This is the second time this year we've put a non-washed coffee into our "green" category for floral, stone fruit, and citrusy coffees. This is a total gem of a honey process... So clean you'll be forgiven for thinking it's a washed coffee. We're getting notes of Apricot, Mead, and Bai Mu Dan white tea. If you like complex and structured coffees, you'll love this little microlot.
We brought on a few new coffee-importing partners this year, and Primavera are synonymous with Guatemalan coffee. We bought 3 different lots from them this season; a washed, a honey, and a natural... We think these three lots brilliantly represent what Guatemala has to offer this year. You can read more about the La Colina farm below!
Antonio Medina inherited the La Colina farm from his dad, who distributed his farm as smaller plots among all his children. Initially, Tony planted only basic grains like corn and beans. But he also tells that it has always been his dream to have a coffee farm. And at a young age, when he didn’t have anything yet, he started to work on different coffee farms to learn and gain experience. In 1991, the first coffee tree was planted. Slowly but steady, Tony increased the number of trees and the production. After 25 years, Tony concludes that his dream has come true. It taught him that his perseverance has paid off. The varieties on his farm are Caturra and Bourbon. He wants to plant other varieties to improve his quality even more. Another plan of his is to work with African raised beds to improve drying and overall quality.
This lot represents a collaboration between Antonio and the team that works at Primavera’s dry mill in Santa Rosa, Guatemala. They begin the day of picking as early as possible, and only select the most ripe cherries off the branches. The cherries are placed into sacks to be transported via truck, a journey that takes all night. The next morning at dawn, the cherries arrive at the dry mill in Santa Rosa. There, the sacks are weighed and then the cherries are washed. While being cleaned, the floating cherries that rise to the top are sorted out. The remaining clean cherries are depulped and then immediately placed into the sun on raised beds next to the dry mill. The team spreads the honey coffee in even layers of about 3-4 cm in height and they also periodically turn the coffee on the beds; this ensures thorough and even drying. The honey coffee spends about 13 days in direct sun, about 11 hours per day. Once the coffee is testing within specifications for coffee export, 9-11.5% humidity, they remove the coffee from the beds and place it into clean sacks. Finally, it will be dehulled in the dry mill and placed into Grainpro and jute sacks for export.
