Some of our best-known coffees come from Lucas and Daniel – cumpa. MUYU – our house espresso, a coffee that became synonymous with SUEDHANG, is the best example. Buying coffee from them feels good because they’re our friends. The coffee they sell us, they buy from their friends. There are no strangers in this process. They visit the farms, talk, and spend time with people who work there just like they do with us. Every time the new harvests arrive, we go and taste them. At a recent cupping session, we reviewed all their current crops from Peru and Vietnam. Among the chosen ones were:
- K’HO. An anaerobic fermentation washed Vietnamese arabica. Its profile is very bold, rich in notes of jasmine, fresh herbs, pine, oak and rum.
- DON PRIMITIVO. A washed Peruvian Gesha. It charmed us with its juiciness, notes of raspberries in milk chocolate and delicate aromas of lavender and rose.
- GOVER. This one is an experimentally processed Peruvian mix of Catimor and Bourbon. We chose this one as espresso because we wanted to drink banana milkshake flatwhites, and that’s how this coffee tastes like with milk.
- GERMÁN CARRANZA. We chose this one because we were blown away.
Falling in love with coffee (all over again)
All the information, details and flavour descriptions fade away when we go back to tasting that cup. To describe the flavours and aroma that hit us first would sound like reading an A–Z index of tropical fruits. The thing about searching for new coffees to roast is that you’re gonna cup 50 and you’ll like a few and one of them will be really good and very expensive. GERMÁN CARRANZA was that coffee for us. Germán Carranza is a young producer from the Moyobamba region in Peru. His plants are also still young, and harvest was scarce. This presented a unique opportunity to blend some varieties with extraordinary cup qualities – Gesha, Costa Rica and Bourbon. Gesha, a variety that originated in Ethiopia and was popularised in Panama, is known for its sweet and floral attributes and is grown worldwide. In fact, Don Primitivo’s coffee was the first single-origin Gesha in our portfolio. Costa Rica, a variety originating from Catimor specific to Costa Rica, has genetic roots in robusta. It’s a hybrid of the Timor Hybrid and has been developed in Portugal in 1959.
Due to its genetic makeup, it often has a heavy-bodied, rich, chocolaty cup profile. Bourbon makes for dense beans, rich in glucose, fructose and overall a complex chemical makeup. It results in sweet, silky cups, often with notes of stone fruit and berries. The three combined and naturally processed have resulted in an incredible fusion of flavours. Exotic, floral, with a satisfying body, defined sweetness, and smooth, buttery mouthfeel. Flavour Notes:
- Maracuja
- Mint
- Almond Butter
Roasting & Evaluating
When a coffee hits the roastery, we sample roast – 50 grams at a time. We experiment, try different approaches, temperatures, air flows and development times and eventually, we hit a sweet spot. Then we try to replicate it on a bigger scale.
Every Tuesday, we drop the green beans into our production roaster, and we turn them brown. We roast light and aim to display what we fell in love with. By not roasting them too dark, we allow the natural flavours and complexities to remain inside so, in turn, you can taste them in your cup.
Every Thursday, we cup (taste and test) what we’ve roasted two days prior. A team of three people gather in a room and judge the quality of the roast. Batches are analyzed, notes taken, criticisms communicated, compliments passed, and if all is well – the coffee is packed, delivered and/or served in the cafe.
These are the steps we take to ensure our quality is at the highest level.
This isn’t really about Germán Carranza. It’s about all our coffees. All of them grown by incredible producers. All of them sourced by passionate professionals. All of them roasted by us. We could write a piece like this about any one of them. We’re currently obsessed with this one tho.
