It's that time of the (well, I guess week) again! I have two more coffees coming out, one of which is an entirely new product to our coffee line up, and I'm hopeful that it will introduce a fun spin on our routine!
We'll start with the ol' reliable, comfy coffee-tasting coffee! Peru Pueblo Libre comes straight to you from the Andes Mountains, from a town called, you guessed it, Pueblo Libre! This is another small-holder type situation, where something like 2,250 different producers all bring their coffee cherries to a central washing/drying station to be processed and shipped out to various importers around the world! One thing I'm super stoked to see time and time again is that environmental sustainability is climbing to become the norm in most producers we find, because these things do really start at the source, and we can only hope these conditions improve and lead to better practices the world-over.
This coffee cupped nicely on a medium roast with notes of kettle corn, funnel cake, and piloncillo (raw, pure cane sugar). It has a lovely sweet, cozy, warm mouth feel that would pair great with a splash of cream, and we all know a regular who digs that sort of coffee. (It's me, I'm them) This coffee will be replacing the Colombia Darabiel and should reach your stores this week or next!
Now... onto some very exciting news! This next coffee is an entirely new addition to the Dapper & Wise line of coffees, has a fancy processing method you may have heard of, and is the second coffee of this country's origin we have ever offered! Can you guess it?
THAT'S RIGHT! It's another Rwandan offering, from the same producers as our Western Select Natural - Rwanda Anaerobic Natural Fugi!!!
This coffee is special for a number of reasons, Fugi is the crown jewel of the Baho Coffee Company line of washing stations, and the Anaerobic process itself is super neat! Essentially this coffee is quality all the way down the line. Starting at the farms, the people who cherry pick (ha!) are paid extra to only grab ripe cherries, which are then brought to the washing station where they undergo an extensive sorting process - starting with more sorting on raised beds, then floated in water to remove sneaky unripe cherries that have the appearance of ripeness, and then finally brought to clean plastic barrels for fermentation.
This fermentation period lasts for 72 hours, and is done without water or oxygen before moving to the drying process. Fugi takes pride in their natural drying process, where the fermented cherries are put under the open sun for 5 days straight to eliminate any chance of mold growth. Afterwards they are dried under shade and turned every 3 hours until the coffee reaches 17% humidity. We're not done yet! After this step, the coffee is removed from the shade (but still avoiding direct sun) and continues to dry until the coffee seeds hit 11.25% humidity. This process takes at least 40 days!!! Over a month to dry, y'all!
As you can tell, a metric ton of love and effort goes into making this coffee special, so we wanted to offer it separate to our usual Natural lineup with a new category we're calling Special Releases. These will be coffees that really knock our socks off in regards to quality and experimental processing methods, and as such their cost to us is a little steeper. We will offer these coffees at a similar price to our normal bags, but they will be in smaller 8oz bags to slow down how quickly we go through them!
Thank you all for tuning in again, can't wait to roast this coffee up for ya!
-Jer, Head Roaster