Patios in eastern El Salvador

El Salvador

Finca El Provenir, El Salvador
Looking forward to cupping this years crop.

Finca El Manzano

El Salvador

My first trip to El Salvador was great! I saw many farms and visited a few mills. The trees are full of coffee and is looking like it will be a great crop this year if the weather holds out. The main varietals in El Salvador are Bourbon, Pacas, Pacamara and Typica. There are a few new varietals that the government is releasing to the farms. This varietal Sarchimor is a hybrid of Villa Sarchi and Timor (has Robusta genetics) Though the varietal is rust resitant and high production the cup in dirty and inconsitant. I will be adding some photos of the varietal as well trip photos.

Over all a great coffee producing country concidering the lack of water for processing the coffee they have adapted and produce creamy bodied and citrus acidity coffees varying in complexity.

Ethiopia Typica

Ethiopian Typica, this will soon be started in the office garden. I also have some new seed from Kenya of a new varietal that Russ brought back from his East Africa trip.

Jardin Beneficio

Cupping...

So with the Roasters Guild retreat now over, I have now really focused on roast degree for cupping and keeping roasting notes more for the coffees we are cupping in VT. There can be huge differences in the cup depending on the time and temp of the roast also H20 content of the bean. Each origin needs slight changes to the sample roast for it's optimal evaluation.
This is a photo of a cupping of pre ship and arrival samples. We cup each coffee before it ships, after it arrives a port and when it arrives in the warehouse.

Maragogype cherries

El Boton Maragogype sprout

So here is round 2 of coffee varietals in the office grow area
This is a Maragoyope varietal from the El Boton farm in Bolivar Colombia.

Jardin Colombia

A great picture from our recent trip to Jardin Colombia
We are standing next to a huge old bourbon tree.

Oregon and Washington

Porland, Bend and Stevenson Washington.
It was a busy week out the PNW with a beautiful drive to Bend Oregon and then to Stevenson Wa for the Roasters Guild.
granted it was a busy week, it was a great trip and chance to visit some of our clients who roast La Minita.
The RG Retreat was great to see familar faces from last year and the oportunity to work with new ones. The roasting tent was great this year and being able to cup coffees with new people was awesome! There was a lot of talk about some of the evoloution of the micro and mid range roasters and what they are looking for from origins and roasted preperation.
I have neglected to post about cuppings and new coffees and will get to that now that some of the travel dust has settled.

Reb Bourbon

Red Bourbon

Another picture of the sprouts.

Yellow Bourbon

So far 12 coffee seeds have popped up out of the soil. I had planted these on May 16th with seed from our recent trip to Jardin Colombia. As the continue to grow I will try some various pruning techniques. Looking foward to the first set of leaves on the plants. The Yellow Bourbon in the photo below is the plant I had taken seed from.

Yellow Bourbon

 

This is one of the Yellow Bourbon plants I found on this farm. The Bourbon were neglected and in a separate part of the farm. The trees hadn't been blocked in a few years with the branches stretching out and the height at over 9 feet tall.
I brought some of the yellow and red Bourbon from this farm to grow in the office. It's great to see some of these old growth varietals on the farms>

Cupping in Jardin

 
Cupping different micro regions surrounding Jardin Colombia.

Sampling Parchment coffee at our mill in Jardin Colombia

Sun Drying Coffee at La Minita

Visit to a coffee farm in Jardin Colombia

Beneficio

 

Something interesting while visiting one of the farms in Colombia was this brand new beneficio. These run around $1500.00 US and are all stainless steel. The interesting part was that the fermentation tank was all stainless. Not sure what the overall impact of this will be for the cup, but I think that for cleanliness and prevention of ferment it should help.
This farm was a sustainable model since he grows numerous crops on the farm. I had some across a small lot of Bourbon varietals in one corner of the farm that have grown to heights of 9 feet! Most of the varietals grown at this farm were Caturra and Colombiano.

Jardin Colombia

 
 
 
 
Now that I am back in the States and easy access to internet I can now start to post stuff about our recent trip to Jardin Colombia.

Goats of Guatemala

 
This is how this farm does it's weeding, no chemicals and free fertilizer

Sample roasting pre shipment samples.

Wood/salt fired

Wood and salt fired in a double arch kilin.

Cross Section of a Cherry

 
This is a great diagram I had found, this will be used for my ever evolving green coffee training program.
I will be posting some info that will be used for training so if you have any suggestions for to include or an area that you like to learn more about let me know.
We just returned from the SCAA on Monday night and it was a great show!
Had the chance to taste coffees from many roasters in and around LA. Also I was able to try all different espressos and pour overs from roasters all over the country.
There is ton going on in the coffee world and it feels like there is going to be a lot of change in the next few years.

Still waiting for the seeds to breakground. They are starting to push
up.

Cupping

Now that harvest is over in Costa Rica it's cupping time! We have been cupping pre ship samples almost daily in the office in VT. The new crop coffees are great! Looking forward to the rest of the seasons pre ships.

Jardin Colombia

Well the harvest is over in Costa Rica and awaiting the arrival of the new crop coffees.
With our mill in Jardin Colombia we will be returning in May and touring the farms
and cupping the coffees from these farms.