Nicaraguan Pacamara “Natural” Los Placeres: Aroma –  Heavy chocolate, ripe raspberry, strawberry, blueberry. Flavor – Strong red grapefruit, blueberry, melons. Finish – Great body, dry finish but not unpleasant at all. Steve says “It’s like drinking juice!”

Guatemalan Huehuetenango Finca El Injerto : Aroma – Hints of tropical fruits, melons, vanilla, and cookies. Flavor – Orange citrus, pineapple, honeydew, cashew nuttiness, cocoa and subtle tobacco notes. Finish – Develops as cooling, thick body throughout the cup, and stays with you after drinking.

Guatemalan Huehuetenango Finca El Injerto

For more information of this coffee go to the website at www.fincaelinjerto.com

Nicaraguan Pacamara “Natural” Los Placeres

Rainforest Alliance Certification

The name of this farm, translated into English, means pleasures. This striking farm blankets a mountain ridge in the Matagalpa region. Standing at the highest point of the farm, you cannot help but be overwhelmed with the majesty of the surrounding peaks and the beauty of the shaded coffee forest that extends to the valley below. Los Plac eres is blessed with a pure, fast-flowing spring that permits an extremely clean washing of our coffee.

Botanical Varieties:Pacamara

Elevation Range : 800-1050 meters

Average Elevation: 1000 meters

Region: San Ramon, Matagalpa

“Pacamara in itself is an oddity … this large bean is grown on few farms since the requirements to process it, and tolerance for this low-yield cultivar are both rare. But here is something truly more strange: Pacamara that has been dry-processed in the tradition of Ethiopia Harar or Sidamo coffees. Pacamara is a distinct cultivar of Arabica coffee, more specifically it is a subtype of the large bean Maragogype and Pacas, a natural hybrid from El Salvador. Maragogype is called the “elephant bean” for its incredibly large size, and is a spontaneous variation of Typica. Now, bean size per se has nothing to do with cup quality: a bigger seed doesn’t make a better cup. But the argument for Maragogype and Pacamara is that the tree produces fewer cherries and flavor is more concentrated.” -Sweet Marias-

Website infos:

http://www.sweetmarias.com/coffee.central.nicaragua.php

http://smierisch.googlepages.com/

Halloween Jam

Roast Coffee Co. is having a city to city ‘Latte Art Competition,’ and Halloween Coffee party on October 30th starting at 6PM.(doors open at 5PM)  Anodyne will be there with a ton of coffees, serving Chemex and doing pour over style drip coffee all night long.

It was our pleasure to cup three excellent coffees today. We had our limited Guatemalan Antigua Bella Carmona, our new Kenya Peaberry Ndimaini, and the Organic Panama Finca La Esperanza.

Guatemalan Antigua Bella Carmona: Aroma – Savory, rich, warm cinnamon spice. Flavor – Lite citrus notes ranging from oranges to sweet clementines, roasted nuts. Finish – Syrupy body, develops and sweetens as it cools.

Kenya Peaberry Ndimaini: Aroma – Cake like & sweet, green vegetable. Flavor – Hints of pine and mint, unripe orange or sweet grapefruit. Finish – Smooth body, sweet  syrup on tongue when drinking.

Organic Panama Finca La Esperanza: Aroma – Caramel, chocolate, sweetness. Flavor – Watermelon juice, citrus, bold roasted notes. Finish – Lots of high notes, very complex, but very balanced and consistent cup.

Notes about the coffees:

Panama Finca la Esperanza, a mix of Geisha, Bourbon and Caturra varietals. Cafe Ruiz is one of the oldest and most respected coffee producers in the country. Since the late 1800’s, 3 generations of the Ruiz family have grown and produced coffee in the lands of Boquete. Today, more than 300 independent small scale family coffee farms collaborate with Café Ruiz to process, roast and market their shade grown coffee.

Café Ruiz, besides being a Panamanian company from its origins, leaves its coffee tours in the hands of an enthusiastic tri-lingual Ngöbe Buglé Indigenous guide, who is also a professional cupper (coffee taster/sampler). As you may know, the Ngobe Buglé Indians are responsible for handpicking the coffee grown in the coffee farms of Chiriqui.

If you visit Boquete between December and April you will be able to see them in their colorful dresses harvesting coffee in Ruiz’s plantations and if you visit Boquete between October and March you will be able to see the coffee being processed.

Genuine Antigua Bella Carmona comes from a  single estate coffee in the traditional area of Antigua. The valley is surrounded by three volcanoes, Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. These mountains create the ideal microclimate and conditions for growing superb coffee. The high heat of the day is neutralized by cool and dry evenings.

The coffee is produced on Hacienda Carmona. The plantations are located in the southern slopes of Volcan de Agua, between 5,200 and 6,000 feet above sea level. The coffee is grown strictly under shade of Gravilea trees allowing the plants to receive an adequate amount of sunlight.. The average rainfall is between 1800mm to 2300mm. The coffee is grown by traditional methods. The Estate is planted in Bourbon, Arabica Typica and Caturra varieties.

The coffee is produced by the Zelaya family, who has been producing fine coffee for the past four generations. Bella Carmona is a trademark, who has received several awards throughout history. One of the earliest was earning first prize at the National Exposition of Guatemala in 1935.  One of the Zelaya family’s most important commitment is maintaining the quality of the coffee.  Quality control starts in the selection of the varieties planted. Special supervision is done on the wet and dry milling stages in order to guarantee that only the best is selected for export. The Zelaya family is very concerned about ecological stability. All of the coffee is grown in sustainable and environmentally friendly systems. Not only all of the coffee is shade grown, but special efforts are being done in developing ecofriendly wet mills. All of the water used in the wet mill is disposed onto sedimentation tanks and all pulp is transformed to humus by lumbriculture.

The ripe red cherries are carefully harvested and selected,  and finally  delivered to the washing station or wet beneficio. Once the coffee has been depulped, fermented in tanks and washed, it is set on patios for sun drying. Once the parchment reaches the perfect moisture content it is carefully bagged and stored for it to rest. When it has reached its optimum flavor and balance, it will be processed and carefully selected for export. The dry mill is located in the farm itself, so the complete processing may be carefully monitored to achieve its best quality.

The combination of these factors, volcanic soil, good balance between rainfall and sunlight, and traditional farming methods, provide this coffee with a rich and full bodied cup. It has a pronounced acidity and crisp chocolatty flavor

Kenya Peaberry Ndimaini: We couldnt find much information on this coffee except that it is harvested in the Central provience of Nyeri in Kenya where there are several coops that harvest coffee as well as tea.  Most of the region is fed water from the “Chinga dam, the largest water reservoir in the Nyeri District.”

Guatemala info – http://www.coffee-resources.com/chapter.asp?chapter_ID=58

Kenya info – http://travelingluck.com/Africa/Kenya/Central/_184102_Ndimaini.html#local_map

Panama info – http://www.coffeefrompanama.com/?Click=51

http://www.hablayapanama.com/ecotourism/coffee.html

Ethiopian YirgaCheffe, Grade 2, Washed – Aroma – Sweet floral, bit light citrus and berry. Flavor – Grapefruit, hints of dark fruit, rose/lavender notes, light lemon. Finish –  Very light syrupy body, delicate with nutty notes developing when cooling.

FTO Ethiopian Sidamo SFCU- Aroma – Grape, berry, chocolates, notes of spices and wood. Flavor – Winey, strawberries, very noticeable lemon, floral notes, hints of cinnamon/nutmeg, candied sweetness. Finish –  Nice smooth body, semi-waxy dry, and creamy as it cools.

FTO Peru CEPICAFE – Aroma – Mushrooms, pepper. Flavor – Predominent mushrooms, stewed tomatoes, chocolate, lemon citrus, minor wood. Finish -Thick body, very wet mouth-feel , with lemon zest developing as cooling. Notes – There is a sweetness to this that becomes more apparent while cooling

Organic Ethiopian Sidamo SFCU (The Sidama Farmers Cooperative Union) - High in the mountains of southern Ethiopia, the farmers of the Sidama Farmers Cooperative Union (SFCU) grow one of the world’s most spectacular, ancient, and prized coffees. This is the birthplace of coffee, a small tree native to these subtropical mountain forests. Here, climate combines with geography, elevation, and ecology to provide the ideal growing conditions for heirloom Arabica varietals.

Organized into hundreds of village-based cooperatives, the SFCU represents over ninety thousand farming families, making it one of the largest coffee cooperatives in the world. On their small farms, the members of SFCU grow coffee surrounded by plantains, mangos, and feathery acacia trees.

Ethiopian Yirga-Cheffe Grade 2, Washed – Under the new Ethiopian Commodity Exchange rules for coffee trading, with the exception of a few directly traded coffees, you will begin to see more and more coffees labeled like this. The coffee will show the region, Yirga-Cheffe in this case, then followed by the “Raw value and cup quality” as indicated by the “Grade 2″ which equates to a cupping score of 81 to 90, making this an overall very high quality coffee.  Then it is followed by the type of processing method, in this case washed, which indicates that the flesh of the coffee was removed while the cherry was still moist or in a tank of water.  As this new Ethiopian coffee market develops we will see more changes and hopefully more specifics on where the quality coffee is once again coming from.

Central Piurana de Cafetaleros (CEPICAFE) – CEPICAFE was founded in March 1995 with 200 members. Today the group has grown into a second level non-profit organization which represents coffee and sugar cane producers of the Piuran mountains and the northeast of Peru.  Currently, CEPICAFE consists of 71 base organizations and 8 zonal committees, with a total of 4,811 producers.  In 2007 they  have exported 65 containers of Fair Trade organic coffee and 5 transitional. For 2008 they plan to export 70 containers of FT organic coffee and 5 transitional. They average yield for the organic production is of 10 quintals an hectare. The annual assembly of CEPICAFE is in June and it anniversary is on the 26 of March. Their board is now constituted of Segundo Guerrero Mondragon, president; Pedro Castillo Castillo, secretary; and of Benita Facundo Quevedo, treasurer.  For 2008, their main objective is to sell 100% of their coffee on special market, to strengthen their organization and to establish good commercial alliance.

The cooperative alliance between CEPICAFE, OROVERDE and CENFROCAFE, has provided important services to thousands of small-scale farmers (members and non-members alike) in the coffee regions of Northern Peru, who without a strong organization would have otherwise been abandoned without access to even the most basic health, education and other social services.

Through the consolidation of producer organizations under the CEPICAFE umbrella, producers are now active and respected agents for sustainable development in Bottling marmaladestheir region. They have worked collectively to improve quality and overall production under certified organic practices, and they have increased their exports from 550 quintales in 1997 to 39,373 quintales into a range of specialty markets over the past 10 years. Farmers also enjoy access to financing and to development projects. This has facilitated the diversification of their production base to include a range of products from brown sugar, marmalades and cocoa to crafts and coffee tourism.

Some of the leaders of the Sidama Farmers Cooperative Union. Photo: Ben Corey-Moran, 2008

Information found at the following websites:

http://coopcoffees.com/what/producers/cepicafe-peru

http://www.thanksgivingcoffee.com/sidama/story     (picture above)

http://www.ecx.com.et/commodities.aspx#COFFEE

So, we have some new Brazil coffees in and had the pleasure to cup them this morning. It is nice to find an organic and Fair Trade certified Brazilian coffee that really adds to our line up of great coffees here at Anodyne. We also have our new Yellow Bourbon that is a real treasure for all coffee lovers to taste and enjoy.

Here are the notes:

FTO Brazil Poco Fundo: Aroma – Lavender floral, rich roasted quality. Flavor – sweet almond, baked bread, chocolate. Finish – Light bodied, yet flavors stick to tongue.

Brazil Fazenda Pedra Grande 100% Yellow Bourbon: Aroma – Warm spice, cardamom, and dandelion. Flavor – unroasted peanuts, rose petal floral, faint chocolate, a lot of sweetness (reminiscent of sweet nougat and cake as cooling). Finish – Buttery cream, syrupy.

As a note on coffee varietals’ and the color, the Yellow Bourbon refers to the color of the coffee cherry when it is picked ripe. Normal coffee cherries are predominantly red but you will often hear of an “orange” or “yellow” coffee like the Yellow Bourbon that we have. It is said the the yellow color originated from a hybrid of the orange and the red cherries cross breeding. The 100% bourbon is a reference to the coffee varietal it self. There are thousands of different types coffee varietals in the world and most have specific origins and characteristics. The Bourbon cultivar gets its name from the island currently called Réunion, formerly known as “Île Bourbon.” Geographically Réunion is in the Indian ocean east of Madagascar. Over time governments and traders brought the Bourbon varietal to Brazil where it is currently harvested.

Guat did you say? Just kidding. Guatemalan coffee was the focus on the table today, in addition to some samples from our friends at Atlas.

Guatemalan Antigua Los Volcanes – Aroma – Fruits, Nutty. Flavor – Nice chocolate notes, roasted hazelnuts, hints of cherry, unripe banana (not in a bad way). Body/ Finish – Very smooth, light citrus notes as it cools.

FTO Guatemalan Quiche – Aroma – Woody, earthy. Flavor – Bell peppers, honeydew melon, orange citrus notes. Body/ Finish – Caramelized bready sugars on the finish, prominent rose and jasmine, and a winey brightness.

We are super happy with these new additions to our line up and are looking forward to comments.

Look for these to be rolling out into the cafe soon!

*Natural Process* Organic Mexican Terruno Nayarita: Aroma – Nutmeg, sweet cinnamon, and warm spices. Flavor – Cherry, berries, semi-unripe fruit notes, grain sweetness. Finish – Grassy, caramelized sugar sweetness mouthfeel, dry finish.

My Page – Barista Exchange

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Brazil Beija Flor -Aroma – Peppery, floral. Flavors – Orange blossom, nutty, subtle sweetness, hints of dark dried fruits i.e. raisins, dates. Finish -creamy, smooth, some brightness, little waxy on pallet.
*berry notes seem to surface when cooling

Mexican Terruno Nayarita – Aroma – Cocoa, beans. Flavor – Bready, nuts, notes of citrus, mild smokiness, subtle caramelized sugar sweetness, cocoa. Finish – Smooth, effervescence quality, mild brightness.