Wednesday, April 19, 2006


the colombia c.o.e. and the poas volcano

first, let me kindly thank scott & jessica of batdorf for the surprise gift -- their c.o.e. second harvest 2005 colombia winner, the los lirios. here's what the farmer, ramon perez, has to say about his coffee:

"i was born in the farm where i live today. my father bought this farm 30 years ago. we live in the same house, my parents, my brother, two sisters and my wife. i am 100% committed with the production of quality coffee."

could you imagine a more beautiful statement, fellow coffee lovers? and here's the pictures of ramon, his entire family, and of course, his donkey, since he's a proper cafetero.

scott loved this coffee so much he paid ramon US$3.00 a pound for it green -- he noticed this coffee right away and it stayed with him as a personal favorite through all the rounds of the competition. when you're a coffee-buyer, ya gotta go with your soul, and so he stuck with this coffee to the end.

he calls it "the find of the auction." i absolutely cannot wait to brew this baby tomorrow; thank you scott & jessica!

in the meantime, yesterday was just an overwhelming coffee day. first, scaa chief ted lingle sent me an original of the 1974 coffee brewing handbook! out of the blue, a complete and delightful surprise.

while the science behind some of the standards has been updated a bit, this document contains a lot of the source information on which many of today's standards are still built. it'll make fascinating reading: wow wow wow.

and! i received by messenger -- in a dhl envelope -- a most unusual coffee blend. ready for this?

a mix of papua new guinea (winey! i expect that!), costa rica poas shb (this is a rather uncommon coffee from the rare cloud forest on the slopes of the poas volcano at the edge of a national park in central costa rica), and a brazilian morgiana. not your every day blend.

the point of this was to show how growing coffee in a soil heavy in volcanic ash -- poas is an active volcano -- can increase body. normally one would expect a costa rican coffee to have a rather medium or medium-light-ish body, but because of the ashy soil in which its grown, the poas demonstrates a surprisingly heavy body.

this is good "ashiness," not bad roast "ashiness" from over-roasted beans. i brewed this up in the chemex this morning in the "oren proportion." lemme me describe this in sum: winey, nutty, toasty and with that surprising body. . .

more on all of this tomorrow.

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