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.

Explosive Coffee

Grown high above the potentially explosive Lake Kivu, is grown some truly fantastic gourmet coffee that delights at all roast levels. The beans are hand-picked and fully-washed (i.e. all pulp is fully removed before dying) ensures that the original taste of the beans are come out as cleanly as possible. At lighter roasts you get some very sweet dates and black tea, while darker roasts will savour signature peppery spice and cocoa.

Want a bit of terrifying trivia to go with your coffeee? The rich, smooth taste of this coffee partially comes from highly nutritious volcanic soils. And where you find volcanic soils, you find volcanoes. This wonderful soil happens to come from Mt Nyiragono, an active volcano on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

Mt Nyiragono has steadily pumped 60 cubic kilometers of methane and 300 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide in caverns under the lake. Then for good measure, laced these gasses with toxic hydrogen sulfide. During the last eruption, a small pocket of gas escaped the chamber and caused the lake to “boil” as it escaped. Should one day the gas chamber explode, say during another eruption or earthquake, 2.6  gigatonnes of carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere (about 5% of total global emissions, which is bad) and the toxic gas could kill millions of people in the surrounding region (very, very bad).

Every once in a while I come across a coffee that just blows my mind, one that makes me stop what I’m doing and wonder, how the hell did they do this? La Bastilla did this to me before I had even tasted it. At only 18 years old, La Bastilla has accomplished more good than I’ve done in my entire life and their work is inspiring. The company has rejuvenated two abandoned coffee plantations located out in the jungles and purposefully transformed them into bio-dynamic paradises; preserving the forests and native fauna while growing excellent coffee beans. Their efforts in sustainability have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance.

La Bastilla’s quest for coffee excellence wouldn’t be complete without a strong, supportive community however. When they realized their remote location offered no schools for their staff La Bastilla took it upon themselves to create one. They started small, offering pre-school and primary classes to their workers’ children but soon they discovered that the surrounding community were clamouring for a school as well so they opened it up for everyone, growing the school to support 200 students!

Quietly nestled in a valley between three volcanoes on the southern coast of Guatemala lies Antigua. Long considered to be one of the top regions for coffee not just within Guatemala, but all of South America. Their secret for coffee excellent lies in the terroir.

Although being surrounded by three volcanoes sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, these mountains are really gentle giants. The trio protects the valley from inclement weather, keeping the fields at a steady temperature of 18 to 21°C. They trap in the rain clouds yet are positioned in a way that generous sunlight spills into the hills. The soil is the rich volcanic type (duh) almost making it impossible to grow anything but top-grade beans.

The result is a coffee that comes with a flavour profile that is unique for South American coffees. Most South American beans are nutty, but these ones are more complex, showing sweet berry and rare citrus flavours when roasted light. Going up the roasting scale lessens the acidity but lemon peel still shows in the nose, followed by aromas of pipe smoke. When you get to the dark levels, the sweet cigar smoke dominates with the nuttiness evaporating and turning to dark chocolate.

Honduras is a curiosity in the coffee world. The country showcases a wide diversity of flavours, techniques and varietals that are breath-taking in scope and make pinning down a regional style impossible. The shear number of styles makes Honduran coffee a darling among coffee professionals as there are always new farms, flavours and techniques to discover. It’s best to approach Honduran coffee with an open mind. If you don’t like one, don’t write off the country; just switch regions and you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

This coffee is produced by Finca Las Mercedes: a cooperative found high up in the Mercedes Ocotepeque hills. These are top-quality beans, ranked highest on the Honduran quality scale: “Strictly High Growth” meaning they were farmed at an altitude of 1,200 to 1,800 meters. Carefully hand-picked and then processed as lightly as possible by removing the mucilage via fermentation in clean water and fully washing the beans before drying. The result is a pure expression of the local terroir. In darker roasts you can expect exceptional smoothness, a full body, and chocolate notes with a hint of lemon peel in the finish. Light roast drinkers will enjoy a similarly smooth taste and lively fruit. Ocotepeque is a hard-working and practical style that is well suited for all brewing methods.