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.