Coffee has been grown and processed on Capetillo since the 1880s. The first shipment of Capetillo to London was a small lot of thirty bags in 1889 (not to us). Originally, the farm was a sugar plantation, but slowly over almost one hundred years it was converted to a coffee estate. The waterwheels, which powered the sugar mill, were built in Glasgow by Mirrlees & Tait in 1865 and are still in place and functional. The farm is currently modernising the system to provide more sustainable power for the coffee mill. The farm lies in‑between the Acatenango and Agua volcanoes at an average of 1500 meters which is a bit too high for extensive sugar production but great for growing exceptional coffee. In June last year another volcano, Fuego, close to Capetillo erupted. Luckily for the team at Capetillo the volcano erupted from its far side, meaning that the initial ash, lava and stones didn’t reach the farm. Later in the week though, the highest areas of the farm suffered from a rain of small volcanic stones and the trees were damaged. The farm manager, Pedro, decided to prune back the affected trees, sacrificing ten percent of this crop in order to help the trees recover from the foliage loss. The shade of the volcanoes helps cool the farm’s micro‑climate ensuring a slow maturation of the cherries which along with the high altitude, careful selection and processing, produces delicious coffees from Capetillo, but unfortunately Guatemala lies on the Pacific ring of fire and eruptions and earthquakes are a frequent part of life here. We have shipped this year’s coffee from Capetillo and its sister farm Santa Catalina. The farms are now in a post‑harvest tidy up, pruning and application of compost phase. As Guatemala is currently in lock‑down, the people working at Capetillo and Santa Catalina have been separated into small, cohort teams which work in different areas of the farm.

Varietal: Bourbon, Caturra and Pache
Region: Alotenango

Finca Capetillo

We source and roast coffee from single farms, estates and cooperatives. When we taste a coffee that we like, we want to know where it comes from and who grows, picks and processes it. We travel extensively throughout the year, visiting the producers and cooperatives with whom we currently work and looking for interesting varietals of coffee and new farms from which to buy. During these visits we talk to farmers and cooperative members, learning more about the coffee they grow and process and the challenges that they face. We then look to establish a relationship with the grower and exporter of that coffee. We believe that where such a relationship exists, quality, quantity and price requirements can be discussed in an open and equal way. We see this as sustainable, fair and equal trade.

Monmouth Coffee

Ndaroini represents a more transparent and open way of coffee trading in Kenya and this second shipment is the result of Ndaroini taking a chance on a different way of doing things and the support from Trabocca. Trabocca have been instrumental in securing high quality and traceable coffee in Ethiopia and they have now started working in a similar way in Kenya. The Ndaroini coffee processing station was established in 1984 when the farmers, frustrated by the long journey to their closest station, proposed to the society to which they belonged a new facility closer to their farms. The government at the time intervened and granted Ndaroini the right to build their own station and allocated them some land on which to build. This was their first revolution against the established way of doing things. The second came much more recently when they split from their coffee society and formed their own company through which they can now process and market their coffee independently. Trabocca have helped with agronomy training, new equipment for the processing and delivering the premium warranted by the quality of coffee Ndaroini are delivering. Trabocca have also managed to garner the support from roasters around the world for the project and we are pleased to be one of the buyers for this year's crop. Please see trabocca.com for more information about Ndaroini and the work they are doing to help improve coffee quality and traceability.

Varietal: SL28 and SL34
Region: Nyeri

Ndaroini AA

We chose this coffee from El Pastoral for decaffeination because its body and balance are crucial to producing a full‑flavoured decaffeinated coffee. We sent it for decaffeination to Descamex who use the Mountain Water Process. This is the second year we have bought coffee from El Pastoral and we are delighted to be using their non‑decaffeinated coffee in our Organic Espresso and to have this decaffeinated shipment available on the counter. Juan de Dios Castillo Arauz is an agronomist and worked on his father's farm before working at a local cooperative. Juan left his job in 2004 to fulfil a life‑long dream of having his own coffee farm; growing and processing coffee in his own way as he had imagined he could. The farm was already organic when he bought it and since taking over Juan has managed to triple his production by good management and control of the available shade. We look forward to visiting the farm again this year.

Varietal: Caturra and Catuaí
Region: Los Cipreses, Jinotega

Decaffeinated Finca El Pastoral

Isidro Pereira (IP) bought this farm in 1967 and his son Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira Senior started working with him after finishing his agriculture and farming studies. Together they bought more land in 1974 and the farm grew from the original 140 hectares to 720 hectares. Isidro Pereira is a pioneer in coffee growing in Carmo de Minas, and one of the leaders of what has become a coffee growing dynasty in this area of Brasil. His grandson, Luiz Paulo (Junior) is a farmer in his own right, and a founding partner in the exporting company Carmo Coffee. Fazenda IP is now managed by Grupo Sertão, an organisation set up to help with the family farms. The farmers in the Carmo Coffee group, and Brazil more widely have had to adapt quickly to the COVID-19 situation with this year’s harvest approaching.

 Fazenda IP

Finca Chico is a tiny (two hectare) farm south of San José in Costa Rica. The farm was a parcel of land given to Francisco Rojas Camacho by his parents. Originally Finca Chico was part of his parents’ farm, and as their children grew up it was split into fifteen sections, one for each of the children. Francisco planted his land twenty years ago with coffee and avocado. There was some concern at the time that because of the high altitude (1800m) there would be a risk of frost, but as the local climate has gotten a little warmer the likelihood of extreme lower temperatures has declined. The coffee trees have survived and are doing well, but sadly less than ten percent of the avocado has made it. Francisco uses every square inch of his two hectares, if there is a little space then something is planted in it – he has an established vegetable garden, as well as peach, plantain and chilli growing. Over the last year Chico has been preparing the land at the highest point on his farm, some 2000m. He has cleared the pasture and prepared the soil by planting red pinto beans. The bean crop helps fix nitrogen and as the plants break down at the end of the harvest there is a nice layer of mulch to get further nutrients into the soil. Chico is planting more Yellow and Red Catuaí, sourced from his own seed stock he has selected.

Varietal: Yellow and Red Catuaí
Region: Ojo de Agua de León Cortéz

Finca Chico

We have been buying coffee from La Piragua for six years now and selected this lot alongside the coffees from our competition in Huila last year. Alexander Vargas Osorio started working in coffee at a very young age. He was taken in by Octavio Rueda from El Mirador and given the opportunity to learn coffee growing and processing and earn an income along the way. Alexander then left Octavio's farm when he was eighteen and worked for his in-laws for a few years before buying La Piragua. Octavio continues to be his coffee mentor and is now godfather to one of his sons. In the last year, Alexander has been updating and extending his coffee drying area and system. Traditionally in this area, coffee is dried under poly-tunnels which whilst protecting the coffee from rain can unfortunately sometimes cause the coffee to over-dry. Last year, Alexander experimented with drying tables and this year he has extended these upwards. When coffee first comes to the drying tables from the washing tanks it is put onto the first level and as it dries and has lost a lot of moisture and won't drip onto the coffee below, it is moved up to the next table above. The drying tables ensure good ventilation around the coffee and a steady drying rate; it is believed this helps to keep the sweetness in the coffee.

Varietal: Caturra
Region: Vereda Los Olivos, Huila

Finca La Piragua

The natural method is the simplest way to process coffee cherry but very difficult to perfect. Fortunately, Francisca and Oscar are experienced and dedicated farmers and they have produced another delicious natural coffee this year - full of candy flavours. Perfectly ripe cherry is selected specifically for this lot of coffee and then spread onto screens to dry for a few days. The drying cherry requires constant attention to make sure that it is losing moisture evenly and slowly. If the cherry dries too quickly the beans can be damaged, but it must also be protected from rain and high humidity as water-damage can lead to problems in the cup as well. When all the care and attention pays off, the end cup of coffee is an interesting mix of ripe fruit flavours and intense sweetness. Francisca and Oscar have been experimenting with perfecting their natural process methods for some years now. We have always loved the cup profile of the Perla Negra which was the first natural profile they produced. Recently they have been experimenting with the types of screens they use to dry the cherry including the colour of the material used to cover the cherries overnight and the optimum amount of drying time. This obviously changes every year depending on the quality and quantity of the harvest. All their experiments are correlated with how the coffee tastes once it has been roasted and cupped, so that any improvements that are made can be repeated next year. This coffee is grown and processed using the organic methods but sadly we are unable to sell it with its certification for this crop. The farm’s organic certificate for the EU was delayed before shipping and with a lock down imminent in Costa Rica we decided to ship without it. Unfortunately, the various organic rules here mean that without this certificate, this shipment cannot be considered to be organically certified for the governing bodies, even though it is. And even though we are all in particularly trying circumstances apparently no exceptions can be made.

Varietal: Caturra
Region: Poas Volcano, Central Valley

Finca Las Lajas

Malacara translates as ‘bad face’ which is an incongruous name for such a wonderful farm. Finca Malacara was established by Rafael Alvarez Lalinde. Coffee has been grown on this farm since the 1800s and it has been owned and managed by the Alvarez family since 1889. As the farm has been passed down through three generations it has been separated into three farms, Malacara A, B and C. José Guillermo Alvarez Prunera and Maria Alvarez De Murray have had a difficult time dealing with a severe attack of Coffee Rust Disease (a fungus which attacks the foliage) which meant that an equally severe pruning regime was implemented and they lost a good portion of their crop for a few years. In some cases, José Guillermo and Maria have re-introduced a traditional pruning and training technique on the trees called Agobio Parras. Using this method, the main tree stem is bent past 45 degrees (to nearly horizontal) and fixed into the soil with an old branch shaped like a hook. From the upper side of the bent stem, new branches grow and one to several of these are selected for the future growth. The tree will now have more than three main stems from which the future new crops will develop. After some years of production, but before the yield starts to decline substantially, the stems are stumped, and new off-shoots establish themselves. From these new off-shoots, new stems will once again be selected, and the method will be applied again. Over the last couple of years José Guillermo and María de los Angeles have invested in a program of improvement based on data analysis from more use of technology. Each part of the farm is now mapped and separated by altitude, varietals, soil analysis including ph and macro-nutrients, and collective leaf canopy variation. All the information helps establish a nutrition plan for each tree and plot, reveal any areas of concern, and helps identify plants that need more help. 

Varietal: Red Bourbon
Region: Apaneca - Ilamatepec

Finca Malacara A

Suke Quto is an organic farm in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. Tesfaye Bekele originally established a small farm, with five hectares planted with coffee and grown under an established forest canopy. The farm now has 221 hectares of coffee and another 150 small-holding farmers deliver their coffee to the farm for processing. The small-holding farmers started planting coffee with the help of Tesfaye after a bushfire in the area. Tesfaye distributed coffee seeds to the farmers after the fire and helped re-establish the shade-tree forest in the area. Suke Quto is a great example of a farm working with an importer (trabocca.com) to lift the quality of their coffee and improve the livelihoods of the smaller farmers around them. Importers and brokers are often derided as 'middlemen' in coffee supply chains, but without companies like Trabocca, we wouldn't have access to Suke Quto and Tesfaye wouldn't have access to the international specialty market where premiums are paid for quality coffee and support is given for improvement.

Varietal: Kurume and Welicho
Region: Oromia Region

Suke Quto

Finca Abisinia is the latest coffee to arrive from the competition we held in Huila, Colombia. We hold annual competitions in Huila and Nariño and we are delighted with the new coffees arriving from our latest event in Huila. During the competition we invite farmers to submit samples and we then spend four weeks hulling, sample roasting and tasting the coffees, culminating with a presentation and award ceremony. The premium paid to all the winners helps to pay off mortgages, build new houses and invest in farm maintenance and equipment. Helio Córdoba Quinayas was taught coffee growing by his father and his grandfather and has been a coffee farmer since he was sixteen. Helio’s grandfather named the farm Abisinia and it was left to Helio and his brother Fidencio when their father died twenty years ago. Both brothers have six hectares of land each and until the last ten years they worked, processed and sold their coffees separately. As they have gotten a bit older they now combine forces and have focussed on a smaller part of their farm to concentrate on delivery of the best quality coffee they can grow and process.

Varietal: Castillo and Caturra
Region: San Lorenzo, Huila

Finca Abisinia

Santa Inês is part of the Sertão Group and in addition to its 75 hectares of coffee it has 140 hectares of native forest and grazing for their Girolando cattle. Francisco Isidro Dias Pereira has five cultivars of coffee planted on the farm: Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourbon, Yellow Catuaí, Acaiá and Mundo Novo. We chose the Yellow Bourbon for its sweetness and toasty flavours. This shipment has been processed using the Pulped Natural Process, during which the cherry skin and fruit are removed and the sticky parchment-covered beans are left to dry naturally. The final stage is the removal of the dried parchment before the coffee is graded, bagged and shipped to the UK.

Varietal: Yellow Bourbon
Region: Carmo de Minas

Fazenda Santa Inês

Roberto Samuel Ulloa Vilanova bought La Divina Providencia over a decade ago. When Roberto took over the farm the land and trees were in poor condition having been abandoned in previous years because the extremely low coffee prices at that time drove the farm out of production. Since buying the farm, Roberto has rejuvenated the land and the trees, planting Kenya, Pacamara and Gesha as well as Red and Orange Bourbon. Roberto uses a tree-training method called 'parras' where the leader branch from a pruned trunk is bent almost 90 degrees and four lateral branches build the structure for future growth. This method is used to improve the productivity and longevity of the tree. Roberto has both red and orange bourbon growing on his farm. Bourbon is one of the only cultivars that comes in all three colours, ripening to yellow, orange and red depending on the seed. This year Roberto has won the El Salvador Cup of Excellence! This is no mean feat, there are some amazing coffees in El Salvador and to take top spot in the competition is really testament to years of work, dedication, and a little bit of something special. The coffee that won was a Pacamara processed using the anaerobic method.

Varietal: Orange Bourbon
Region: Palo de Campana

Divina Providencia

Finca Galeras

Finca Villa Rosa

Sitio Grota Sao Pedro

Fazenda Alta Vista

Finca Las Alasitas

Finca El Arcangel

Tessema Edima

The Echeverría brothers own and manage Santa Catalina. They have 95 hectares, 70 of which are planted with coffee and the remaining 25 are a forest reserve close to the Acatenango volcano. The altitude on the farm ranges from 1550m to 2100m. The higher slopes are planted with Bourbon and the comparatively lower areas with the other cultivars: Caturra, Catuaí and Pache. Bourbon ripens early and planting it at the higher altitude with the correspondingly cooler temperatures slows its maturation down considerably. This means all the farm's coffee ripens at approximately the same time making it easier to harvest the crop. During the harvest the cultivars and plots are kept separate all the way through the picking, processing and drying. The harvests are then tasted and either kept as individual lots or blended. In the last couple of years Pedro and Manuel completed a long-standing project of digging a well. The well was dug to provide drinking water and irrigation for the farm in an extreme drought. It has been a complex and lengthy undertaking but already Pedro and Manuel feel the benefit in having easier access to water.

Finca Santa Catalina

Finca El Morito

Decaffeinated Lo Mejor de Narino

Monmouth Espresso

Organic Espresso

Finca El Fuerte is one of Agricafe's farms in the Samaipata region. Agricafe (agricafe.com.bo) is the processor and exporter we work with in Bolivia. They started their farm project to help develop the new coffee growing area in Samaipata. Agricafe have five farms in Samaipata in the Fincas Los Rodríguez project on which they are planting with Caturra, Bourbon and Gesha cultivars. This is the fourth year we have had coffee from El Fuerte and we are pleased with its caramelised-plum-like sweetness. The Samaipata region has great potential for specialty coffee but also has great challenges: the weather here has been unpredictable lately and they have had torrential rain coming through. This has caused landslides at El Fuerte and two hectares of coffee were lost this year. They will need to re-terrace the land, add more drainage channels and get some plants in to help with water control.

Finca El Fuerte

Rinaldo bought Fazenda Furnas in 2003 and after the 2019 harvest he travelled to Costa Rica to learn first-hand from the farmers there about water treatment and drying efficiencies in processing. This lot has been processed using the pulped natural method during which the cherry skin and fruit are removed, and the sticky parchment-covered beans are left to dry naturally. The final stage is the removal of the dried parchment before the coffee is graded, bagged, and shipped to the UK. 

Fazenda Furnas

That's a lot of achievements right away 😂😂😂

Santa Lúcia is planted with six varietals of coffee: Red Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, Yellow Catuaí, Yellow Catucaí, Acaia and Mundo Novo. We chose the Yellow Bourbon this year for its caramel sweetness and medium to full body. The coffee is processed using the pulped natural method, during which the cherry skin and fruit is removed and the sticky parchment-covered beans are left to dry naturally. The final stage is the removal of the parchment before the coffee is bagged and shipped to the UK. Helcio Carneiro Pinto has been growing and processing coffee at Fazenda Santa Lúcia for some forty years. The farm is part of Grupo Sertão, an organisation set up to help with the family farms. The coffee is now all processed at Helcio’s brother in law’s farm Fazenda IP which has helped Helcio concentrate on the agronomy and his other crops of corn, soya and wheat. Crop diversification will become more and more important over the years in this area as the region’s climate is less predictable and this is starting to have an impact on the quality of the crop and productivity of the trees. The Sertão group of farms is developing their pruning and fertilisation programs to try to mitigate the weather and we will see more diversification as farmers try to spread their risk across different crops. 

Fazenda Santa Lucia

For many years now we have held competitions in the two areas from where we buy most of our Colombian coffee, Huila and Nariño. The premium paid to all the winners helps to pay off mortgages, build new houses and invest in farm maintenance and equipment. Over the last year we haven’t been able to travel to hold the competitions and taste the coffees and have relied on our team of one – Lucia – on the ground in Colombia to select all the coffees for us. Octavio Rueda has been successful in our competition for a long time now and over the last few years we have bought his coffee alongside our event, paying the same premium as the winning coffees. This year we have bought all our coffee from Huila this way. We have known Octavio for well over a decade and have seen his farm develop over that time and learnt so much from him about coffee growing. There are many challenges in coffee; we have discussed previously the Roya or Coffee Rust Disease problem (a fungus which attacks the leaves of the trees limiting the amount of photosynthesis and sometimes killing the tree) which has been causing many problems around the coffee growing regions. In Octavio's words, Roya had him against the ropes in the last couple of years, and he has had to be vigilant and experimental with the controls he has been using. In addition to Roya, there is also difficulty getting enough people to help pick the coffee during the harvest season in this part of Huila. Coffee, like most fruit production, requires harvesting once a year and is often done by migrant labour who specialise in this kind of work, travelling through the coffee areas of Colombia. Travel this year has been exceptionally difficult and luckily El Mirador is not a big farm, so Octavio and his family can get through the picking with some local help. It makes for heavy work and long days to get the cherry picked and then processed carefully. We have three varietals from El Mirador this year – Pink Bourbon, Bourbon Rayado (stripey) and Castillo. They have different riffs on the stone and berry fruit flavour profile. Keep a look out in the description for which one is on the counter!

Finca El Mirador

Finca San Isidro is a fairly small farm with eight of its eight and a half hectares planted with coffee. Alirio has worked hard over the years to get his farm to this size, buying bits and pieces of land around his farm as they have become available. In Colombia there are two harvest seasons, the main crop from October to December and the Mitaca (fly crop) from May to July. These two crops originate from two separate flowering times, Finca San Isidro and in the rest of Huila in general follows this harvesting calendar. Along with coffee, San Isidro produces plantain, mandarins and trout from a pond built next to his house. We usually buy Alirio’s coffee alongside our Lo Mejor de Huila coffee competitions but as we haven’t been able to travel to Colombia during the pandemic we are relying on our team of one – Lucia – there to sample all of the coffees and make the selection for this year’s crop.

Finca San Isidro

Finca Los Cabécares was established by Pompilio's parents in the 1920s and over the years it has been uncertified organic, certified organic, and is now both uncertified and mostly organic. Pompilio Heriberto and his son Heriberto Marín have had a terrible time on the farm over the last few years and they have worked incredibly hard to keep the farm in production. A few years ago, the farm was devastated by Roya (Coffee Leaf Rust), a fungus which attacks the leaves of the trees, leaving the trees unable to photosynthesise and develop a crop. The fungus can move quickly through a plantation and the trees often die as a result. During this time, Pompilio wasn’t able to maintain his organic certification as none of the permitted herbicides or extra fertilizers were effective or even affordable. In order to halt the disease and re-establish the farm they have had to use uncertified methods and have therefore lost their certification. They have also lost 90% of their farm’s productivity. Now, Pompilio and Heriberto are concentrating on rejuvenating one small section of the farm at a time. It is slow going. The shade-trees which help protect the coffee were also attacked by a similar fungus and they have been planting new cedar and oak as well as new planting from some of the older Bourbon and Typica plants on the farm. Don Pompilio is keen for us to understand that although they cannot afford the costs and bureaucratic time to recertify organic, they continue to farm as holistically as possible, using methods built up over years of farming organically with soil health and farm diversity being the foundations for each decision.

Finca Los Cabecares

Herbazú was at the forefront of the micro-mill revolution in Costa Rica during the early 2000s. Dissatisfied with the low prices at that time, José Antonio Barrantes Zuñiga (Toño) and his brothers and sisters established the Herbazú mill. Processing their own coffee helped them to achieve higher prices by selling directly to the exporters and coffee buyers. The alternative at the time was to sell to local cooperatives where their coffee was mixed with others and traceability back to their farms and therefore premiums associated with their higher quality was lost. This lot is from Finca Telia - one of the more recently planted farms in Herbazú group. The Barrantes siblings continue to innovate in the industry in Costa Rica; they are one of the first mills to actively distinguish grades of mechanical washed (white to red honey) processing, and in the last few years they have been planting cultivars new to Costa Rica. They now have 12 different cultivars on the farms and are vigilant at keeping the different harvests separate during picking and processing. This year Toño has is planting 8000 plants of a new hybrid varietal to trial for the next few years. The established cultivars are struggling with the changes in micro-climate, and it is hoped the new hybrid will cope better with the changes in weather pattern. Over the last few years, the dry season has extended, and the rainy season has brought too much rain so this new hybrid will be an important step in coffee production at Herbazú. It is difficult to overestimate the impact the Barrantes family has had on coffee growing and processing in Costa Rica and other countries. They have developed Herbazú into a model farm and micro-beneficio and their advice and expertise is highly appreciated and respected in the industry.

Finca Telia – Herbazu

Finca Tinajay is the second Peruvian lot we have this season; it is grown by Dominga Sagarvinaga and her husband Leoncio Campos Orellana. The farm is in the Valle Paurán valley in the village of Pumabamba, Huancayo province. Valle Paurán is a relatively new coffee region, known for its corn and pulse production. Traditionally in Peru, coffee has been grown in the northern provinces of Cajamarca and San Ignacio; in recent years other regions such as Valle Paurán, Cuzco, and Puno have become known for their potential to produce exceptional coffees. Dominga and Leoncio started growing coffee in 2000 and since 2018 have been members of ­­the Asociación de agricultores del Valle Paurán which is an association focusing on improving the quality of coffee grown by its members. Alongside coffee Dominga and Leoncio grow cherimoya, loquat, tamarillo, guava, plantain, beans, and avocados. The farm is planted with 90% Typica and 10% Bourbon varietals at an average altitude of 2200 metres above sea level. We’re grateful to cultivarcoffees.com for bringing another fantastic coffee to us and will be very pleased to be able to visit Dominga and Leoncio once we’re allowed out and about again.

Finca Tinajay

We chose this coffee from Fazenda IP for decaffeination because its body and balance are crucial to producing a full-flavoured decaffeinated coffee. We sent it for decaffeination to Descamex who use the Mountain Water Process. We have been buying coffee from Fazenda IP for many years now and it is a favourite on our counter. Isidro Pereira (IP) bought this farm in 1967 and his son Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira Senior started working with him after finishing his agriculture and farming studies. Together they bought more land in 1974 and the farm grew from the original 140 hectares to 720 hectares. The farm has 12 springs and keeps 80 hectares for the preservation of native forest and for reforestation. Isidro Pereira was a pioneer in coffee growing in Carmo de Minas, and one of the leaders of what has become a coffee growing dynasty in this area of Brasil. Luiz Paulo Senior has continued this commitment and passion and still tastes every single lot that leaves the farm, carefully keeping notes in his famous notebook. His grandson, Luiz Paulo (Junior) is a farmer in his own right, and a founding partner in the exporting company Carmo Coffee.

Decaffeinated Fazenda IP

Finca El Trapiche is one of Agricafe's farms in the Samaipata region managed through the Fincas Los Rodríguez project. Agricafe (agricafe.com.bo) is the processor and exporter we work with in Bolivia. The farm was planted in 2016 with a diverse range of cultivars including Geisha, Geisha Hawaii, Batian, Ethosar, SL28, SL34 and Java, as well as the more traditional (for the area) Caturra and Bourbon. We selected the Java varietal this year, the ripe coffee cherries were dried on raised beds using the natural process. Agricafe have been instrumental in raising the profile of Bolivian coffee over the last decade and have established the specialty part of the industry there through concentrating on cup profile and increasing both the quality and quantity of coffee in Samaipata and Caranavi.

Finca El Trapiche

Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira Filho is a founding partner in Carmo Coffees - the exporter in Brasil with whom we work. Luiz Paulo and his cousin, Jacques Pereira Carneiro, decided to start Carmo Coffees in order to help the family farms find international buyers and establish Carmo de Minas as one of the best coffee-growing areas of Brasil. In recognition of Luiz Paulo's efforts over the years his grandfather bequeathed to him Sítio Senhor Niquinho. Luiz Paulo grows Yellow and Red Bourbon as well as Catucaí and Catuaí, he processes his coffee at Irmas Pereira. 

Sítio Senhor Niquinho

In 2004 Juan de Dios Castillo Arauz decided to do what he always dreamed of doing – he bought a coffee farm. Juan de Dios is an agronomist by trade and after years of working with his father’s farm and for a local cooperative he bought El Pastoral which was a rather tired farm of ten hectares. Juan de Dios kept the organic certification running and set to work replenishing the plant stock and improving the agricultural practices. Through good management of resources and shade he initially increased productivity and over the last few years he has been concentrating on improving the quality of his coffee. During this time Juan de Dios has been able to expand his farm and it is now 65 hectares, most of which is planted with Caturra and Catuaí. Juan de Dios made some changes to the employee areas of the farm to help maintain sufficient space for social distancing. There is a new, larger kitchen with space to eat and rest during breaks, additional toilet facilities and hand-washing stations. El Pastoral is a large enough farm to rely on outside labour, so these facilities are important to maintain a Covid-safe working environment for everyone.

Finca El Pastoral

Finca La Llama is one of the Fincas Los Rodríguez farms managed by Agricafe. The Java varietal originally comes from old Ethiopian coffee stock which was introduced to the island of Java by the Dutch in the early 19th century. From there it travelled to Costa Rica via Cameroon and it was in Cameroon that its hardiness to Coffee Berry Disease was first observed. Java is commercially grown in Nicaragua, Panama and now Bolivia. It is being promoted in Central and South America for its tolerance to coffee tree diseases and its interesting, floral cup profile. We are excited to have this coffee on our counter; the cultivar's characteristics and the natural process have combined to give an extraordinary cup profile, full of spice and tropical fruits. The team at Fincas Los Rodríguez have decided to make some significant changes to Finca La Llama this year including a radical removal of some coffee trees to all more light into the fields along with a heavy prune and shape of the shade trees.

Finca La Llama

Finca El Guatalón is a family owned and managed farm established by Guillermo Juarez's grandfather. Each generation has brought new cultivars to the farm including Typica, Mundo Novo, Pache, San Ramon, Caturra, Catuaí and most recently Villa Sarchi, Pacamara and Maragogype. Guillermo Juarez is a retired agronomist who started working on El Guatalón over a decade ago. The farm is separated into five micro-regions by soil type and altitude. The different cultivars flourish in slightly different circumstances and each is planted in the area to which it is best suited. The Mataquescuintla region was affected greatly by Roya in recent years, but Guillermo has managed to stave off any serious ingress of the fungus and his farm is doing well. This year Guillermo has harvested from a relatively new plot called La Buganvilia. The new section of the farm has increased the amount of coffee Guillermo can grow and means he has been able to prune heavily to rejuvenate some of the older areas of the farm.

Finca El Guatalon

Finca Altamira is at the top of a hill and has no road access. Everything needed at the house or farm is brought up and down to the closest road by pack horses and with this particular hill, as Sergio Buesaco says, you need to go slowly. There is one hectare (out of the five in total) planted with Caturra and Castillo, with a very small amount of Typica interspersed occasionally. The coffee is processed using the washed method and then dried on elbas which are flat areas under the roof of the house that is exposed to the sun when the roof is retracted. The family also grow beans for the San Agustín market as well as yucca and plantain. Sergio is approaching 80 and is farming with the help of his wife Ricardina and their ten children.

Finca Altamira

We have been buying coffee from La Piragua for six years now and selected this lot alongside the coffees from our competition in Huila last year. Alexander Vargas Osorio started working in coffee at a very young age. He was taken in by Octavio Rueda from El Mirador and given the opportunity to learn coffee growing and processing and earn an income along the way. Alexander then left Octavio's farm when he was eighteen and worked for his in-laws for a few years before buying La Piragua. Octavio continues to be his coffee mentor and is now godfather to one of his sons. Alexander is always looking for ways to improve the efficiency of his processing and quality of his coffee. In the last few years, Alexander has updated and extended his coffee drying area and system as well as carrying out extensive pruning. Traditionally in this area, coffee is dried under poly-tunnels which whilst protecting the coffee from rain can unfortunately sometimes cause the coffee to over-dry. Last year, Alexander made improvements to the cherry reception area of his micro-beneficio by extending the concrete floor and installing a roof. This means he can do a quality control check on the incoming cherry before it goes for pulping and fermentation.

@alina-koroleva woohoo welcome to the gang 

Thiriku Coffee Growers Coop Society is a group of 1770 small-holding farmers in Nyeri. Frustrated by the conventional way coffee is traded in Kenya, the Coop approached Trabocca a couple of years ago in the hopes of developing a partnership. Trabocca have been instrumental in securing high quality and traceable coffee in Ethiopia and are now working in a similar way in Kenya. Coffee in Kenya has long been traded through an auction system where the bigger participants in the market have an advantage and many farmers and buyers are prevented from opportunities for real partnership and collaboration. Trabocca are seeking to disrupt this and align farmers and buyers in pursuit of higher quality coffee with the associated premiums reaching the farmers and the Coop, benefitting all involved. Trabocca have helped with agronomy training, advice on processing, and delivering the premium warranted by the quality of coffee Thiriku are delivering. Trabocca have also managed to garner the support from roasters around the world for their project and we are pleased to be one of the buyers for this year's crop. See trabocca.com for more information about the work they are doing to help improve coffee quality and traceability.

Thiriku

Fazenda do Sertão is owned by Nazareth Dias Pereira and is managed by her extended family. The farm has approximately 330 hectares planted with a variety of coffee cultivars and an additional 520 hectares with native forest and grazing for Girolando cattle. The farm is located in the heart of Carmo de Minas and this has become prime territory for both coffee and dairy farming. Grupo do Sertão is recognised world-wide in both industries. The Girolando is a mix of the Dutch Holstein Friesian and the Indian Gir which makes a breed that is suited to both milk and meat production in a hot climate. The farm also produces corn and soya. In the last few years Nazareth and her son Francisco Isidro Dias Pereira have made improvements to the drying patios and equipment. Francisco is also experimenting with a more radical pruning technique called zafra zero, where the lateral branches of the coffee tree are cut back close to the main trunk. This means there will be a year without a crop as the tree establishes new growth and then a larger crop the following year. Please see carmocoffees.com.br for more information about Sertão and photos of the coffee processing.

Fazenda do Sertao

La Bella is in the south of the Sierra de Las Minas mountain range in eastern Guatemala. This is a beautiful part of Guatemala with most of the Sierra de Las Minas designated as a national park with biosphere status. Teodoro Engelhardt is the fourth generation of his family to grow coffee at La Bella and over the many years the farm has been added to and developed to over 100 acres of forest and coffee. The practices on the farm reflect the care that the wider community has for the area: water is conserved and recycled, the coffee trees are shaded under two levels of canopy to help preserve the wildlife diversity, and all coffee pulp (the fruit of the cherry that is removed during processing) is collected and turned into nutrient-rich soil by the farm's wormery which is then used in the coffee nursery beds. Over the last few years Teodoro has concentrated on replanting less productive areas with more appropriate varietals and has implemented a green fertilization program which includes planting banana trees to fix nitrogen and phosphorus as well as help control soil moisture with additional mulch. Teodoro has recently added two new sections to the farm bringing his total separate areas up to eighteen. Each section (or lot) is planted with a specific cultivar which is picked and processed separately from the other lots. Villa Sachí is planted on one of the new lots and Bourboncito (a dwarf varietal of Bourbon) on the other.

Finca La Bella

Close to the most western border with Mexico and the Pan-American Highway, La Libertad has the high altitude, plentiful rainfall, lush shade and moderate temperatures needed to grow exceptional coffee. Combine the best natural conditions with Caturra and the noble Bourbon variety, exacting skill in picking and processing coffee, and we have one of our favourite coffees from Guatemala. María Elena Vides de Ovalle’s father - Dr. Jorge Vides - started to grow coffee at La Bolsa in 1958 and was awarded the prestigious Outstanding Coffee Grower award from ANACAFE (the Guatemalan national coffee association) in 1984, just as the world was beginning to acknowledge the potential of great specialty coffee. María Elena’s son Renardo Ovalle and the farm agronomist Mercedes manage La Bolsa and now also take care of four anexos (neighbouring properties) to help the extended family. All of the new plantings are established in mini terraces. La Bolsa and anexos are on steep slopes and susceptible to erosion if water and run-off isn’t well controlled.

Finca La Bolsa

@xenjke broke the other one of the set 😂

We chose this coffee from La Bolsa for decaffeination because we thought its body and fruity acidity would produce a complex and interesting decaffeinated coffee and we are delighted with the results. We sent it for decaffeination to Descamex who use the Mountain Water Process. We have been buying coffee from La Bolsa for five years now and this is the first year we have decaffeinated it. See Descamex to learn more about the decaffeination process and Descamex.

This is our current selection for our decaf Repeat or Prepaid Subscriptions.

Monmouth Coffee

3.4

Monmouth Coffee

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

Served in Coffee Shops

Coffee Roasts

Decaffeinated Finca La Bolsa

Divina Providencia

Fazenda Furnas

Fazenda do Sertao

Finca Altamira

Finca El Guatalon

Finca La Bella

Finca La Bolsa

Finca La Llama

Finca La Piragua

Finca Las Lajas

Finca Malacara A

Finca Santa Catalina

Finca Telia – Herbazu

Monmouth Espresso

Montes De Cristo

Organic Espresso

Suke Quto

Thiriku

Coffee archive

Fazenda IP

Decaffeinated Fazenda IP

Decaffeinated Finca El Pastoral

Decaffeinated Lo Mejor de Narino

Fazenda Alta Vista

Fazenda Santa Inês

Fazenda Santa Lucia

Finca Abisinia

Finca Capetillo

Finca Chico

Finca El Arcangel

Finca El Fuerte

Finca El Mirador

Finca El Morito

Finca El Pastoral

Finca El Trapiche

Finca Galeras

Finca La Piragua

Finca Las Alasitas

Finca Los Cabecares

Finca San Isidro

Finca Tinajay

Finca Villa Rosa

Ndaroini AA

Sitio Grota Sao Pedro

Sítio Senhor Niquinho

Tessema Edima

New Coffee Review