Ethiopia Basha Bekele Natural
$ 23.00
For many of us who work in specialty coffee, Ethiopian naturals were our gateway drug. The best examples are so intensely fruity and complex that after tasting your first, it's hard to think of coffee as just coffee anymore.
Natural-processed coffees - dried in the cherry rather than after removing the fruit - are by no means new to us at Huck, and we roast naturals from all over the world. But there's something special about how the fruit-forward processing combines with floral Ethiopian heirloom coffee varieties, so these coffees hold a special place in our hearts. While Basha Bekele is a new name for us here, it’s our second year roasting coffees from this group of farmers in Sidama.
Basha Bekele and his family operate a small farm near Shantewene village in Sidama, Ethiopia, and are part of a group organized by Buriso Amaje, another farmer in the area, dedicated to helping individuals sell their fully-processed coffee directly to foreign buyers, rather than selling just-harvested cherry to a cooperative or washing station. While there's nothing inherently wrong with the collective processing method, farmers who do a good job processing their own coffee can keep a bit of added value at the farm.
While Basha does primarily work with his own coffee, most farmers who do their own processing also purchase some coffee cherry from their neighbors, and these farmers are often called outgrowers.
We're excited to roast up this goodness from Basha Bekele and his neighbors, and are seriously enjoying its intense complexity. We're tasting blueberry, maple syrup, guava, and watermelon in this jammy and delicious natural.
*** 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. ***
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Colombia Los Cortés
$ 22.00
Los Cortés is a funky, fruit-driven Colombia produced by Arlison and Javier Cortés in Colombia, and while we called it Colina del Viento last year, this year we decided to honor the people behind the coffee.
This style of fermentation leads to a very bright and fruity cup. When done well, washed coffees with extended (and in this case, atypical) fermentation processes can be some of the most unique coffees on the market, and we think Javier and Arlisson Cortés have created quite an interesting coffee here. Between the syrupy raspberry and mulled wine flavors, this coffee will expand your horizon in what you thought coffee’s supposed to taste like.
This one’s a complex ride for sure, and one of the funkier coffees we’ll carry this year. If you expect Colombia to mean straightforward and approachable (or if that’s what you’re looking for), this one will defy those expectations a bit. Expect intense fruit, a bit of booziness, and a unique experience here. It’s a small lot that we think will go pretty quickly, so hop on soon if you want to try something different!
*** 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: Arlison Cortés, from Shelby's sourcing trip in 2023.
East Timor Eratoi
$ 20.00
It’s been a minute, but we’re excited to have coffee from East Timor's Letefoho district and Cafe Brisa Serena back at Huck!
Coffees from the Pacific islands can be round and sweet, but the wet hulled process that’s common in the region - in which the coffee’s protective parchment layer is removed before drying - lends itself to premature fade and vegetal, funky flavors. So, we specifically seek out washed coffees from the islands, dried in their parchment to preserve the goodness and keep out the funk. The tiny country of East Timor has been on the comeup the past few years, in large part by focusing on fully washed coffees.
Cafe Brisa Serena is a social enterprise that works with farmers in East Timor's Letefoho district to improve growing and processing practices, obtain organic certification, and access the specialty market. This particular coffee comes from 15 organic-certified family farms in the tiny village of Ducurai that have organized themselves into a group called Eratoi, and is all washed on-farm, rather than at a centralized mill. Eratoi translates to water spring, and the group has named itself after a waterfall near the village.
While this coffee does come from a different part of the world, it has quite a bit in common with a subtle, but nuanced washed coffee from Latin America. So if you’ve liked Huck coffees like Productores Cafénor from El Salvador or Atitlán Aprocafé from Guatemala, this could be your jam. We’re tasting pleasant toasted almond, a subtly-spicy cinnamon, buttery pastry, and just a hint of red apple-like fruitiness. Eratoi’s an approachable everyday drinker, and we’re glad to have East Timor back on the menu for 2024!
*** 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. ***
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Ecuador El Sauce
$ 22.00
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
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