Guatemala - Los Volcanes Antigua | Washed - Archived

Origin

• 🇬🇹 Guatemala· Antigua

Tasting notes

Character

• Funky
  20

This lot from Los Volcanes is a blendBlendCoffees from multiple origins roasted or mixed together for a consistent, balanced profile year-round — the traditional backbone of espresso menus. of cherry from throughout the Antigua valley processed centrally at an historic wet millWashing stationA central mill where many smallholder farmers deliver cherry for processing. In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda the station name (e.g. Idido) often identifies the coffee. in the Antigua valley owned by CAMEC. For the past few years the management of CAMEC’s wet mill has been overseen by Los Volcanes Coffee, a tight-knit processing and exporting team who expertise in agronomy and processing is interwoven throughout Guatemala, thanks to their many years of experience as cuppers, roasters, exporters, relationship managers, and educators. The founding team at Los Volcanes is known for breaking down a single farm’s harvest into hundreds of data points (compost formulas, genetics, shade variance, picking rates, fermentation times and temperatures, drying styles, and on and on) and re-building custom-tailored harvesting systems for farm managers based on their experience and cuppingCuppingThe standardized tasting ritual — coarse grounds steeped in hot water, crust broken, slurped from a spoon — used to score and compare coffees. acumen. Naturally, over time, Los Volcanes began to co-manage farms with their supplier partners. Finally, a few years ago they were granted operation of a CAMEC’s wet mill, complete with adjacent coffee farm, and moved their headquarters there from Guatemala City. They now centrally process cherry from dozens of select farms and smallholderSmallholderA farmer growing coffee on a small family plot — often under two hectares. Most of the world's coffee is grown this way, typically pooled at cooperatives or washing stations. communities, bringing their fermentation precision to an unprecedented scale, and building incredibly delicious, affordable macro lots that present refined terroirs and consistent preparation. Cherry is delivered daily from across the Antigua valley. Upon delivery it is inspected for uniformity, depulped, and fermented for up to 72 hours in a covered, temperature-controlled warehouse of ceramic tanks. Los Volcanes employs dedicated processing managers to specifically oversee the bulk fermentations. These local experts are calibrated by a combination of parchment density, temperature and smell to manage precise degrees of development and maintain consistency across batches of various volumes, temperatures, and humidity levels. After fermentation is complete, parchment is passed through a pressurized w