This is a fun time of year. Fiddleheads are out, mayflies are starting to pop, and new crop coffees from Central America are starting to appear. Importers are also lining up their offers from Ethiopia. But it’s going to be even more interesting than it normally is. Yields for Centrals are down, and there’s lots of, uh, odd stuff happening in the world of coffee in Ethiopia. Hard to explain efficiently, but the gist of it is that the government is now playing a central role in how coffee is sold and exported abroad. There are good and bad points for farmers with this intervention, but the coffees that we generally offer shouldn’t be affected too much–except for the price (which, as you might guess, is up this year. Again). Certified organics generally come from co-operatives, and co-ops are allowed to bypass the gov’t commodities exchange, so we’ll see how it all pans out. We’re keeping our eye on a couple of containers that are afloat, and look forward to cupping them once they arrive.
What is certain is that we will have two new coffees in-house next week. The first is a new Sumatra Mandehling. Not a huge bodied coffee, but it’s got a lot going on in the cup. We tend to like coffees from Sumatra that are on the cleaner/sweeter side–not too much funk, or even green herbiness–but sometimes clean Sumatras can be kind of boring. This new coffee has an acidity that is brighter than the coffees we’ve offered before, with some sweet berry and floral aromatics, especially at the lighter roasts. It’ll be fun to see how it comes out of the big roaster–it’s always an improvement.
Also scheduled to arrive is our new crop ”Apanas” from Nicaragua. This will be the third year in a row that we have carried this coffee from the UCASUMAN (Union de Cooperativas Agropecuarios de Servicios Unidas de Mancotal) co-operative. It’s fun to try new coffees and offerings–and in the case of many origins, it’s absolutely necessary–but we also like supporting some growers on a consistent basis. This coffee has been steady, year in and year out, so it hasn’t been too difficult a decision. Expect what you’ve come to admire in the Nic, but a little more of it: more floral aromatics, m0re sweetness (because we’ll be able to roast it a tad darker without eclipsing the acidity), and a little more snap. Yum.