Looking to kick up your coffee with a bit of spices?

Are you bored of overwhelming “chocolate” or “nutty” coffees? Do you also avoid anything with tasting notes citing citrus? Then La Soledad might be the bean for you. This coffee has no acidity at all but makes up for it by bringing in some solid spices and a long finish. When roasted light to medium, these beans are sassy. They give off strong notes of cinnamon, cardamom and a few other sweet spices that we honestly couldn’t pin down. The notes evolved in our cups, defying consensus. These are distinctly spicy and will break you out of the coffee doldrums. 

La Soledad’s beans work well in most coffee brewing setups: espresso, pour-over, Moka pot, whatever. They make a killer cold-brew too where the spices are even stronger.  

Ethical to the core

La Soledad may produce spicy beans but their approach to farming couldn’t be more mild. They ensure a healthy, ethical work environment on their plantation. They preserve local water streams, native vegetation and conserve their forests. La Soledad looks after the humans too; providing health care, clean and safe living quarters for workers and families, fair wages and trainings.

Unlike other the other Sumatran coffee we have (#3 Gayo Mountains and #17 Mandlheng), Sulawesi is much cleaner, sweeter, and somehow more pronounced. It has a thick body with pleasantly smooth cinnamon/cardamom spices in the finish. The darker we roast it the more chocolate character and the smoother the coffee becomes. However what you gain in chocolaty goodness loses some of the signature spice flavours that make this coffee so special. 

Works very well with French Press and other infusion methods. Makes for a mean espresso.

If you like your roasts dark, this bean is for you. Mandelhing (a tribe, not a place) live in a highly humid environment, making it almost impossible to dry coffee cherries thoroughly. As a result, when Mandelhing beans are hulled they still have a massive 22-40% moisture content as opposed to the standard 11~13%.  Because of the high-levels of moisture, Mandelhing coffees are very challenging to roast and the shelf-life is short. But this unique process called Giling Basah creates a coffee with flavor quite unlike anything else. 

Mandelhing beans coat your senses in a thick layer of spicy black pepper, deep pine forest aromas, sweet chocolate and a lingering liquorice aftertaste. Mandelhing’s heavy character doesn’t diminish with milk, cream, or oat so feel free to pull a shot and make a rather charismatic cappuccino.

Roasted light yields an interesting combination of blueberries, sugarcane and fresh herbal. Our roaster loves it but it’s an…. acquired taste? For the brave.