy.

Promoting specialty coffee is not the answer to squelching coca production in Bolivia, but  the CoE was essentially the best and probably only way for farmers to become individually empowered (versus all their beans being mixed at a cooperative), for them to obtain the prices to truly motivate them to continue to improve their crops, and for these Bolivian coffees to get the recognition that commands attention from the coffee-buying public. This situation is really a shame, as it will do little or nothing to hinder Morales, and much to punish farmers and those of us who have discovered this wonderful coffee.  Hopefully, the Bolivian CoE will be held in 2007.  For more on the complexity and politics of coca and coffee in Bolivia, see this article in the World Policy Journal. A note from UK roaster Stephen Leighton about the cancellation of the CoE competition is at the Hasbean blog.

Other reviews of the Calama Marka:

• Review at Coffee Cuppers
• Review at Coffee Review
• Review at bread,coffee,chocolate,yoga
• Victrola Coffee blog praise for the Calama Marka

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #5.

As promised in my previous backgrounder, a review of Hacienda la Esmeralda from Intelligentsia.

The beans: This was quite a light roast, just at city, medium brown with no oil on the beans.  They had a spicy odor that several of us immediately identified as smelling like pizza crust.  It was amazingly distinctive, and we thought that five of us coming up with the pizza analogy was remarkable.  Pizza crust is probably not an odor you’d want in your coffee, but rest assured, it did not taste like it smelled.  On day 2 post-roast, the freshly ground beans had a strongly floral smell, like a meadow in the hopper.  It faded quickly, and we couldn’t find it later.

Brewed: We tried this brewed in a drip on days 2 (gold filter) and 4 (unbleached paper) post-roast, and in a press on days 7 and 8.  We all agreed that the Ethiopian heritage was easy to distinguish, citrusy and very reminiscent of a Yirg.  In the press it was especially citrusy, with a mouthwatering juicy taste at first sip.

Several of us found it to be quite tea-like, in particular the aftertaste which was the most pleasant and non-coffee-like I’ve ever experienced, astringent like a good Darjeeling.  Kingfisher tasted cherries, and the Risky Kingbird could detect floral notes.  Overall, we were unable to pull out jasmine, green grape or apple, or some of the other exotic flavors experts found.  While we used a burr grinder and measured more carefully than usual, our pedestrian home gear and brewing style probably did not do this bean any favors.

We we blown away?  Not really, although some of us were pretty impressed. Star[bucks]ling thought this would be a coffee that could turn him on to a light roast. “This is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had, but I don’t know why.” Coal Tit merely said “Whoa!”  She paused.  “That’s all I have to say.”

Other opinions: In the previous post I linked to reviews of earlier crops at bread coffee chocolate yoga; here is her take on this one.

Jim Schulman of Coffee Cuppers summarized the opinions at a tasting on one of the Coffee Geek forums:

“The Geisha had the across-the-room aromatics on Wednesday, but lost steam in the subsequent days.  The taste was sweet…with musky florals and cinnamon notes when warm, cooling to a spicey apple when cool. … In general the feel was that it tasted intermediate between a typical Central and an Ethiopian coffee; and that it would not have caused the same sort of sensation among tasters if it had been entered in the Ethiopian auction.

Is this worth the price of $50 green? In terms of absolute taste, probably yes. But there are other coffees in the same league…that sell for $8 to $12 at auction. After it’s performance and reputation in
the last two years, the bidders came ready to pay any price for this now legendary coffee, and the price reflects that, rather than its superiority to the other great coffees out there.”

Bottom line: No doubt, this was a lovely coffee, and in no way do we mean to dis it here. But for those of us without trained palates — and for the average, less-careful home consumer — it was nowhere as distinctive as the hype suggests.  We would not pay $30 a pound for it, much less $100.  We think, in fact, it would be a disservice to offer this coffee to a Maxwell House drinker with the idea of converting that person to quality coffee.  They would taste it and think it was great, but to an average joe, it would not be wildly removed and in a completely different class from what they were used to. We fear they’d think that if this was an example of the finest coffee in the world, there wasn’t a real need to change from commercial coffee. And that would be a shame.

Nonetheless, we are glad we tried this. With me, it averaged 3.75 motmots, but I was the stick in the mud with this coffee.  I just didn’t get into it.  So I will exclude myself from the scoring, which leaves it with a solid four motmots, with two people giving it over 4 motmots.

When to drink this coffee (field oriented): At the banquet when you are celebrating discovering a new species.

More on this coffee:

Interest percolating for rare cup of joe, Chicago Sun-Times.

I will be writing in the future about the Cup of Excellence and the Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality award programs for specialty coffees, and the role they can play in bringing attention to small farms, roaster relationships, and quality sustainable coffees.  Another one of these competitions, which it is timely now for me to mention, is the Best of Panama competition, sponsored by the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama. For the last three years, one farm has placed first in this competition, Hacienda la Esmeralda, in Chiriqui province on the slopes of Volcan Baru in western Panama (click map to enlarge).

This story is exceptional in several ways.  First, the bean and coffee are unique.  Second, this coffee has set records at auction, with the 2006 lot being the first green coffee to sell for over US$50 a pound green and US$100 a pound roasted.  I’ll give a little background here, because the cash-poor but burningly curious C&C coffee tasting panel raided their piggy banks and sprang for a half-pound of Esmeralda from Intelligentsia.

The Esmeralda Jaramillo Especial story: Hacienda La Esmeralda was purchased by the Peterson family in 1996. Previously, different coffee varieties had been planted about the farm, which has altitudes range from 1,450 to 1,700 meters.  Daniel Peterson cupped beans from all over the farm, and discovered the pleasant citrusy flavor present in the mixed beans from the farm as a whole were being flavored by some outstanding beans from a 50 hectare plot in one small valley at the high end (1550 m) of the farm: the Esmeralda Especial.

The microclimate of this valley is quite cold.  The bean is an arabica variety called Geisha or Gesha, a long-bean type with Ethiopia heritage brought to Panama in the 1960s via Costa Rica. It is low-yielding — 50 to 100 (60 kg) bags a year — in part because of the long “internodes” or space between the beans. It is likely a combination of the climate, bean, and (wet) processing that brings us this unique cup.

Auction price history: The Esmeralda set price history in the 2004 online green coffee auction, sponsored by the the Specialty Coffee Association of America. That lot sold for US$21 a pound and was huge news in the coffee industry (the average lot goes for about US$4 a pound). This year the lot, of five 60-kg bags, sold for US$50.25 a pound.

The lot was purchased by the Small Axe Coffee Alliance (Sweet Maria’s, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters, Groundwork Coffee Company, and the Norwegian company Kaffa).  The first out of the gate with a public offering of roasted coffee was Intelligentsia. Sweet Maria’s offered the green beans as a set along with beans from the second and third place winners, Bambito Estate and Carmen Estate.

The farm and environmental sustainability: Hacienda La Esmeralda is Rainforest Alliance certified, and their coffee won first place Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality in 2004 and 2006. The farm is not certified organic, and does use glyphosate as a herbicide, and some fertilizers, according to the “Sustainability” portion of its web site. Use of pesticides is not specified, but it sounds like they are usually avoided.

The page indicates that there are about 75 large trees per hectare which add to the leaf litter of the coffee plants, and there is a photo of coffee growing under shade in their photo gallery. The farm does not prune trees during bird nesting or migration season.

As an ecologist, I would like to comment on a statement on the page: “A producing farm undoubtedly has a higher animal biomass than virgin forest as well as a higher photosynthetic rate. It is producing’ — it is not in a resting equilibrium as is a forest.”

Animal biomass is not a relevant yardstick of sustainability (although I don’t know if that’s the point that was being made, necessarily). Here’s why: A cattle pasture, with cattle, would have animal biomass that far exceeds tropical virgin forest of comparable size, but one could hardly say that is a makes it a better or more sustainable use of the land.  Likewise, photosynthetic rates themselves alone don’t have a lot of meaning. Fast-growing plants have higher photosynthetic rates, which are also influenced by light, temperature, vapor pressure deficit, and carbon dioxide.  Fast or slow, one is not “better” than another. And I’d venture to say that a tropical forest — any forest for that matter — is never at a “resting equilibrium” but is always dynamic, and always “productive”!  I’m inclined to take exception to the statement “Enormous tracts of virgin forest have little to do with sustaining people…”  As “the air conditioner of the earth,” tracts of virgin tropical forest sustain us all through many important ecosystem functions.

That being said (and whatever the intent), this is not obviously not sun coffee, it is RA certified, and the web site does note other environmentally-friendly practices. Stay tuned for our impressions of this highly-touted bean!