Certified organically grown. Grown under a canopy of nitrogen-fixing, soil preserving Inga trees, with some citrus as well, by small-holding farmers of the CENAPROC cooperative. Victrola is a small-batch, hands-on roaster with a passionate commitment to quality and distinctiveness. Visit www.victrolacoffee.com or call 206-624-1725 for more information.
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Single-Origin Espressos
The practice of roasting a coffee from a single farm or cooperative for espresso brewing is a tactic that appears to be carrying the day at the higher end of the North American specialty coffee world. The old argument against single-origin espressos and in favor of blends ran: Put a single, unblended coffee under the magnifying intensity of espresso brewing and the coffee is liable to come out
Sulawesi Toraja Sapan Minanga
Coffee from the Toraja region of Sulawesi, once Celebes, typically displays a wild and often earth-toned character, the result of unorthodox methods of fruit removal and drying. Victrola is a small-batch, hands-on roaster with a passionate commitment to quality and distinctiveness. Visit www.victrolacoffee.com or call 206-624-1725 for more information.
Coffees of Sulawesi, Bali, Java, Flores, East Timor
In beverage-world terms, coffees from Indonesia and East Timor could be considered the single-malt whiskies of coffee. Generally absent are the tart fruit and sweet floral notes of the finest pure, high-grown, wet-processed coffees of Latin America and East Africa. In their place are rich, ambiguous notes of nut, aromatic wood, sometimes earth, sometimes a chocolaty fermented fruit. Most of these
Ethiopia Harar Moplaco Cooperative Boldgrain
Processed by the traditional Ethiopian natural or dry method, meaning the coffee was dried with both skin and fruit still adhering to the beans. "Boldgrain" apparently refers to the larger and more regular beans obtained by unusually careful hand sorting of the green coffee before shipment. Victrola is a small-batch, hands-on roaster with a passionate commitment to quality and distinctiveness.
Single-Origin Espressos 2008
Those new to espresso connoisseurship may be surprised to learn that producing this dense, aromatic beverage from coffee of a single origin rather than from a blend of coffees from different origins is a mildly controversial practice. Traditionalists argue that the espresso system extracts flavor-bearing components from coffee so efficiently that a single coffee from a single origin is not
Brasil Cerrado Fazenda Sao Pedro Lot 307 Natural
Processed by the traditional Brazilian natural or dry method, meaning the coffee was dried with both skin and fruit still adhering to the beans. From the Cerrado growing region, a high plateau in south-central Brazil with a dry harvest season particularly suited to sun-drying natural and pulped-natural process coffees. Farmer Tulio Bovaretto produced this coffee from trees of the Catuai, icatus
Brasil Cerrado Fazenda Esperanca Lot 302 Pulped Natural
Processed by the pulped natural method, meaning the skin is removed from the coffee fruit immediately after picking, but the seeds or beans are dried with the sweet pulp, or fruit flesh, still adhering to them. From trees of the Rubi variety. From the Cerrado growing region, a high plateau in south-central Brazil with a dry harvest season particularly suited to sun-drying natural and
“S” as in Sexy: New Specialty Offerings from Brazil
The fact that at least half of the American roasters submitting coffees for this month's cupping spelled Brazil with an "s" - the Portuguese-Brazilian spelling - may be symptomatic of what has happened of late to the reputation of high-end coffees from that country. The spelling implies that these are not your old-fashioned, low-grown, stolid Brazils of years past, but Brasils with an "s" -
Yemen Mocca Sanani
Coffee as a commercial enterprise almost certainly started in Yemen, at the mountainous southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, from seed originally brought across the Red Sea from Ethiopia. Amazingly, coffee is still produced in Yemen almost exactly as it was in the seventeenth century: picked, put out on roofs of stone houses to dry, hulled by millstone and winnowed by hand. Unfortunately,
Special Reserve is Dead. Long Live Special Reserve.
Two or three years ago, offering small, distinctive lots of coffee on a temporary, seasonal basis and calling them "special reserve" or "limited edition" appeared to be one of the most promising trends in specialty coffee. These offerings proposed to wean coffee drinkers from expecting the same kind of consistency in single-origin coffees as they might expect from brands of beer or soft drinks:
Colombia Huila Monserrate Excelso
Monserrate is produced by a community of 28 families near the town of La Plata in Huila Department. This coffee represents a special project and green coffee brand of Atlas Coffee Importers, Seattle. Victrola is a small-batch, hands-on roaster with a passionate commitment to quality and distinctiveness. Visit www.victrolacoffee.com or call 206-624-1725 for more information.
Brazil Fazenda Boa Sorte Natural Catuai
A dry-processed or "natural" coffee, meaning the beans are dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit has been removed, as is the case with wet-processed or "washed" coffees. Typically low growing altitudes and dry-processing contribute to a gentle, subdued acidy sensation in most Brazil coffees. Produced from trees of the catuai variety, a relatively recent selection of arabica that has
Low-Acid Options for Coffee Drinkers
The title alone of this article raises a sizable number of questions. For example: What is acidity in coffee? The tart yet sweet sensation that animates the sensory character of the finest coffees and keeps them from falling into woody neutrality? An edgy sourness that messes up our tummies? Prime contributor to coffee's newfound status as the leading contributor to cancer-fighting antioxidant