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What's Happening at the George Howell Coffee Company
June 20th , 2008
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La Minita and Mamuto are back this Monday, June 23! |
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La Minita, Tarrazu, Costa Rica:
A Terroir Coffee favorite is back for the year! I first sold La Minita in 1988 during The Coffee Connection years. Sold at twice the price of any other then-available Costa Rica coffee, La Minita presented a new standard of excellence which it has maintained ever since. Every year our sales of this coffee rose dramatically. I have maintained a special relationship with la Minita ever since. This new crop 2008 lot is no exception; it has been very carefully selected by me for our customers. Amazingly, in a year of very justifiable price hikes due to the falling US dollar and increasing production costs, the price remains the same. To read more or to order call (866)-GHH-JAVA or click here.
Mamuto Farm, Kirinyaga, Kenya:
Mamuto has received Coffee Review’s highest scores two years in a row, a 96 two years ago (the first 96 ever given by Coffee Review) and a 97 last year – and it too has become a Terroir Coffee favorite. Now the new crop arrives, specially packaged in Kenya for the first time to retain 100% of its character over the long voyage from Eastern Africa to the US. This new crop is an exceptionally fine lot. To order, call (866) –GHH-JAVA or click here.
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Special Edition Coffees Update |
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We are winding down from our Special Edition coffee inventory as we enter summer. We still have Villa Flor, which we will offer every other week for a few more weeks and Daterra’s Opus 1, a natural low-caffeinated coffee. We are purchasing some extraordinary Central American Cup of Excellence coffees as well as a great lot of Panama’s famed La Esmeralda. These will arrive later this summer – and we will keep you apprised!
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Daterra has spent twelve and a half years developing a low-caffeine hybrid coffee plant; it is naturally bred and has about one third less caffeine than other Arabica varieties (well under 1% compared to 1.2 to 1.9%). The coffee is delicate, with malt, distinct almond, clean fresh fruit notes, excellent sweetness and refined aftertaste. The plant has very low productivity and consequently we have a limited supply. Usually $16.95 per 8 ounces we are featuring this coffee at $12.95 for 8 ounces.Click here to order or call 866 GHH-JAVA.
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Marco Aurelio Ortega is a very small Colombian farmer deeply attached to the earth and its life-forces. He uses only natural inputs and applies no chemicals to his farm, growing medicinal and aromatic herbs, fruits and many different trees on his tiny 3 acre farm. He has even contoured his farm on the steep slopes, at 6,000 feet, something I am told again and again in Colombia that small farmers cannot afford - yet he has done it simply because he feels that erosion control is worth the effort. Marco Aurelia has applied for organic certification, which practices he has long applied out of his own convictions.
Mr. Ortega produced 6 micro-lots last summer. They were all exemplary (we picked his coffee out blind again and again). It is 100% of the Caturra variety at its best. Ortega's craftsmanship brings out delicate complex flavor notes of great clarity reminiscent of Burgundy. Villa Flor is a coffee that combines great delicacy with real spine. The cup has refined acidity that is all sweetness and light around a Brazil nut core, with a touch of wintergreen, mixed with tropical fruit aromas from hot to cold. $15.95 per 8 ounces. Click here to order or call 866-GHH-JAVA.
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A very special coffee table book: |
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Connecting Worlds: The Coffee Trail, by Olaf Hammelburg
My photographer friend, Olaf Hammelburg ,spent two years in Peru working on this extraordinary story tracing the route taken by a small lot of coffee that has been picked, washed, dried and then blessed by a shaman high in the isolated green world of the Peruvian Andes before it is transported by donkeys over suspended bridges, on rafts over a river, on a truck over a rock-strewn mountain pass and beyond in photograph after breathtaking photograph all the way to the port of Lima, a transatlantic ship and then to cafes in Europe and the US. The narration is told entirely by Olaf’s nearly fifty dramatic photos of magical places and of people with faces that have been unforgettably carved by their experiences in a world that is quickly vanishing but beautifully captured by Olaf’s singing camera.
The book is interspersed with short articles by three of the farmers, a director of a Peruvian coffee cooperative, by Olaf Hammelburg, Ken Davids, well known for his numerous books on coffee and for his website Coffee Review, and by yours truly.
Amazingly, before I ever knew Olaf or his work, I bought part of the very lot Olaf traces from Peru to the US! It was during the first year of Terroir Coffee’s existence.
To purchase Connecting Worlds: The Coffee Trail click here; $35.00. You can learn more by clicking Olaf’s website: http://www.connectingworlds.info
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On Sale Coffees for June: |
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 DeCaf La Magnolia, chemical-free Swiss Water Processed, Tres Rios, Costa Rica is IN! Introductory SALE price for June: from $14.95 to $12.95 per 12 oz. Click here to order.
Full bodied and full flavored, with fine, richly blended nuts, sweet mellow peach and a trace of chocolate. The Swiss Water people have truly mastered the method to produce an outstanding decaf. It is hardly believable this coffee is decaffeinated!
La Magnolia is from the famed Tres Rios growing region of Costa Rica and was collected by the folks at La Minita. It is full bodied with integrated flavors of fine, richly blended nuts, sweet mellow peach and a trace of chocolate.
The water process is a far more expensive way of decaffeinating. The chemical process allows the caffeine to be freed up and sold to other large buyers such as the pharmaceutical companies (many aspirins contain caffeine) and the soft drink companies. Not so for the water process!
Swiss Water Decaffeinated (chemical-free)
Altitude : 3,500 - 4,000 feet
Soil : Volcanic
Rainfall : Moderate
Variety : Caturra
Vicente Cuaran’s El Guaico , Nariño, Colombia. Regularly $15.95, now $13.95 for 12 ounces. Click here to order.
 Guaico is an Indian name meaning ‘lower part of the canyon.’ Mr. Cuaran started coffee farming just seven years ago. He has 9000 Caturra coffee trees on five acres at 6,000 feet in elevation. He has done an exceptional job with this lot: it exemplifies the special flavor characteristics of Nariño coffee: Almond and a Ceylon tea core enveloped in notes of light tropical fruit meringue and just a trace of wintergreen. We have about a two month supply of this coffee. $13.95 per 12 ounces (regularly $15.95). Click here to order.
Kangocho Cooperative, Nyeri, Kenya :
For the rest of this month both roast versions of our Kangocho , a Fair Trade coffee, one of the very best lots to be produced in 2006, is ON SALE, from $15.95 to $13.95 per 12 oz. This is a Kenya with classic powerful blackberry flavor and a special very light touch of creamy blueberry. Click here for descriptions and/or to purchase.
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The Long Road to Quality Coffee [Part 11]; Growing - Overview © Jan - June 2008 |
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To read parts 1 through 10 of The Long Road to Quality © please click here .
Coffee farmers around the tropical world share much the same problems as well as face challenges unique to their environment and to their market niche. Farmers competing on the mass market will have a completely different set of objectives than those catering to the socially conscious market, the ecological-minded market or the gourmet market which, in varying degrees, increasingly overlap.
Growing starts with propagation. Besides variety (and species), which we have reviewed, plant vigor is critical. It is not sufficient to just plant any seed. Coffee nurseries are a constant concern for the ongoing health of the farm. Coffee seedlings are usually transplanted at least once to their final growing place and great care has to be taken doing this.
How the farm interacts with its overall environment is becoming an increasing concern with many farmers. The use of shade trees is critical in many but not all environments for maximizing production, to say nothing about ecological concerns. What kinds of shade trees should be used, to what degree and how dense? Each shade tree requires its special maintenance as well.
Coffee trees often require regular pruning, both for long term structure and for starting over once they reach a certain size. To what degree - and how - is typically determined by the set of values, usually market-determined, and means a farmer has. Even the shade trees must be pruned – some seasonally. Also, what spacing between coffee plants should be adopted?
Management of weeds, plants in competition for limited nutrition and water, not necessarily native anymore, must be maintained. Herbicides are coming increasingly into question, particularly in mountainous regions where erosion control is an emergency. Pest management is also critical and in the tropics everything seems to be accelerated! Controlling myriad insects that use the coffee plant in ways harmful to the interests of the farmer, a host of different fungi, all evolving as farmers evolve in response, are the concern of farmers everywhere.
Then there is the nutrition of the plant. Agriculturally productive coffee trees take out a lot of nutrients and minerals from the soil. Each must be replenished in the proper measure. One part of a farm may have different imbalances than another. There is making sure that the soil has the proper pH balance as well.
Finally, there is the roulette wheel of nature’s cycles and surprises. We will cover each of these topics in a little more detail in the coming newsletters.
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Continued: Flat Rate Shipping Program |
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$5 for shipments of 3-7 coffee items, to continental U.S. addresses
Via UPS Ground service.
For more than 7 coffee items, just add $1 per bag.
All other types of shipment are at standard rates. |
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© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, George Howell Coffee Company™ | 312 School Street | Acton | MA | 01720 | Toll Free 866-444-5282