We've got another delicious exclusive preview for our subscribers! This ones comes from a farm called La Bastilla in Jinotega, Nicaragua. The same producers that brought us the stunning yeast fermentation washed microlot.
Farm Overview:
La Bastilla is a large Rainforest Alliance certified farm covering 311 hectares with a total of 160 hectares planted for coffee production. The remaining area of the estate is protected forest with a small area set aside for agriculture as part of their own agriculture school. The El Buey section of the farm covers just over 31 hectares and is planted with red and yellow catuai. The section is circled in red in the image below:
Harvesting and Processing:
Coffee was hand harvested with careful selection of ripe cherry then pulped to remove the outer layer of fruit leaving most of the mucliage on the beans. As this starts to dry it becomes very sticky, similar to the texture of honey! The picture below shows honey processed coffee drying on a raised bed.
The honey process uses very little water and is a popular eco processing method. The results tend to sit somewhere between a natural and washed coffee and there is a very diverse range of flavours found within the honey process category. A coffee with lots of mucilage left on dried slowly can often taste very fruity with intense fermentation like some naturals. A coffee with just a small amount of mucliage left on dried quickly can taste more like a clean washed coffee.
This Nicaragua honey process coffee is perfectly balanced with extra body and sweetness contributed by the process but while still retaining the bright juicy character of the varietal. In this case you can expect notes of red grape, brown sugar sweetness and a hint of orange acidity.
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