It's monsoon season! A blend of three coffees roasted separately, then combined: a washed Guatemala from Huehuetenango as the base, a natural from Sidama, Ethiopia, for fruit, and a Monsooned Malabar from India for body.
Every issue so far has been roasted for filter, with a pour-over recipe to match. If you pull shots, we've been leaving you out. This is the one built for espresso.
Huehuetenango, Guatemala, from the Villatoro family's Boqueroncito farm. Washed and dried on patios. The base of the blend, and the biggest part of it.
Sidama, Ethiopia, from smallholder farms at 2,200 metres. A natural, dried with the fruit still on. That's where the fruit in the cup comes from.
Chikmagalur, India, from family farms. Monsooned on the coast in Mangalore, which is where the blend gets its name. It's here for body, and never the lead.
Boqueroncito, Huehuetenango. The Villatoro family runs it: Aurelio runs the wet mill, and his nephew Antonio looks after Boqueroncito and Finca Regalito in the Cuilco area. Bourbon and Caturra, grown at 1,400 to just under 1,550 metres. Washed, patio-dried. From Sweet Maria's, who scored it 88.0 (their scale runs to 110, not 100) and say it “makes a knockout espresso in the Full City/Full City+ end of the spectrum.”
Sidama. Smallholder farms, landrace varieties, grown at 2,200 metres. Natural process. We bought it green from Haru Lab, here in San Jose.
Chikmagalur, Karnataka, from family farms whose growers also grow pepper, cardamom and oranges. Selection 795, Selection 9, Catuai and Cauvery, grown at 1,067 to 1,280 metres. Monsooned in open-sided warehouses in Mangalore through the monsoon. From Burman Coffee.
The name comes from the Indian coffee. On India's west coast, Monsooned Malabar is spread out in open-sided warehouses and raked over for 12 to 16 weeks while the monsoon winds blow through. The beans swell, turn pale gold and lose most of their acidity.
It started by accident. When coffee left India on wooden sailing ships, the trip around Africa took about six months, and the beans arrived like that. Faster ships ended it, Europe missed the taste, and India started doing it on purpose.
That's why it's in here: it adds body without adding acidity. The Guatemala and the Ethiopian bring the rest.
Each coffee goes through the roaster in its own batch. Once all three have cooled, we weigh them and mix them, at a ratio we settled on after cupping. Monsoon comes roasted medium-dark or dark: pick yours when you order, or when you join the Espresso Membership. When the season changes, the coffees do too, and this page will say so.
A starting point to adjust for your machine. Grind finer for more body, coarser if it's choking. The roast date is stamped on every bag.
This one has no number. Every season, we build a new blend from coffees we want to drink as espresso. The Nº series is still one single origin at a time, gone when it's gone. Monsoon is the coffee we keep coming back to.
250g of whole bean, $24. Two bags ship free.
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