Fans of Angela Rojas' coffees we've offered recently will recall that she tends to produce some real eye-poppers, and this one might take the cake. Read on for processing and flavour details that have melted our brains a little bit — while also representing how family farms can diversify their offerings to reach a wider audience through remarkable techniques. If there's one thing we support, it's the ingenuity of coffee producers.
This coffee was fermented with a pineapple starter culture, among other particulars (more below), and then came out tasting like ... coconut! You're going to taste: Coconut Malibu, red berries and more coconut. This is an absolute tropical saga, a real boundary-busting coffee for the adventurous.
Here's more of the family story from our importing partners Mi Cafe:
Luz Ángela Rojas grew up surrounded by coffee plants, immersed in nature while helping her father with every task the farm required. During a time of coffee crisis, her parents (pictured above) advised her not to stay at the farm. The idea was for her to go to university and follow a different path, away from the challenges of the coffee sector and the traditional roles of household duties, looking after children, and maintaining the home. Ángela began a career in healthcare, where she became a head nurse. However, as she advanced she felt that something was calling her back to her roots: coffee. She began to realise that coffee plants, just like humans, require care and attention to thrive.
So, Ángela began to reconsider and coffee became part of her own dreams. She saw farming not only as a family tradition but as a project that could be reinvented. She also decided that her life would not just be about studying and working in the city, but about integrating her knowledge of health and management into the coffee world. She discovered that the principles of administration she had learned could be applied to any business, even to her family’s coffee farm.
Although her parents insisted she follow her professional career, she reconnected with life on the farm and decided to stay and work alongside her parents. Ángela is committed to offering differentiated coffees with a wide variety of flavours beginning with quality agronomic work.
The project is entirely family-run, and everyone involved is motivated to push the quality of their coffees. Ángela has transformed the family legacy into a model of innovation within coffee farming.
For this coffee, selected cherry was oxidised for 72 hours in food-safe drums, then dried to about 15% moisture before being rehydrated with hot water to prepare for fermentation. Fermentation takes 144 hours at temperatures below 25C, using mosto from previous fermentations together with a pineapple starter culture and a specific yeast to guide microbial activity and tropical flavour development. The coffee was dried mechanically for 72 hours, at 38C for the first 18 hours followed by 32C for the remainder. That's a lot of work!
Elevation: 1600-1850 Meters Above Sea Level
Varietal: Papayo
Cup score: 89
Price paid per kg: £28
Process: Pineapple culture kickstart anoxic
