February 2022 Newsletter
Welcome to a new year. If you'd told me 20 years ago that I'd still be around to write this newsletter I'd have said "Tell 'em they're dreamin'!" but here I am.
We have been fortunate to have come through the whole pandemic period without catching anything. This hasn't been true of our suppliers and couriers, so if you're wondering why your order arrived in 250g bags instead of the 500g bags, now you know. The same type of thing is happening worldwide, making stock supplies unpredictable.
One thing that can be predicted is an increase in green coffee prices as worldwide production fell at the same time as shipping costs increased. Luckily we've got a few months buffer before these increases will start to affect our operations, so we won't be putting our prices up in the near future.
During the break we've been having a bit of a dig around in our green coffee suppliers' offer lists, looking for bargains. Right now there are some stunning "special" coffees available, but when the prices start at $50.00 a kilo for green coffee (making them well over $100/kg roasted and packed) there aren't that many interested customers. So we've focused on lesser known origins and varietals.
After a lot of sample roasting and cupping we managed to find a few gems, and the first of these is from Ecuador. While we were researching the various contenders I was going back over 30-odd years of cupping notes, and to my surprise I had never tasted an Ecuadorian coffee before.
Ecuador the country is situated on the western side of the South American continent, towards the northern end of the Andes mountains and adjacent to Colombia and Peru. It's had a turbulent history, from Incan-era civil wars to Spanish Conquistadors to coups and revolutions. As with other Latin American countries this has resulted in lots of impoverished small holding farmers growing a variety of crops, and coffee is only one of them.
The importance of coffee as an export crop has risen and fallen with its price, and quite often (as with the Colombian coffee shortfall a few years ago) coffee grown in Ecuador makes its way across the border to be blended or even re-labelled as Colombian. Because of this it has never made much of an impression as a desired single origin coffee. Low demand and no regular source of supply probably didn't help much either. The samples we've seen so far have very much been "heirloom" varietals, either Typica or Bourbon. It seems that the various higher yielding and/or disease resistant hybrids have yet to appear on the smaller farms.
Okay, so we've dug a couple of VERY small bags out of a huge container, what does it taste like? This month's special is:
$52 Per Kilogram
Medium to Strong.
The ground aroma reminds me of the smell you get when you open a packet of Tim Tams. As the first sip hits the front of your mouth, the initial impression is of sweet orange acidity, followed by a smooth mid palate and a medium body. The coffee finishes with a slightly dry, biscuity aftertaste.
This is a Typica coffee which has been Honey or Miel processed, with the consequent increase in intensity and depth of flavour. I'd rate it a solid 85 and a definite bargain at the price
Until April,
Alan
