With each iteration of Article, we aim to compose a coffee that has great balance, packed with classic coffee characteristics whilst retaining a sweet, clean finish.
For filter brewing we recommended using 70g of coffee per litre of water. For espresso brewing we recommend a dose of 18g pulled to 36g in 30 seconds. This coffee balances very well with milk.
Article 1 – Andréia Ribeiro, Brazil
Andréia Ribeiro owns Fazenda Aragão, her family farm which has been passed down from her parents. She is acutely aware of the need to differentiate the coffee offering by adding value through following best crop husbandry practices and ensuring post-harvest protocols are done methodically. Being a quality focussed producer is important to ensure the coffee tastes great, but Andréia is also fixated on taking care of the environmental conditions on the farm as well as employee welfare and wellbeing. Having grown up on the farm she has a rich understanding of the administrative aspects of production, with a thirst to diversify and improve the preparation and processing methodologies on the Fazenda to produce higher scoring specialty coffee.
The Farm
The Fazenda is found near the city of Patos de Minas in Minas Gerais, and was founded in 2005. Situated at 950 metres above sea level they are tending to various cultivars on the estate, and the lot we have chosen from Andréia is a Catuaí selection that has undergone the dry process, slowly curing the cherries in the sun on cement patios.
Having cupped many Brazil offerings from our main supplier, Ocafi, as well as various others to take us through the latter part of the year, we found an absolute gem in this Catuaí from Andréia, sourced via Covoya. They are running a program to champion female producers in Brazil, and through the purchase of this female produced coffee a portion of the profit is reinvested in programs that promote gender equality and empower women in the field.
Article 2 – Río Blanco, Summer Fruit Punch, Peru
The four lots currently comprising the Peruvian coffee in our house blend are from Altagracias Pusma Cruz, Desilio Campos Odeja, Nelida Garcia Togas and Ursulo Maira Garcia. Their coffee farms are named, respectively, El Limon, La Piña, La Mandarina and Los Laureles. El Limon is situated around 1,700 metres in Huancabamba, Piura region. Altagracias has been farming here since she was 22 years old and is working with her family on their 2 hectare farm to produce Caturra, Typica, Bourbon, Pache and Catimor amongst Albizia and Pacay shade trees. Her neighbour in Huancabamba is Nelida, whose 1.25 hectare farm Los Laureles is at 1,510 metres, planted with Caturra and Typica amidst native shade trees. Nelida has been working in coffee her entire life and places great emphasis on working in harmony with nature, preserving biodiversity on the farm. La Piña is in La Zunga, at 1,458 metres in San Ignacio. Desilio who runs the farm has been in coffee production his entire life, and the 1 hectare farm produces bananas and yucca as well as Caturra and Typica cultivars of coffee. Finally, La Mandarina is also close by in Carmen de la Frontera. Ursulo also plants food crops for subsistence and has Bourbon and Caturra trees growing under shade which are intercropped with citrus. The 2 hectare farm is situated at 1,726 metres.
All of the Río Blanco producers are working to high standards and undertaking harvest and processing methodologies in the manner typical to the region. Coffee is organically grown under shade, the coffee cherries are hand harvested via communal work in tandem with their neighbours, The cherries are manually depulped and then wet fermented between 18 and 24 hours before washing and slowly drying for around 15 days on raised beds. It is not the norm to feature such small single farmer lots in a house blend, but through Red Fox Coffee Merchants we were able to make these smaller purchases and subsequently use them alongside a solid Brazilian base coffee to produce a coffee that we think is really balanced and delicious whilst also reflecting growers whose coffee typically gets bundled into anonymised community lots.
