Coffee Cupping - Locals Only!

Burundi Gitwe Washed

$ 23.00

Size 12 OZ 2 LB 5 LB

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Huck has been with Long Miles since their first harvest in 2013, and each year we’re lucky enough to taste through multiple delicious coffees from the group. Long Miles isolates coffees from individual hills, with Gitwe and Ninga the most frequent in our lineup. This year, Gitwe hill produced our favorite washed coffee, and we’re stoked to roast this one over the spring and into the summer!

The Long Miles Coffee Project was founded by Ben and Kristy Carlson, an American couple who moved to Burundi.  Upon seeing the difficulties farmers faced while Ben was working as a coffee trader, the Carlsons built two washing stations in the region, and have worked with area farmers to help them fetch better prices. By working with the farmers to develop stringent quality practices at the farm level, then washing and milling the coffee with meticulous care, Long Miles is able to ensure that the coffee is of the highest quality possible.  By working with Huckleberry and other roasters who commit to coffees before they've shipped from Burundi, the Long Miles Coffee Project is able to pay the farmers a higher price for their coffee than they would receive on the open market and from other washing stations.

Gitwe is a specific hill near Long Miles' Heza washing station, and this coffee comes exclusively from the Long Miles farmers living on that hill.  Over the past few years, Gitwe has produced some of our favorite coffees - natural, washed, and honey alike. For two years running, washed Gitwe has been our favorite Long Miles Coffee.

We’re tasting tangerine, honey, and peach tea (think iced, sweetened, in a bottle that rhymes with apple) in this year’s Gitwe. With body, balance, and acidic complexity all at the same time, it’s gonna be a roast team favorite for the entirety of its turn at Huck!

*** for roasting schedule, shipping, receiving & additional information, please visit out Frequently Asked Questions ***

Photos courtesy Long Miles Coffee Project

Peru El Lechero Yellow Caturra

$ 22.00

Size 12 OZ 2 LB 5 LB

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12 OZ

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5 LB

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Our third single origin Peru of the 2023 harvest comes from Ulises Nayra and Victoria Ramos at Finca El Lechero, and we’re stoked to have their yellow caturra back at Huck after a one year gap!  

We source our Peruvian coffees through Origin Coffee Lab, and when we first visited back in 2021, we tasted one coffee, that prompted a very quick “whoa, what is that?” Floral and vibrant, not quite Gesha-level intensity, but definitely moving in that same direction, and different than what we had expected. That coffee was a yellow caturra variety from Ulises and Victoria, and luckily, Ulises was actually delivering more coffee to Origin at the same time we were cupping. It was a no-brainer to chat, then visit his farm a few days later.

Caturra - typically bearing red cherries - is a fairly common coffee variety throughout Latin America, prized for both solid productivity and a sweet, if more traditional, flavor profile. But there is a mutation of caturra that produces yellow cherries, and when kept separate and processed with care, it can be a completely distinct experience. Floral, bright, complex, and delicate. It’s not quite at the intensity level of a Gesha or Pink Bourbon, but it’s a unique experience, and arguably a mellower, easier drinker than those other two, currently-fashionable varieties.

Last year we took a break from singling out Ulises’ + Victoria’s coffees, but this year, they worked with Merci Fernandez and the team at Origin to fine-tune the process a bit. While in many cases we love coffees fermented in-cherry, after tasting early examples we asked (and committed to buy, regardless of quality) El Lechero to depulp immediately upon harvest, then extend the fermentation after depulping. This lends to a more delicate cup, but one that lets the florality and brightness of the variety shine a bit brighter.

El Lechero is named after a tree on the farm that produces a milky sap when cut, and while we called this coffee “Ulises Nayra” two years ago, this is truly a family effort. Ulises and Victoria oversee both coffee and granadilla production on the farm, their son Dilver works in Origin’s cupping lab in San Ignacio, and Ulises mother Esperanza and stepfather Maximiliano live just down the road, with family members helping on both farms.

We’re digging El Lechero for not just its elegant complexity, but also its uniqueness from our other Perus - chocolatey Familia Peralta and fruity La Pomarrosa. Sugar cookie sweetness, black currant and blackberry fruitiness, key lime acidity, and soft florals for the win.

*** for roasting schedule, shipping, receiving & additional information, please visit out Frequently Asked Questions . And, for a primer on coffee processing, check out our Processing Basics Guide. *** 

Pictured: Ulises Nayra and Victoria Ramos

Ecuador El Sauce

$ 22.00

Size 12 OZ 2 LB 5 LB

Size

12 OZ

2 LB

5 LB

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Are you feeling saucy? Ready to get sauced? As long as you’re okay with a 0% ABV, we’ve got you covered with Ecuador El Sauce.

To be clear, this technically should be pronounced sauce-eh (or something like that, we’re coffee roasters, not phonetic spellers), and in Spanish, “el sauce” translates to willow tree. It’s also the name of a town in Southern Ecuador, the source of this delicious coffee.

We’ve roasted coffees from Ecuador’s Loja Province in the past, but El Sauce is new to Huck, and it’s a different animal entirely. There’s plenty of the maple syrup and molasses sweetness we’d expect from this area of Ecuador, but thanks to a bit of experimental processing mixed in with the traditional washed process, we’re tasting fig and freeze-dried berries here, with some tangy brightness to boot.

El Sauce is a blend of coffees from smallholder farmers in the town of El Sauce, and we found this coffee through The Coffee Quest, an import-export operation based in Medellin, Colombia and Austin, Texas, but partnered with Capamaco Trading in Ecuador. Some of the farmers in El Sauce have begun experimenting with yeast-inoculated fermentations, using yeast to both alter and control the fermentation step that breaks down the coffee’s fruit in the traditional washed process. 

Stephen at The Coffee Quest estimates that roughly 15% of El Sauce was yeast-fermented. We’ve tasted yeast fermentations that range from overwhelming to more subtle, but here, with this group of farmers and as part of the blend, the result is a tangy, but balanced cup.

Fig jam, molasses, brown sugar, and freeze-dried strawberries make for some very interesting sauce, that until now, we really didn’t expect out of Ecuador. It’s a pretty good reason to get Sauced with us, even if you are doing it first thing in the morning.

*** For roasting schedule, shipping, receiving & additional information, please visit out Frequently Asked Questions . And, for a primer on coffee processing, check out our Processing Basics Guide. *** 

Photo courtesy The Coffee Quest