House Roast Subscription (250g) - Coffee Cycle Roasting

Guatemala La Joya Double Ferment Washed 

Roaster: Coffee Cycle Roasting Co.
Processing: Double Ferment Washed
Elevation: 1800 masl
Farm: Concepcion Buena Vista
Mill: La Joya
Producer: David Solano
Region: San Martín Jilotepeque, Chimaltenango
Tasting notes: Chocolate mousse, Marzipan, Malt

From La Baia Importers:

"

FARM NOTES:

Concepción Buena Vista and Finca La Joya are located at 1,800 MSAL surrounded by mountains and forest in San Martín Jilotepeque, Chimaltenango, Guatemala. Spanning over 4 generations and almost for 150 years, the Solano family has been dedicated to improving the quality of life for their local community. The farm is located in a small community called El Sapito where they have built over the years a small Church, a school, and a health clinic where people from El Sapito and close communities nearby can access health clinics, medicine and treatments whenever needed. Brothers David and Eddy Solano are the 4th generation coffee producers working on their family farm Concepción Buena Vista. Both of them are coffee experimental enthuisasts and professionals. David is a mechanical engineer; 3 time back to back National Barista Champion and is in charge of the operations at La Joya. Eddy is an engineer in science administration, he specializes in logistics and exports for the farm and is the financial manager at La Joya.

REGIONAL INFOMRATION

San Martín Jilotepeque is a town, with a population of 10,812 people and a municipality in the Chimaltenango department of Guatemala. In Pre-Columbian times what is now the city of Chimaltenango was known to its native inhabitants as B'oko' . Like many other cities in the area, the Spanish Conquistadores used the name given by their Nahuatl speaking allies from central Mexico. The Nahuatl name was Chīmaltenānco, meaning "Shield City". Located within the tropics and with elevations ranging between sea level of more than 13,000 feet (4,000 metres), Guatemala experiences a diversity of climates. Southern Guatemala is dominated by a string of 27 volcanoes extending for nearly 180 miles (300 km) between Mexico and El Salvador. The country is largely dependent upon traditional commercial crops such as coffee, sugar, and bananas as the basis for Guatemalas economy. Although agriculture provides employment for about two-fifths of the country’s workforce, it contributes less than one-fourth of the gross national product (GNP). Traditional agriculture staples such as the production of corn (maize), beans, and squash for domestic consumption, is concentrated to small farms or milpas (a field, usually but not always cleared, in which farmers plant dozens of crops at once including maize, corn, avocados, multiple varieties of squash, beans, melon, tomatoes, and chilis to provide food and jobs in their local communities.

Our convo with David Solano (Why coffee?)

La Baia:

When was the moment in your life that you discovered your love for coffee and decided to explore becoming a coffee producer?

David Solano:

My family has been involved in coffee farming for 4 generations, and the passion and love toward coffee has been transferred from generation to generation creating a tighter bond with each step. My great grandfather moved to the land and got started in farming coffee, beans, and corn production mainly for personal living consumption for his family. My grandfather started expanding the land and coffee plantation, but my dad, Bernardo Solano, decided to shift the his focus primarily on growing coffee and expanding the plantation by getting rid of the bean and the corn production. He studied Agronomical engineering and started to quantify and increase production volume and quality. He focused only on farming, which means that he would only pick the red cherries and then sell them to other mills and export companies that had no connection to coffee roasters or coffee drinking consumers outside of the country. My brother Eddy and I, being part of the 4th generation of the farm, we decided to go a step further. We made the decision and commitment to open up the processing techniques at the farm by doing natural, honey and our special maceration lots from the EL SAPITO PROJECT that really opened up the possibilities and reached new horizons by exposing and detecting new flavor profiles and textures from our traditional varietals that we had never tasted in the coffees from our farm. The moment when I decided to commit my life to working on the farm was when I tried for the first time our first natural process with cherries from our farm. Back in 2017, I decided to take 200 pounds of red cherries and do our first natural lots “just for fun” but the result was something really outstanding for me. It was so complex, fruity, sweet, aromatic and that really opened my mind into a whole new level of possibilities. That was the moment I really fell in love with coffee.

Technical Information (Production)

La Baia

Why Red Bourbon for this particular double ferment washed lot and how did you begin growing Red Bourbon?

David Solano

Having the opportunity to work in our family farm, the varietal options were really limited. Most of our coffee plantation is Bourbon, Caturra and Catuai, so we separated and cupped the varietals and we found a better result working with Red Bourbon. The lots that we used for this washed lot comes directly from La Joya. The oldest lot on our farm with trees that are older than 125 years old and they keep on producing amazing coffee.

La Baia

Once the coffee is ready for harvest, what are the next steps for post harvest production & processing?

David Solano

We selected the La Joya red Bourbon trees because they have a very dense natural tree shade. It’s mainly a flat topography giving a less erosion on the ground and as a result, it’s one of the best Bourbon lots on our farm. The brix needs to be between 25-26%. Once they arrive to the wet mill, they are submerged in clean water to wash out any possible dirt or contamination that could affect the development of bacteria inside the fermentation tanks. Once all cherries are clean and classified by density, we place the cherries in sealed sacks for 24 hours for the initial fermentation to allow for a longer contact time in whole cherry. Following the initial fermentation phase we depulp the coffee removing the seed from the fruit and move them to open fermentation tanks where the coffee beans are submerged under water and allowed to soak for 24 hours. Following the fermentation in the tanks, the coffee goes to the drying patios for 10 days, with constant movement every hour. During peak harvest, our coffee production supports approximately 140-150 people working at the farm, and 5 - 8 people who work at the milling and drying facilities to assure sure everything goes well.

"