Guatemala Finca Los Angeles | Washed (House Coffee)
$18.95
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This is a washed Bourbon and Caturra varietal coffee from Finca Los Angeles! Arturo and Vielmann Villatoro, father and son producers run the farm, Finca Los Angeles, on the west side of the village of Hoja Blanca in Huehuetenango. Mexico is almost visible down the valley to the northwest. Mature Chalum, Mandarín, and Capulin trees provide shade for the plants below, and pure mountain spring water is used for processing their coffees. For eleven years Vielmann lived in Los Angeles (California). He loves to talk about his experience picking fruit there, and the difference in agricultural pay affected him profoundly - he moved from California, where he'd been paid $40 per apple bin, back to Guatemala where they paid Q40 ($5) per 1 quintal (100 pounds) of coffee cherries. He decided after a decade it was time to return to Cuilco to be with his father, and to care for the farm. Soon after returning, Vielmann was married and bought more land to grow coffee. He built more drying patios and worker housing. Along with his wife and three siblings, the family looks forward to leaving the land and legacy to their beloved children to continue.
As we do for our house / espresso coffees, we’ve profiled this coffee two ways, one for filter and one for espresso. Of course as always either could be used for either, but the profiles are designed to best compliment their respective brewing methods. The filter profile has a bit less development than the espresso, the espresso just getting a hair longer Maillard and sugar development, with a touch more development time, to enhance the depth of this coffee under the more aggressive pressure of espresso extraction, so that the resulting cup is syrupy and sweet, while maintaining all the lovely fruit forward notes. Looks for some cooked fruit and deep notes of pomegranate, with spiced orange like a spiced tea or spiced orange cake, with warming finish of black tea in the filter version of this coffee, and a bit of a developed caramel or maple syrup quality in the espresso in addition to those tasting notes.