Variety: Typica, Caturra, Cactuai
Process: Washed
Sourced by: Coffee Quest US
As the beans cascaded into our Ikawa’s catch cup from Las Afiladeras, we couldn’t help it. The beans were so uniformly itsy, quite literally reminding us of BOTZ’s newest family cat…Bitsy, who is also, unsurprisingly, itsy. Itsy Bitsy!
Jokes aside, there’s something so particular about the uniform sizing of small beans. We’re not logging it, but we have a mental database that argues 13ish screen size is the go-zone for flavor town. (One of our favorite coffees of all time was made up of “reject” beans from a milling process in Ethiopia. They were hand-selected and combined to create one of the best-tasting blends we’ve ever tasted…something to the minis.)
Las Afiladeras offers a field blend comprising typica, caturra, and catucai. While we’re unfamiliar with catucai, we find bright characteristics of typica and caturra flourishing in the cup. Around this time of year, sumo oranges are in peak season, and BOTZ’s Mom adores them, so we’re quite familiar with their intense, heavy citrus sweetness. In the cup, you’ll experience a faint peachy flavor and citrus combo we find in the best glistening typica lots. We also get a super sugary caturra-like lemon bar sensation that reminds us of lemon meringue pie from Bakers Square (RIP). Lastly (and we find this very appealing across Ecuadorian coffees in general), there is a lovely “candy bar” finish to this coffee that grounds all the citrusy flavors preceding it. When BOTZ was a wee youngling, BOTZ’s Mom would freeze Charleston Chews (their peak form…trust), and we’d eat them for a quick dessert. That marshmallow-like (almost fluffernutter-esque) finish encourages frequent sips to get back to the flavor again and…again. Something to the itsy!
***Please note - fulfillment will take place from [3/7-3/8]. Beans will ship on [3/11] (with our hope of shipping earlier if we can)!***