Guatemala 2012

Guatemala 2012 -

Finca Valparaiso

Guatemala is known for being one of the World's most quality-minded coffee-producing countries. Therefore every year it is a pleasure for Estate Coffee to return.
Purity of the cup here is paramount, therefore they have done extensive steps to avoid defective tastes / impurities and such. F.ex. insect damaged beans, over- or underripe cherries are sorted out.
Selective harvesting by hand as well as world class grading practices is what Guatemala is known for, but this year things were interesting. There were rumors of a much different harvest cycle, with rainfall in the most unimaginable times and droughts in what used to be rainseason. Because of this, many plant diseases occurred, F.ex. “Roja”, The Rust and “Ojo De Gallo”( The Eye of the Rooster). Which made the Guatemalan production go down by approx. 30% this year they say.
At the conventional export mill SuBeneficio in Guatemala City I tasted my way through three rounds of coffees, from some of the best and most respected farms in the country.
It was a blind tasting, but one coffee I noticed. Again this year it was Valparaiso, our longterm partner, stood out from the crowd with most fruitiness and more significant microclimate taste (Terroir). Valparaiso is a classic Guatemalan coffee produced after classical Guatemalan Specialty standards. With great power in the cup, tones of light berries, in the direction of perfectly ripe green grapes and gooseberry, chocolate sweetness, with a high but very pleasant acidity. It represents its region (Acatenango) incredibly.
I met with Ernesto Perez (Finca Valparaiso Agronomist) and went out to see the fields and the diseases which had affected some parts of the plantations. Fortunately only a few areas were severely hit. Ernesto believes global warming is a major challenge for farmers in the country. He says that farmers who are aware and take care of their fields, detect diseases in time and can respond promptly and avoid disease much better. Large farms are hit the hardest because they are not in the field as much and just expects to able to fix everything with chemicals. Ernesto can´t take this relentless behaviour, because it only damages the soil and the plants even more. Across from Valparaiso, he showed us a horrid example of a farm which almost looked like a graveyard for coffee trees, after years of chemicals and poor grooming.
Finca Valparaiso try to use as few chemicals as possible and less harmful fertilizers and pesticides are thankfully also being developed.
We are delighted to continue working with Ernesto and his family. It is the seventh harvest in a row we buy from them and the new harvest will be available approx. in June.

Finca Santa Felisa / San Antonio Visit

Together with Antonio Meneses (Santa Felisa), I also visited the organic coffee Laboratory where Finca Santa Felisa gets their coffees grated at. We tasted some exciting microlots (Special selected lots of coffee, f.ex. chosen because of special Arabica variety or specific post-harvest treatment). Antonio also told us about the plant diseases that particularly hit the Bourbon(Arabica variety) hard. This we would see later on our visit to Santa Felisa.
We tasted Santa Felisas mircolots from the San Antonio field, a clean Typica variety, this variety had not been hit as hard, and it tasted great also with good sweet dark chocolate tones and clear floral honey notes with a mild tangerine-like acid. Additionally, they had tried a Kenya fermentation of the same coffee. Very exciting result, extremely balanced and even more fruity than the normal San Antonio. In addition, we tasted their newest addition, the Geisha, the Ethiopian variety. This Geisha variety was further developed in Costa Rica where Felisa had their seeds from. Geisha is known for its floral aromas and the aromas were in full bloom, Jasmine, Citrus, Bergamot wrapped in an apricot-like sweetness!

Later we went and visited Felisa farm managed by Antonios sister Anabella who is also an Agronomist. Just like Valparaiso, Felisa is also located in the Acatenango valley. It is a great area with volcanic and very fertile soil and not far from the active volcano El Fuego (which also roared a few times during the dayJ).
We saw their plantations and met pickers in the field doing their nearly 5th month of picking(Very unusual, usually it is three months). The harvest as mentioned, has been quite different than previous years.
Anabella spoke about the importance of being flexible and taking care of the Biodiversity on Organic farms. Organic farms do not have the same possiblity to increase the amount of chemicals when there is a plant disease, therefore, they must ensure that they keep themselves updated on organic/sustainable ways of dealing with these problems. To have different varieties is also key, in order to ensure the harvest and also the Biodiversity in general, since plant disease rarely affects several varieties simultaneously.
With approx. 6 varieties right now You have to say that they have come far, since this is almost twice as many as normal farms, some only have two varieties. We saw their Bourbon fields, or what was left of them, this variety Anabella told, was extremely fragile against diseases in their particular area and they would replace them with other species.
In their experimental fields we also saw up to 12 other varieties, they also want to experiment with. Geisha is one of them and it has great promise, it keeps well, it does not produce many cherries, but it seems to be stabile and with high quality. Felisa´s social environment is also great, some places You´ve heard about the Mayans being treated poorly, but here they thrive as excellent farmers, millers, cutters etc. helping out the Meneses family. Around ten families run the daily management of the farm and live at Santa Felisa and all are part of the incredibly high Quality they have every year. It was incredibly meaningful to visit them and nice to see how Organic- and innovative thinking thrives here.

We look forward again this year to present one of the world's best Organic coffees in our opinion. Santa Felisa & San Antonio Microlot. The new harvest will be available on the shelves approx. in June.

Stempelkande møder filterkaffe!

Smagsprofiler på de gængse bryggemetoder:


Stempelkande, grumset, uren, køler ikke godt, men trods alt dette et stort aromabillede, dog forvrænget af alle de små partikler der slipepr igennem ud i koppen.


Filterkaffe( Moccamaster), ren, aromatisk, lidt tynd. Køler ok.


Hario V60, ren, aromatisk, nem at brygge en god kop på, men svær at lave en super kop på.


Efter en række test er vi nu kommet op med Estate´s ultimative brygge profil:
Vi har nu parret stempelkande med filterbryg.


Bryg en stempelkande. 
Kværn kaffen groft. Kværn gerne nogle bønner igennem så den friske kaffe er det eneste der sidder i kværnen.

Benyt 7g groft kværnet( Partikelstr ca. 2mm) til 100g vand( Kildevand)
Pga. bønnernes vidt forskellige strukturer( Lys til mellemristet Kenya vejer i snit 30-40% mere end Brasil bønner)

7g til 100g vand hvis det er Kenya
8-9g til 100g vand hvis det er Centralamerika
10g til 100g vand hvis det er Brasil


Tjek stempelkanden, er den ren, har stemplet været skilt ad fornylig og blevet rengjort ordentligt?
Hvis det er de smalle kander, enten den mindste to kops eller den mest udbredte 1liters. Rør da efter vandet er hældt på. Er det de bredere 4kops eller den helt store 8-12kops( Afh. hvem man taler med) rør da først efter fire min.

Hæld kaffen i stempelkanden når dit vand er kogt og nede omkring de 93-95grader.


Hæld vand på.


Rør bryggen godt til bunds så den er helt hvirvlet op.



Tryk stempel i bund. Det er ok at trykke lidt ned og hive stempel lidt op igen af flere gange.


Skyl et filter med trakt, skyl en kande så den er varm.


Hæld stempelkaffen over.


Lad kaffen filtrere. På et givent tidspunkt, ca. når der en tredjedel tilbage hældes restkaffen fra da dette højest sandsynligt er bittert. Tag et nyt filter og filtrer igen. Til det hele er filtreret.


På denne måde opnår du en super ren aromatisk kop med stor fylde. Dvs. det gode fra filterkaffe parret med det gode fra stempelbrygning.


Bryggeguide lavet af:


Estate Coffee/ CPh Roaster Kvalitetsansvarlig


Jakob C.-Dupont

Så er efterårets kaffeskole program smidt op!

Tag et kig på hvad vi tilbyder:

http://estatecoffee.dk/den-sorte-skole/

Kaffe klassificeringer

Problemet for forbrugerne er, at mange af de synlige defekter er skjult af meget mørke ristninger, pga. formaling eller i forarbejdet kaffe som f.eks instant er det helt ugennemskueligt. Specialty Coffee Organistaion of America har inddelt kaffe i 5 kaffe klasser. Jo lysere man riste jo nememre vil det være at se defekter og også at smage dem, derfor skjules de oftest at hårde mørke ristninger der gør det mest er brændtheden der  skinner igennem. Off, Below, Exchange, Premium og Specialty grade. Direct trade kan per definiton ikke være under premium grade. Specialty er det ypperste, men skal ikke forveksles med firmaer der bare skriver specialkaffe på posen. Find mere på scaa.org eller Find clean coffee på directtrade.dk

Danskerne drikker affaldskaffe

Imodsætning til andre certifceringer er Direct trade mærket kaffe din indikator for at der er blevet betalt et markant premium for rene kaffer med et minimum af dårlige bønner( Såkaldte defekter). Læs Søndagsavisens test som understreger hvor ekstremt uren den gængse kaffe er.



http://sondagsavisen.dk/2011/34/Test-danskerne-drikker-affaldskaffe.aspx

Kold sommer kaffe!

Kold sommer kaffe! Det er vidst ved at være på tide vi begynder at brygge kold kaffe igen med den varmebølge. Prøv en af vores Direct Trade Kenya eller Guatemalakaffer med massiv frugtighed og sødme som kold kaffe. Følg blot vores Hario/ Aeropess eller Moccamaster opskrift som kan downloades på hjemmesiden estatecoffee.dk og sæt jeres bryg på køl( I en tætlukket beholder) til den er iskold. Det er sort læskedrik der virker!

Ny høst fra Costa Rica og Kenya ankommet

Så er de nye høste ved at ankomme.

Chris kæmper med vores vacuumkasser:-)

Containerne fra Costa Rica og Kenya er netop ankommet, Guatemala kommer i denne uge og i kan tro vi glæder os.
Efter en mindre tørkeperiode på vores lagre er de nu ved at blive fyldt op med dugfriske kaffer fra La Minita Las Gravilias Kangocho Kianjokoma og snart også nyheden Santa Felisa´s Microlot San Antoinio og Valparaiso.
Smag/køb de friske høste på Gl.Kongevej 1 på vores kaffebar eller kom forbi risteriet i Valby.