Colombia Argote and Brazil Capricornio

Brazil.

FARMS: Fazenda Santa Mariana, Sitio Teixeira, Fazenda São Carlos

BLEND: Farmer blend with notes of chocolate and berries

LOCATION: Marilia and Garça, Norte Pioneiro

CULTIVARS: Catuaí and Novo Mundo

EXPORTER: Capricornio Coffees

IMPORTER: Special Roast

ROASTER: Special Roast

COLOMBIA

FARM: 20 independent farmers, connected by Argote Specialty Coffee

LOCATION: Génova, Colón, Nariño, Colombia

CULTIVARS: Castillo, Caturra, some Catuaí

FARM SIZE: 1 to 2 hectares per farm

EXPORTER: Argote Specialty Coffee

IMPORTER: This Side Up Coffees

ROASTER: Special Roast

Blending Brazil with Colombia - coffee specs

What to taste for:

Aroma: chocolate, dried berries, caramel.

Body: round mouthfeel with a thick body.

Acidity: hint of currants and orange

Aftertaste: dark chocolate, cacao powder, molasses.

PROCESSING YOUR COFFEE

The Brazilian coffee is a pulped natural. The combination of altitude and processing results in a jammy, red fruit profile, with lots of sweetness and a dark chocolate backbone. The excellent treatment of the Signature lots give it unrivaled consistency in quality and flavor, year after year. The Colobian coffee is a fully washed coffee, meaning the cherries hand-picked, de-pulped, washed with mountain water, fermented for 18-24 hours, sun-dried on concrete patios and on raised “drawers” with high airflow for about 2 weeks, manually sorted at the farm in four separate rounds, hulled and bagged at the Argote family farm.

ROASTING YOUR COFFEE

We use a 22kg Probat UG22 roaster, that has been built in 1965. The roast time is 11 minutes. After the first crack, the coffee is roasted for a remainder of 25% of the time. To obtain the best flavor and taste each coffee or blend  has a unique roast profile.

Relative price breakdown:

60%

is what the farmers get of the green coffee price in Rotterdam. This is for growing, harvest, milling and preparing the bags for export.

23%

Importing, financing, shipping bureaucracy, sampling and financing costs for This Side Up Coffees.

11%

Exporting by Capricornio in Brazil and This side Up in Colombia

6%

total shipping costs to Rotterdam. Full container loads good forwarding connections warrant such favourable shipping prices.

About the Brazilian farmers


Capricornio coffees is located on the line of Capricorn (hence the name!) and therefore quite distant from the Equator, this means that winters are colder and average temperature is lower. The coffees will need to work harder to ripen, which increases the sweetness of the flavor, creating a very distinct coffee.

This coffee is a blend especially prepared for Special Roast, and part of the Signature coffees line of the connected Capricornio Estates. Signature coffees have taste profiles idealized and chosen by Capricornio Coffees directors José Antônio and Luiz Roberto, and validated by the Quality Control team. The aim is to create taste profiles that are repeated every year, offering not only quality, but also consistency, that coffee drinkers recognize every year.

 

About Argote and the farmers


What would happen if we did something different with our coffee? wondered Juan Pablo just when his father, Efraín, was about to sell the estate. What would happen if I moved back to the field? thought Juan Pablo who was then living in the city, like the rest of his brothers. Father and son started processing and roasting their own coffee, selling it locally. In 2014, This Side Ups Lennart met Juan Pablo through a mutual friend. They hit it off immediately and a partnership was born. In the first year, we helped them obtain hulling equipment and an export license so they could sell this coffee straight to us. Less than two years later, they became independent exporters, created raised beds, helped their friends of the Muñoz family process and export their crop, and already seven groups of field baristas have helped to experiment with cascara, honey, natural, anaerobic processing, and much, much more. With a mentality and a network like Argote’s, the sky truly is the limit.