Coffee of the Week
Fair Trade Organic El Salvador Las Colinas
On Monday we had a last minute staff party, in the yard. If you aren’t a regular here, you might not know that we all enjoy each other’s company. We have a great group of employees, and a Labor Day barbecue was a perfect excuse to get together. The food was delicious (thanks Trace!) and we all had a wonderful time. It was also a send-off for Bailey, who leaves for Scotland this week.
I did write an email last week, but between the Dog Show out at the fair, dropping Jack off to go backpacking with his class, and a quick trip to Tahoe for our anniversary, I never quite finished. I do want to let you know about last week’s featured coffee, though, because I’ve enjoyed drinking it each morning.
Our Fair Trade Organic El Salvador Las Colinas, comes from the far west of El Salvador, near the Guatemalan border. The farm, Las Colinas, is owned by a group of 89 families, who bought the property in 1980, during agrarian reform, when larger properties were expropriated to the workers. They work the land collectively, and are able to process the coffee right on the farm, where they have both a wet and dry mill. The coffee is still traditionally hand sorted.
Speaking of traditional, this week we have a coffee that comes from an even older tradition, when coffees were brought around the world by sailing ship. Beans that traveled by sea, around the Cape of Good Hope, were exposed to the monsoons, and had different characteristics: they were lighter in color, bigger in size, and very low in acidity. While coffee is still mostly transported by cargo ships, the beans are sealed in containers, and they no longer change while they travel. Monsooned Malabar hearkens back to this earlier era of wooden ships, by exposing the processed beans to the monsoons.
Now, however, this is done carefully and intentionally, on the Malabar coast of India. The beans are spread and turned while being exposed to the wind and sea, in open-sided warehouses, until they increase in size and moisture content. This is a much sought after coffee for its richness and depth–and it is often used to make a creamy shot of espresso too. We are excited to have this in stock again, for you to enjoy.
We will be open out at the Roamin’ Angels Car Show at the fairgrounds this weekend, so come see us there. You can find us in the trolley. No matter what you do this weekend, drink good coffee!
-Holly Fike
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