ROAST | LIGHT

PIENDAMO, CAUCA, COLOMBIA

NOTES: CHERRY BLOSSOM, RASPBERRY JAM, STRAWBERRY CREME SAVERS

Every Harvest the coffees form El Paris are some of the most anticipated by our staff and those in the know about this projects flavor packed coffees. This years Red Plum is the most balanced and nuanced I have tasted with complex fruit character and a creamy texture.  Flowers, red fruit, and a complex and dynamic acidity. These coffees are special and we are happy to share them with you.

El Paraiso Farm is located in the municipality of Piendamó, with a mild-humid climate at 1,930 meters above sea level, focused on specialty coffees. 

Mr Diego Bermudez, owner of Finca El Paraiso, founded, with his family, the company INDESTEC focused on manufacturing an innovative technology for coffee
drying named ECO-Enigma. This machine allows them to fully control the
drying process which is critical in their production of specialty coffee with
standardized times and temperature. With his company, Mr Diego and his
family are building an inclusive social program, allowing their neighbors to
process their coffee with the infrastructure and know how of controlled
fermentation process. This will help their neighbors receive better prices for their coffee.

This coffee is a precisely controlled Anaerobic Process with every variable documented and rigorously maintained. It goes through 28 hours cool whole cherry anaerobic fermentation, before pulping and another 80 anaerobic fermentation in mucilage producing a distinct and interesting cup. We are excited to see what else comes out of this Santuario Project. 

Farm: Finca El Paraiso

Variety: Castillo and Colombia

Process: Anaerobic

Altitude: 1930 masl

ROAST | MEDIUM

NATAGA, HUILA, COLOMBIA

NOTES: RED CHERRY, BLOOD ORANGE, BROWN SUGAR

It is a story fit for a story book, three sisters who have farms on the same side of this one particular mountain in their childhood home.  Laura having the highest elevation with Leonela and Maria having farms directly below on the steep mountainside.  The views are amazing, and the coffees are truly special from these three sisters. Big red fruit characteristics marked with a citrus like acidity and that floral character we love from mature Caturra Trees.  All of that with amazing sweetness and an amazing fruit nectar body.  These coffees are classic but in the best way possible.

Late last year, Kyle (co-owner of Black & White Coffee), was able to meet two amazing sisters in a truly beautiful area that historically isn't common for Specialty Coffee production. This tiny sub region is close to the town Nataga, Huila in Colombia and boasts amazing elevation, stunning coffees and beautiful views of the valley below. Leonela (one of the sisters) was the first producer in Colombia to serve Kyle coffee that she had grown, roasted and brewed. He was inspired by her hospitality, kindness and enthusiasm.

Leonela and Maria grow Caturra, and Colombia varieties on here very steep plot of land next to her sisters farm. We are so excited to be able to share these coffees with you! A huge thanks to Kyle Bellenger of Osito for introducing us to Leonela. 

Producer: Laura and Maria Rivera

Farm: Finca La Gloria

Process: Washed

Elevation: 1940 masl

ROAST | LIGHT 

CARMO DE MINAS, BRAZIL

NOTES: CITRUS, RED PLUM, TROPICAL, ETHIOPIA LIKE

When given the chance to taste varieties especially african varieties cultivated in other regions I always jump on it.  This particular coffee was a surprise to myself and the team here at B&W.  Typically we shy away from coffee from Brazil, but this was is an anaerobic Natural utilizing seeds from Yirgicheffe. Of course it is amazing a a mind bender of a coffee. This coffee packs tons of citrus and vibrant acidity, but is crazy sweet and approachable.  This coffee might just change your mind about Brazil.

I consider this coffee to be a "moderate impact" meaning that the anaerobic processing that it went through is coming alongside the variety characteristics and origin characteristics and adding complexity without being overpowering.

Fazenda Santuario Sul was started with a vision to be more than just a coffee farm that strives for quality. Santuario Sul was established in 2015 with a mission to make quality that redefines the flavors possible from Brazil, and to constantly stay ahead of innovations in the industry.

Now, it is one thing to say you are going to revolutionize something, and another to do it. To make the vision for the farm a reality, owner Luiz Paulo and his partners knew they had to do things different. Like anything, they started with the foundation- the land itself.

Santuario Sul was establish in the higher elevations of Carmo de Minas at around 1,400 m.a.s.l next to some of the most famous estates in the area known for their quality. (Like the famous Fazenda Irmas Periera.). They knew the elevations on the land here would be a key to helping the coffee express the flavors they would be crafting.

In addition to the right terroir, Luiz Pablo and his partners knew that to push flavors in a new direction, they had to have unique coffee varieties that would exhibit exciting flavor profiles. For this they decided to establish some of the farm with traditional varieties like Yellow Bourbon, but also sought out rarer coffee varieties from around the world to plant. As of the 2020 crop, Santuario Sul had over 30 different coffee varieties growing, some of them even under unique condition, like shade coverage, to make sure these unique varieties could thrive.

Producer: Luiz Pablo

Farm: Fazenda Santario Sul 

Variety: Yirgacheffe Types

PROCESS: Anaerobic Natural

ELEVATION: 1,380 - 1430 masl

ROAST | LIGHT 

BENCH MAJI, GESHA, ETHIOPIA

NOTES: WHITE FLOWERS, ORANGE ZEST, BLACK TEA, VELVETY

Gesha Village has always had a special place with us here at Black & White Coffee. We are excited to offer our first 100% direct trade coffee. Gesha Village has impeccable prep, and also harvest a touch later than many, to cap it all off we brought this coffee in vac seal to ensure that we would have amazing and vibrant Ethiopian Coffee during the "dry time of the year" meaning the time between harvests, when we all typically run out of these amazing coffees.

The Gesha Village is a project with a clear and distinct vision to produce the most amazing coffees possible, and have been wildly popular in the competition circuit. It started as a coffee documentary project from Rachel Samuel and Adam Overton, who after gaining permission from the local Meanit Shasha Woreda people to plant wild seeds harvested from the Gori Gesha Forest. The farm is home to more than 30,000 native shade trees and 700,000 coffee trees with half descended from the Gori Gesha forest seeds.

The lot we were able to obtain through last year from our friends at Genuine Origin was the highest scoring coffee we have brought into the Black and White Coffee family. We are excited to offer this amazingly clean and complex natural processed coffee, that we were able to work directly with Adam at Gesha Village to buy direct with help from Trabocca . Kyle and Adam have cultivated a friendship of sharing information and chatting about the possibilities of the speciality coffee market. Both of them share an amazing love for Ethiopian coffee along with the Gesha Variety that they both love so very much. All of this adds to the beautiful complex and juicy cup with notes of orange zest, delicate florals and intense berries and an even velvety sweetness throughout.

FARM: Gesha Village, Gaylee Lot 11

VARIEITY: Gori Gesha Forest, Gesha 1931, Illubabor Forest 1974

PROCESS: Washed

ELEVATION: 1,909-2,069 mas

ROAST | LIGHT MEDIUM

COLOMBIA | ETHIOPIA

NOTES: VIBRANT, FRUITY, HOPEFUL

Each year we choose a charity or non in-profit to work with around the world. This year we have chosen to partner with our friends at La Palma Y El Tucan and their project designed to give back to farmers called Biodiversal.

www.biodiversal.com

This project is designed around the concepts of Environmental Protection, and Food Sovereignty with the long term goal of giving people environmentally sustainable food systems and economic opportunity through agriculture, and short term goals of giving meaningful revenue streams through agricultural bio diversification.

All of our Holiday Coffees with feature coffees from Colombia as this is Biodiversal's main focus.

For our New Year's coffee this year we blended together three of our menu favorites. A floral and juicy Gesha from Gesha Village Coffee Estate, and the floral and sweet Jose Martinez, Pink Bourbon. We added in a juicy and rich Colombia coffee to give it pop from El Paraiso. These combine to make a truly beautiful blend of vibrant acidity and sweetness. 

Region: Huila, Colombia  and Gesha Village, Ethiopia 

Process: Washed | Natural | Red Plum

Altitude: 1700 - 2100  MASL

ROAST | LIGHT MEDIUM

CERRO AZUL PARAMO, GOZEN, COLOMBIA

NOTES: FRESH CITRUS, MIXED BERRIES, VIBRANT

Gleidis' coffee is our second offering from our Friends at LPET's new project Delagua and it is a truly beautiful coffee.  This coffee is vibrant and intensely fruity. Our cupping notes had almost every berry you can get at the grocery store, cranberry, strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, raspberry...  SO, we just went with the ole trusty mixed berry.  Compared to our first lot, Gleidis' Coffee is a bit cleaner with a more complex acidity, and more fresh fruit flavors. It is hard to pinpoint why this is, but the most obvious one is the elevation. Gleidis' coffee is grown much higher on the mountain which makes the coffee trees store nutrients in the seeds at a higher rate.

La Palma Y El Tucan's project, Delagua is intensely committed to the preservation of water, thus the name. This project works mostly in the dryer Northern Part of Colombia known as Sierra Nevada. This style of processing is much more sustainable to the environment as it doesn't dirty clean water to process coffee. However it takes a careful producer to make great natural coffees. 

This is where La Palma steps in. They help producers by picking and processing the coffee on their behalf, therefore insuring immaculate processing and higher cup scores over all. This is a very similar process to the Neighbors & Crops Coffees we have bought over the last 3 years.

33 year old Doña Gleidis Reatiga, bought the farm about 8 years ago and has been producing coffee for the last 5 years. Her husband helps to manage the land and is charge of the handpicking process. He is currently training Doña Gleidis in management practices and cherry-picking.

Producer: Gleidis Patricia Reatiga Camacho

Variety: Castillo

PROCESS: Natural

ELEVATION: 1,730 masl

ROAST | LIGHT

LA PALMA Y EL TUCAN | NEIGHBORS & CROPS

BALSILLAS, COLOMBIA

NOTES: Apple, Fresh Strawberry, Apricot, White Wine

It is exciting to see Olga's name once again.  We were sent samples from La Palma Y El Tucan bling (meaning we did not know the producer info or process.  We only had a number to refer back to.  Yet again on we chose Olga Beltrans coffee. Vibrant, Complex and Innovative.About 9 years ago, Olga and her husband decided to recover the traditional values of her grandparents, and return to the coffee growing tradition that she was born and raised in

This year marks the first year for La Palma to implement its new " Bio Innovation" process on select Lots of Neighbors and Crops coffees.  

This process was inspired by the "old way" of making wine brought together with the new world of innovative yeast and bacteria collection.  It goes like this.  The team at La Palma Y El Tucan take whole cherry and place them in underground clay pots. In these clay pots is a selected and cultured set of microorganisms  that thrive in cooler oxygen free environments.  These organisms break down the natural sugars in the coffee fruit and turn them into complex acids and esters.  These soak into the cherry and give us a cup profile that is like none other. 

Vibrant white wine acidity, mixed with fresh strawberry, apricot, and apple flavors on the pallet that linger into a clean finish with more berries and a sweetness like vanilla. 

This coffee is special and I am so glad that we get to share it with you.

Producer: Olga Beltran

Variety: Castillo

Farm: La Abuela

Process: Bio Innovation | Anaerobic

Elevation: 1750 MASL

ROAST | LIGHT 

BENCH MAJI, GESHA, ETHIOPIA

NOTES: BERGAMOT, DRIED MANGO, RIPE PAPAYA, WILDFLOWER HONEY

Gesha Village has always had a special place with us here at Black & White Coffee. We are excited to offer our first 100% direct trade coffee. The Gesha Village is a project with a clear and distinct vision to produce the most amazing coffees possible, and have been wildly popular in the competition circuit.

It started as a coffee documentary project from Rachel Samuel and Adam Overton, who after gaining permission from the local Meanit Shasha Woreda people to plant wild seeds harvested from the Gori Gesha Forest. The farm is home to more than 30,000 native shade trees and 700,000 coffee trees with half descended from the Gori Gesha forest seeds. The lot we were able to obtain through last year from our friends at Genuine Origin was the highest scoring coffee we have brought into the Black and White Coffee family.

We are excited to offer this amazingly complex honey processed coffee, that we were able to work directly with Adam at Gesha Village to buy direct with help from Trabocca. Kyle and Adam have cultivated a friendship of sharing information and chatting about the possibilities of the speciality coffee market. Both of them share an amazing love for Ethiopian coffee along with the Gesha Variety that they both love so very much.

FARM: Gesha Village, Chaka Selection

VARIEITY: Gori Gesha Forest, Gesha 1931, Illubabor Forest 1974

PROCESS: Honey

ELEVATION: 1,909-2,069 masl

ROAST | LIGHT  MEDIUM

TARRAZU, COSTA RICA

NOTES: SWEET CITRUS, CANDIED PINEAPPLE, PLUM JAM

2020 has proven to be quite a journey! Costa Rica is not an origin that we have worked closely with historically, but 2020 has seen a change in that and this coffee represents the first steps in that journey.  

Carlos Montero's coffee stunned us as a friend was trying to find a home for a coffee that one of his customers backed out of due to the pandemic (this has happened quite a bit this year). We loved the Double Washed and took all 10 bags of this beautiful lot, not exactly knowing a ton about where it came from.  Little did we know but a friend of ours, Perry, was deeply involved with this coffee, as it is his father in laws coffee. Quickly, we put this together and learned how special this coffee was for Carlos, and we became even more excited to work with Selva Coffee.

This coffee is truly the best washed traditional variety Costa Rican coffee that we have ever tasted.  Big Ethiopia like citrus, backed by a confectionary pineapple not, which reminded us of pineapple upside down cake, with this rich plummy note on the finish.  This coffee is complex, but approachable, which we have noticed over and over again in Costa Rica. We are happy to say there are plans to continue forward with Selva and hopefully Carlos Montero in particular.

This coffee is dry fermented overnight in tanks, then pulped and fermented under water for 30 hours to remove the mucilage, than put into fresh water again for another 12 hours. Hence the double washed.  Clean, sweet, complex and fruity, this coffee is a stunner.

Carlos comes from a long line of farmers and has grown up in the fields. His father managed a farm and his grandparents worked coffee plantations. As a young man he saw the struggles of his family coffee farming and did not want to experience the same struggles. It was not until later in life that he returned home with a new vision to continue his family’s tradition but on his own terms. He bought his first farm upon his return and today, Carlos is a visionary leader in the specialty coffee movement in Tarrazu, Costa Rica. 

The tradition continue with Carlos’s son, Jacob who does all the processing of their coffee. The coffee is brought from the farm to the receiving tank and leaves the cherries overnight resting for approximately 12 hours, then the cherries are pulped as a honey process. After this, Jacob leave the cherries in a fermentation tank for 30 hours with water and then washes the coffees several times until the mucilage is removed. Finally he leaves the coffee another 12 hours in water before drying them on raised beds. 

Producers: Carlos Montero

Variety: Catuai

Process: Double Washed

ELEVATION: 1800 - 1900 masl

ROAST | LIGHT 

BENCH MAJI, GESHA, ETHIOPIA

NOTES: FLORAL, POMEGRANATE, MANGO, DARK HONEY

Gesha Village has always had a special place with us here at Black & White Coffee. We are excited to offer our first 100% direct trade coffee. The Gesha Village is a project with a clear and distinct vision to produce the most amazing coffees possible, and have been wildly popular in the competition circuit.

It started as a coffee documentary project from Rachel Samuel and Adam Overton, who after gaining permission from the local Meanit Shasha Woreda people to plant wild seeds harvested from the Gori Gesha Forest. The farm is home to more than 30,000 native shade trees and 700,000 coffee trees with half descended from the Gori Gesha forest seeds. The lot we were able to obtain through last year from our friends at Genuine Origin was the highest scoring coffee we have brought into the Black and White Coffee family.

We are excited to offer this amazingly clean and complex natural processed coffee, that we were able to work directly with Adam at Gesha Village to buy direct with help from Trabocca. Kyle and Adam have cultivated a friendship of sharing information and chatting about the possibilities of the speciality coffee market. Both of them share an amazing love for Ethiopian coffee along with the Gesha Variety that they both love so very much. All of this adds to the beautiful complex and juicy cup with notes of tropical fruit, delicate florals and honey sweetness throughout.

FARM: Gesha Village, Chaka Selection

VARIEITY: Gori Gesha Forest, Gesha 1931, Illubabor Forest 1974

PROCESS: Natural

ELEVATION: 1,909-2,069 masl

ROAST | MEDIUM

CALDAS, COLOMBIA

NOTES: DRIED CHERRY, RED WINE, DARK CHOCOLATE

The department of Caldas isn't quite as famous some of the other departments like Huila or Tolima, but they have made them selves known for producing the majority of the quality naturally processed coffees in Colombia. This coffee is no exception, and we are happy to work again with LDT USA to source another heavy bodied super fruity coffee for you all.

We stumbled across LDT USA as a bit of a blind sample request. Naturally Processed coffees from Colombia, at the time, were not in our wheelhouse, and to be honest we were incredibly skeptical, as most of the other naturals we had been shown from Colombia were way too funky for us. Too Funky for us is hard to do, but wow they were intense. LDT however shared a few different clean sweet coffees with us that fit our Bright Red label's flavor profile perfectly. We bought one last year, and this year we purchased another from the namesake farm Laderas del Tapias which means "slopes of the wall" loosely translated. This is in reference to the Tapias Canon and River near the farm, and the incredible elevation fo ~1900 MASL.

This coffee is an amazing introduction to Naturally Process Central American coffees. Crazy sweet with tons of those red fruit notes, a bit winey, with a nice balancing milk chocolate to finish everything off. 

Farm: Laderas Del Tapias, Caldas, Colombia

Variety: Caturra

Process: Natural

Elevation: 1950 MASL

YEAR ROUND

COLOMBIA (Jose Sanchez Pink Bourbon)  | Brazil  (Luiz Pablo-Ethiopia Type)

NOTES: JUICY, TROPICAL, COMPLEX

Anaerobic coffees have rewritten the rules for Barista Competition's around the world. In the last two years the top 6 Competitors at both the USBC (United States Barista Championship) and the WBC (World Barista Championship) have utilized coffees with this style of fermentation.

As a result, this new method of processing has inspired us to create our own product that focuses on highlighting the complex acidity and vibrant fruit flavors found in these coffees. Not simply concerned with cupping scores and competition points, we believe for a number of reasons that this style of fermentation truly is the future.  

In a time when the Commodity Market value for coffee is dropping lower and lower, producers are always looking for ways to maximize their earnings on a given crop. However, in order to do so they are forced to produce high scoring coffees in order to make these premiums. This is made even harder when a lot of these coffee farms do not have the high elevation required to produce the complex flavors and  boutique varieties found in specialty coffee (such as Gesha, Pink Bourbon, Java).

However, in the last few years many more farms have had access to anaerobic processing, which done simply can add acidity, and complex fruit character to the cup. Anaerobic processing, in its most basic form is holding the coffee (either in cherry, or pulped) in an oxygen free environment (which can be achieved a number of ways) for an extended time in order to promote the growth of bacteria, Lactobacillus. Where, Lactobacillus is the agent that promotes acidity by producing lactic acid. The result of this is the acidification of the coffee pulp, which translates to a more vibrant coffee both on the cupping table and in the cafe. 

This main benefit of this unique style of processing is that it can make coffees that are grown at low elevations taste very similar to coffees grown at higher elevations. As the global climate warms, farmers must go higher and higher up the mountain in order to achieve the same results, but for most producers this simply is not possible.

Now, however farmers can add acidity and complexity through processing and thus combat the effects of climate change, at least in the cup.

This Blend will showcase these coffees and their varying profiles from around the world. Most of these coffees that we are currently sourcing are coming from Colombia, but we are also sourcing some from Ethiopia, Costa Rica, and Peru. With some being washed, some natural and some honey.  

This version is a blend of an Anaerobic Process from Huila, Colombia; blended with the ever vibrant El Eden Washed Java from Tolima, Colombia.  This is a juicy and clean cup represented by the blue corner on the label. This corner will change as the flavor profile and blend components shift throughout the year.

We hope you all enjoy this adventure into what we believe to be the future of specialty coffee.

 - Kyle Ramage (Co-owner | Green Coffee Buyer)

Regions:  Colombia | Brazil

Process:  Anaerobic Natural and Washed

Elevation: 1350 - 1800