Over the last few years, we have had such a range of great coffees from Cafesmo. Their unrelenting drive to grow and produce better coffee is incredible.
This is a simple “co-op” lot that has been decaffeinated. If it wasn’t for my enthusiasm for caffeine in the morning, I would be happy to take this home!
Decaffeination Process: Sugarcane or Ethyl Acetate (as we say these days)
Producers: Cafesmo, around 280 smallholder producers, all with Fairtrade, organic, and rainforest certifications.
Region: Las Mercedes, in the region of Ocotepeque, south of Honduras, close to the borders of Guatemala and El Salvador.
Varietals: Lempira, Parainema, and IH-Café-90
Drying: Patio
Process: Fully washed
Altitude: 1200-1600 meters
Harvest period: November to February.
This coffee has taken a few years to become a reality. The initial hope was to “just produce a decaffeinated coffee” in Honduras. The factors that dominated things were the physical cost and time of the setup. The team at Cafesmo are young, energetic, and brilliant; however, some things take time and money!
This lot has taken as long to to travel from Germany, as it has from Honduras. The low river levels meant that Barges have only been able to carry 1/4 of the usual freight across the country. This is before we open the subject of the efficiency and costs of UK warehousing.
Cafesmo states “united we stand strong, and together we stand for : ‘diversity and quality’”.
The cooperative has around 280 members with smallholdings between 2 and 6 hectares. All members (producers) hold Fair Trade, Organic, and Rainforest Alliance certifications.
Aromatics: Malty, caramel. Body: Medium-creamy. Acidity: Medium
In a cupping bowl, this starts off as a soft, sweet, low-acidity, light, nutty brew. The acidity sits somewhere between apple and lychee, soft and light, with a punctuated, lingering finish, a little like Los Naranjos. The easiest descriptor I can think of is sweet chestnut. On cooling, the soft acidity becomes the prominent flavour, with that great finish.
You will probably forget you are drinking decaf. There is no sign of processing here! This is not a “wow” or “crazy” coffee, just a cosy, easy-drinking filter coffee.
60 g per litre is ample. Although a cupping bowl is good, I am going to brew this in lots of other ways in the coming weeks to see if it can be bettered.
