Well, we finished the judging of the 2008 Rwanda Cup of Excellence, the first COE ever held in Africa. We did all the judging in Huye, Butare, near many coffee farms and mills. I always prefer to have the cuppings in the coffee areas, as opposed to the big city (I guess it is a stretch to call the capital, Kigali, a big city). Nobody has posted results yet, but here are the top 5:
1. MIG Buremera 2. Facko Rulindo 3. MIG Buremera 4. SDL Minazi 5. SDL Muyongwe 6. Kabuye Maraba 7. Bufcafe Remera 8. Coopac Kabirizi 9. MIG Buremera 10. Horizon Nyamyumba
Ok … what the heck? These are the names of washing stations, i.e. wet mills. The first is the name of the mill group, and the second is the area. In Rwanda, farmers tend to have around 300 trees. Trees! That makes them some of the smallest farms in any coffee producing area. Each winning lot, about 15 bags (60 kg) of green, are the work of anywhere from 60 to 250 farmers! There is going to be a huge effort to distribute the auction proceeds to all these little farmers. (The auction is in October). You might notice the name Bufcafe, because we have offered this coffee several times, including the one we won #2 at in the SCAA Roasters Choice competition. There were also some amazing lots that were kicked out due to one defect cup … one cup of over 100 tested. So we are going to bid on those too, because they would have been top 10 coffees otherwise. Here’s a picture of a local business in Huye. I uploaded more to flickr too … but I am off to Harar region of Ethiopia now, so the full trip report for this historic COE event will not be uploaded for a week or more… Tom (from Novotel Hotel, Kigali Rwanda)
Monthly Archive for August, 2008
While Tom is in Rwanda - I have added a few new merchandise items; at long last we have Ibriks to sell again; we added a Double Wall Glass Bodum French press (which works great to keep the brew hot); and what our customers have all been waiting for…. a Sweet Maria’s Soccer/Football! Okay - so no one was waiting for this, no one asked for them, but Tom thought they would be cool anyhow. We decided to sell them to help subsidize the ones we are giving away.- Maria
I am racing against the clock to add all these new arrivals before leaving for the first-ever Rwanda Cup of Excellence competition on Thursday night. I am going to split this into 3 parts: New Centrals; South America + a new DP Ethiopia; 6 new decafs arrive at once.
- Part 1: A smattering of new crop Centrals from mid-harvest. Costa Rica Helsar “Typica Villalobos” is our second pure cultivar lot from this fine Micro-Mill, a balanced cup with soft chocolate tones. On the other extreme, a Central American that cups like a DP Sidamo; heavily fruited El Salvador Santa Rita Full Natural. (Note… I messed up; this lot arrives Thursday August 28). Then there is the famous one, #1 in Cup of Excellence for Bourbon last year, and for this cultivar in ‘08: Guatemala El Injerto Estate Pacamara (we will have the very spendy auction lot version later). We have a very high-grown Huehuetenango with a classic, bright cup: Guatemala Huehuetenango “Quetzal Azul”. Like the Santa Rita Full Natural, we also have the Mexico Organic Nayarit Dry-Process, as we did last year. Dry-Process = Natural. Natural = Dry-Process. In Central America it means lower acidity, heavy body, fruit, and great intensity.
- Part 2: Brazil -Colombia-Colombia-Ethiopia. It’s an odd time to be getting a Brazil, with new crop 4 months out. But this lot was too distinct, with complex character: Brazil Pocos de Caldas -Fazenda Barreiro. The Colombia Organic Cauca Tierradentro (2-Star) is a really nice regional lot we found, whereas the Colombia “Perros Bravos de Huila” (3-Star) is a whole different beast, a lot we built through cupping around a hundred tiny farm-distinct Huila lots. And on a different note, a super wildly-fruited Ethiopia along the lines of the dry-process Koratie: Ethiopia Organic DP -Dale Yirga Alem.
- Part 3: A mixed container of small lot decafs all arrived at once. Colombia WP Decaf -Huila Pitalito, Ethiopia Organic Natural Djimma WP Decaf, Guatemala Huehuetenango WP Decaf, Mexico Organic Oaxaca WP Decaf, Panama Boquete WP Decaf “Panamaria”, Papua New Guinea Peaberry WP Decaf . There’s a huge range in cup flavors here, from the “fruit bomb” Ethiopia Djimma to the restrained Mexico Organic. Check out the reviews… “Whew” -Tom
Today I am listing a great assortment of new lots.
- Perhaps the most unusual is Costa Rica RIP Red Honey Coffee. RIP? Roasted In Parchment. This coffee has not been dry-milled, the green bean is still in the outer shell. In perhaps the wackyest moment in Sweet Maria’s history, we discovered you can roast coffee in the parchment shell, and it has a very unusual flavor. This is for experts only, since you can’t really see the green coffee as it turns brown. See the review and the pictures of the RIP process.
- Not quite as “out there” is our new lot of Kenya Thika Chania -
French Mission Cultivar. This is a coffee lot from the original French Bourbon varietal as it was brought to Kenya by French priests in 1893, and it as a unique cup character. - Some will think I have gone to “the dark side” by offering a Hawaii coffee that is not a small-farm Kona. But we found the Ka’u coffees from south of Kona on the Big Island have greatly improved in recent years, none more than Hawaii Ka’u Wet-Process -Will & Grace Farm. We also got some miniscule lots from them of hand-processed Ka’u Dry-Process and Pulp Natural NanoLot coffees. Yes, NanoLots. Sub-MicroLots. Read the commentary for these…
- For those who must have monsooned coffee in their espresso blend, we have a fine new lot of India Monsooned Malabar AA
- Our Classic Mandheling is gone but we have a really good, traditional Grade One Lot to back it up: Sumatra Gr. 1 Mandheling. The preparation isn’t pretty, but the cup has true Mandheling origin character.
- And we have a nice lot of Sumatra Mandheling WP Decaf that scores quite well alongside it’s non-decaf counterpart.
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