News

Hello MRC members,

This months coffee is a highly prized rare micro-lot honey process coffee from El Salvador:

Farm: Ricardo Reyes

Country: El Salvador

Process: Honey

Varieties: Pacamara, Obata

Elevation: 1150 MASL

Region: Alotepec Metapán, Chalatenango

Harvest: December - March

Ricardo Alberto Reyes is the owner of Finca Potrerios, a farm covering 14 manzanas in San Ignacio of the Chalatenango region. Ricardo cultivates 4200 coffee trees of the Obata and Pacamara variety. He specializes in honey processing. He dry-ferments the coffee for 16 hours to partially remove mucilage, and dries the coffee on raised beds for over two weeks and then dries the seeds on raised beds.

The relatively recent emergence of a processing style known as Honey has become prominent throughout Central American coffee-producing countries, perhaps most notably Costa Rica. In many respects, the Honey process is similar to the Brazilian post-harvest process known as Pulp or Pulped Natural. Similar to the Pulped Natural methodology, Honey coffee is depulped to remove the skin of the cherry, and the coffee seed is allowed to dry with some or all of its sticky fruit mucilage intact. This process retains some of the desirable characteristics of a full Natural coffee (heavy body, sweet fruitiness with lower acidity, deep chocolate notes) while also speeding the drying process considerably, and reducing some of the risks of spoilage, mold, and other defects that can occur with fully intact coffee cherry on the drying patios or tables.

In Costa Rica (and increasingly in El Salvador and Honduras, among other places worldwide), some producers will remove a particular amount of the mucilage material in order to manipulate the coffee’s finished profile. Others focus on modulating the drying process to achieve different Honey levels, assigning differentiating terms to correspond with the results, from Yellow/Golden Honey (the mildest, perhaps closest to Washed coffees), Red Honey, and Black Honey (which is arguably most comparable to the Brazilian Pulped Natural).

This years Kenyans are some of the best in years so get ready for a juicy bomb of intensity! As well members with two bags+ or more will get to try our new Colombian Decaf, which doesn't even taste like a decaf. So now you can truly enjoy coffee from early in the morning to late at night and reap all the health benefits without the extra caffeine.

It has been a full month in September of renovations and getting the vintage P12 Probat roaster into the new working space. Now there is a glass door separating the roasting from the coffee bar and tasting cupping area. The major bonus is come winter the roasting space will be cozy and warm since it can get a little cold with being in a large building.

Hello MRC members,

This months coffee is an exclusive limited lot of NM Norway Roasting Championship Competition Coffee:

Origin: Peru

Fermer: Jorge Alberca

Farm: El Cedro

Altitude: 200 MASL

Variety: Caturra

Processing: Washed

Crop year: 2022

Tasting Notes: Sweet brown sugar,

cinnamon bun, almond, citrus.

The back story is this is the first year we competed in Norways Roasting Championship. How it works is 16 roasting companys all over Norway get to compete. Each roastery is sent the same green coffee (1x69kg) and then has 30 days to roast and send in 1kg of roasted coffee to be blind cup by 7 judges. So only a small handful of people will be drinking this limited coffee all over Norway. Some of the other competitors were Soldberg & Hansen, Fuglen, KaffeBrenerit, and many more.

The Danish Coffee festival was truly an amazing event and the Alps team really made a memorable experience for everyone who attended. We got to brew on the top of the line La Marzocco, Malkhoning, and PourSteady gear. In under two hours we served just shy of 100 espresso base drinks and the guys on the filter bar lost count serving Aprils Best Cup Finalist Colombian micro-lot#11 and organic Guatemalan which was Februarys coffee sent out to members.

Everyone really enjoyed the coffees and we sold out of all retails bags and cans instantly. Everyone also thought our Alps Flannels were very cool and made us stand out from the rest of roasters. I have to admit going into the event was a bit nerve racking. What if people dont like our espresso or filters? However the fear drifted away fast when folks really had nothing but compliments for the coffee. So the best method or cure for "fear" is just face it head on and serve it with a smile and simply believe in what our offering to the universe. The hosts thought we did such a great job they invited us back for another bar session since another roaster could not make it to the event. So we actually got to showcase our coffee and extra time which was humbling and a total honour. A big shout out to the 3 other brave super Dads that did an outstanding job and made the whole event that much more fun to attend.