Description
Farm Description
This coffee from the producers Wilmar Castillo, who resides in the Hoja Blanca, Cuilco region of Huehuetenango. This 22 bag lot from Wilmar is a mix of a few day lot separations he delivered during the previous harvest. Wilmar’s farm sits at about 1700 meters, and like his neighbors, is planted in Bourbon, Caturra, and a few Typica trees scattered throughout. Coffee is typically processed at home with small wet mills/depulping machines, fermented in a single tank, and then laid to dry on cement patios. The dry parchment is transported down to a local dry mill in Huehue town where the parchment layer is removed, then they do screen size separations, and pull out any defects before exporting. This lot is part of the Proyecto Xinabajul, a program designed to reward farmers with high prices for their best coffees.
Cupping Notes
This lot from Wilmar has a sweet fragrance in the dry grounds, with a candy-coated almond smell and molasses sugar for our City+ roasts (Drip). The wet aroma has a slight tea smell to it that verges on floral, quickly turning to date sugar and a malty smell like Horlicks when breaking through the wet crust. The cup has a balanced sweetness and acidity, which is one of the first aspects I notice in the hot cup. City+ roasts are where I started to see balanced sweet and bittering impressions. Really, Espresso (Full City) might be my bag here, bittersweet cocoa flavors pour over light dry fruit hints, and a caramel-nut combo is ushered into the finish. Body is pleasantly ‘plump’, weighty on the palate, enhancing a chocolatey roast tone. There is a tea note found in the Drip Roasts that is missing at Espresso, but a bolstered unrefined sugar sweetness in the darker roast leaves. These darker roasts are more than worthy of a run through the espresso machine – loads of bittersweet chocolate and with rindy, citrus acidity.
