Nicaragua Dry Process Maracaturra

The Maracaturra cultivar is a large bean variety of coffee, a cross between Caturra and the so-called "Elephant Bean", Maragogype. It seems to be grown mostly in Nicaragua although I have found nice examples in El Salvador too. Buenos Aires is a somewhat low altitude farm compared to other origins we buy, with this lot coming from about 1200 meters. This coffee is dry processed, which means that it's dried inside the coffee cherry over the course of about a month. This tends to produce fruited tones and bolster body, leveling out acidity some too. The coffee was dried on raised drying beds at the Buenos Aires mill in a newer area that has shade protection from the hot afternoon sun, and takes around 20-25 days to fully dry. Maracturra can be tricky to roast due to the large size beans. If you have the ability to control heat on your roaster, try a "slow and low" approach, dragging out the beginning roast leg before 1st crack in order to produce roast consistency from the inside out. Even just taking the coffee a little beyond where you think City roast level is will allow the extra time needed for internal roast development. Maracaturra beans are very large, and burr grinders can have a hard time processing them. Baratza grinders will sometimes eject a few back out, which can be quite exciting! In the Fellow grinders, the large beans will sometimes back up at the hopper guard, which has a very low clearance. In both cases, I've found that pouring the beans into the grinder slowly helps keep things moving. If progress halts while grinding, giving the grinder a gentle shake can help too.