I have had the opportunity to cup our Hacienda Esmeralda Gesha vac pack lots (#2, #10) from last year against the new crop, and was surprised at the quality of the ‘08 coffees. I took the most expensive coffee from the ‘09 auction home for the weekend, and brewing it every which way, I made coffee I thought was “nice” but nothing that really popped out, nothing I would pay $117 a pound for! It made me think about what I really would pay for a very special coffee, and during the long Memorial Day weekend I came up with a figure, $45 per pound, as a reasonable amount for really top notch, award winning coffee. At that rate, each cup is about $2, which seems like a fair price. And if I roasted a batch that really “nailed it on the head” and another that was a shade too dark, or too light, I wouldn’t be all broken up about it. So I decided, given the fact we have a few expensive coffees in vacuum pack that are not selling in this down economy, why not have a $45/Lb. sale? We are offering our formerly $125 Panama Esmeralda Gesha Lot 2 for $45/Lb (without the pound of Lot 10 we were previously pairing it with), and we also have the $92 Guatemala Cup of Excellence #1, El Injerto Pacamara, a blistering-good coffee, at $45 per Lb. We are also reducing the price on Panama Esmeralda Gesha Lot 10 to $13/Lb in anticipation of the ‘09 lot we bought, which will sell for around $35 per Lb when it arrives. We bought only about 300 pounds of Esmeralda in the auction this year. We have cupped all of these vacuum pack coffees and they are fresh as they day they came in!
Monthly Archive for May, 2009
More arrivals to post to the list, two South Americans and a surprisingly drinkable robusta: Brazil Cachoeira Yellow Canario Bourbon, a complex cup with a velvety feel and malted/cocoa at lighter roasts. Again, our recommendation is to keep this somewhat atypical Brazil light in roast. Next up, the fruits of our continuing Colombian Microlot project: Colombia "Platos Fuertes de Huila" MicroLot Mix, a blend of smaller micro-lots from Huila, light and effervescent with apricot tastes. And lastly, an interesting and relatively clean Robusta for your espresso blends: India Robusta - Jeelan Estate Nirali. And you can see new coffees listed on the weblog over in the right column, and subscribe to new coffee announcements via RSS.
Coffee Cultivars: Here is a collection of images from my travels of many different types of varietals. I thought it would be interesting to pull all these together into one page … well, 3 pages since there are so many of them.
Central America Travelogues and pictures …Ben and Maria met me in Costa Rica for a Central America Family Coffee get-together, and then we all went to the Best of Panama competition in Boquete. During and after the 2009 El Salvador Cup of Excellence, I visited some of our important coffee sources, such as Aida Batlle’s Kilimanjaro farm, and Vickie Dalton’s Finca Matalapa. Here’s some photos of my El Salvador Travels . And here are the El Salvador Cup of Excellence 2009 photos. Woo!
We are launching our new Sweet Maria’s Home Coffee Roasting Forum in advance of the long weekend. It is meant to supplement the email home roast list and to preserve the good discussions we have on focused topics - discussions that are useful for the new roaster and the experienced roaster alike. Please take a look at the forum, sign up so you can secure your username, and let us know what you think! -Tom
I cupped the auction samples for the Tuesday auction of Panama Esmeralda Especial, their Gesha (or Geisha as everyone else writes it) lot selections. I guess being the most celebrated coffee of a celebrated cultivar has its downside, and it’s easy to take shots at Esmeralda Gesha when it isn’t anything but a 95+ point coffee. But the lots this year showed the full range of qualities, which oddly ended up ranked in order from lot 1 to 7 as they are in the auction. 1-4 lots are solid coffees, 5-7 are second tier… well, 7 is maybe even third tier Gesha with muddled character. But it begs the question; how good is great Gesha and how good is average, lower-grown Gesha. It’s a question that came up often at the Best of Panama competition (see my video listed below). Do we compare Gesha only to itself, where the lower grown lots suffer in scores, or globally to all other coffees, where even the lower grown lots score well, be they a bit murky and ill-defined in cup character? Should we compare them to fine washed Ethiopia coffees, which bear some resemblance in terms of flavor (jasmine, berry, bergamont, light body, etc)? And this leads to the question of how to price Gesha. Is it 3x better than a great Yirgacheffe, and therefore deserving triple the price? How should a mediocre Gesha be priced, when it is still a very interesting cup … and doesn’t that price encourage everyone to plant this type, even when they have no hope of growing great Gesha? And how will it be priced in the future when everybody and their uncle grows it? (They already do - wait a couple years for all this Gesha to come into production!) Did anyone else see the NY Times article about the P’ur Tea price bubble in China and think not a little about the Gesha bubble? All I can say is that the 95+ point Gesha of last year does not exist, I believe, in the small harvest of this crop. Sure, the Esmeralda is great, but is it like the #2 lot in last years auction, or the #3 peaberry? Wasn’t the #6 lot we offered at around $10 last season still a really nice cup, be it not the best Gesha ever? It gives me pause, since I am sitting here at home on the weekend trying to brew the #1 lot in the Tuesday auction, trying to get a great result in Vacuum pot, Aeropress, Pour-over, and … well… it’s a nice coffee, but not the 93.5 I gave it in my cupping room Friday. So it’s not just about asking whether the marketplace should encourage this, should pay this, should endorse it. I am asking myself how I should behave as well, and what best serves our customers. I don’t want to be part of any bubble, to wake up some morning and regret being involved in hype. I am not saying the Gesha phenomenon is that, but it’s a good question that I need to ask myself, and I hope others do as well… I also think about phenomenal Kenya arrivals this week, which are just the tipof the iceberg. Kenya has a big crop and great qualities. We bought heavily, and at high prices. But “high” means coffees we will be offering at $6 or perhaps up to $7 per pound. And we still are offering vac-packed Esmeralda Gesha #2 from the last harvest at $125 per pound! That’s what’s on my mind this fine Saturday …
It’s a fantastic day … the day I get to announce that new crop Kenya coffees have arrived. And we are dropping this Kenya bomb to maximum effect: THREE new auction lot peaberry coffees all at once, heralding in what I think is an epic year of great Kenya coffees. Kenya Nyeri Peaberry -Mutwewathi Factory, a floral cup with apple-apricot compote and pink-grapefruit flavors. Kenya Kirinyaga Peaberry -Gakuyu-ini Factory, a fruit-bomb with complex lemon flavors followed by raisin and grape when it cools. Kenya Kiambu Peaberry -Ndumberi Coop, the cup is a delicate balance between bright fruit and refined sugar, with a pepper accent. Click-through to the full reviews for more cupping notes and farm facts.
At the Best of Panama competition, a very interesting conversation about coffee varietals … and a lousy looking video. Sorry about the lameness - I was more engrossed in the conversation than making it look good.
So we finished the Best of Panama competition this afternoon with an unusual twist: re-roasting and re-cupping the top 8 coffees. There was enough concern on the jury about variations in the roast levels that some felt they could not judge the coffee fairly. One was quite light, several a bit dark. But the fact is, these were a very difficult set of samples to roast. A pacamara, 2-3 geisha, some miel coffees, and one really weird low grown lot. Nobody is quite sure how that slipped in…
Anyway, Maria noted the results at the award ceremony as best she could while I chased around after Ben:
10. Callejon Estate -Alvado
9. Cafe valentine
8. Lerida Estate -Collins
7. Kotawa -Koyner
6. Cafe Ole -Monchi
5. Elida Estate -Lamastus
4. Carmen Estate Paso Ancho -Carlos
3. Don Gulliano - Gonzalo Rojas (Pmara)
2. Gesha Carleda
1. Esmeralda Especial Gesha
So it’s not a huge surprise, Esmeralda entered again after a hiatus and won. Their Gesha lot was truly spectacular next to the other 2 in the top 10 coffees. This is a rough list with a few misspellings for sure - So after a couple weeks on the road it’s back to California tomorrow and back SM on Monday! -Tom
Recent Comments