The Audio version of In My Mug, the weekly coffee subscription podcast from Hasbean
Episodes
Monday Nov 16, 2015
Monday Nov 16, 2015
Well, well, well...what do we have here? Might it be a world-exclusive coffee only available at Has Bean? I think we might!
This coffee is from a farm we're supporting for the ninth (!) year, and it's one that I am very proud to be working with and linked with; the owner is my very good friend, Stephen Hurst.
I’ll let Stephen Hurst tell you the story of how he came to own ‘Inglaterra':
“Maybe it had always been an idea in the back of my mind... so a couple of years ago when some friends in Brazil mentioned that a small coffee farm was for sale, I had a look.
The farm's name (Fazenda Toca Da Onca) meant ‘hiding place of a small wildcat’. The locals now call the farm ‘Inglaterra’. The previous owners had abandoned Toca Da Onca/Inglaterra; we had to start again, almost from scratch. Some surviving coffee trees were pruned right back and the coffee that you are now drinking is that re-growth from the original, old trees.
Information for the coffee people: the varietals are Icatu, Acaia and Catuai. In future I expect coffee cherry varietals to become as well known as wine grape varietals, and to a much wider audience. The farm is located near the lovely spa town of Pocos De Caldas in the coffee growing heartlands of Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. The farm’s elevation is 950–1300 meters, and it has rich soil. It's on the edge of an ancient caldera/ super volcano whose outline can be seen on satellite images. 50% of the farm is virgin Mata Atlantica forest, and it will stay that way as long as I own it. I am replanting some areas with the help of my local friends Gabriel and Cristiano, without whose assistance this project would never had started”.
Back to me!
We think the Bourbon varietal probably originated on the island of Bourbon, or perhaps in Ethiopia. It's a varietal with many sub-varietals. It's at high risk from pests and diseases and is decidedly average in terms of yield, but the cup profile tends to be anything but average. It hasvery close links to the SL28, Typica and Caturra varietals.In the right environment, because of its low yield, Bourbon tends to produce a very high quality cup (there is evidence that the lower the yield isthe higher the quality will be, becausethe plant can use its energy more efficiently). I don’t think it is a coincidence that my top three coffees of all time have been from the Bourbon varietal. For a little more information about the Bourbon varietal make sure to have a look at the varietal section of our articles here.
In the cup this is like a melted bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Whole Nut. It's super-balanced and absolutely rammed full of milk chocolate with a nutty hazelnut edge, there's also a silky mouthfeelthat really reminds me of melted milk chocolate.
- Country: Brazil
- Region: Minas Gerias
- City: Poços de Caldas
- Farm: Fazenda Inglaterra
- Farmer: Stephen Hurst
- Farm size: 10 hectares
- Coffee growing area: 5 hectares
- Altitude: 1,200 m.a.s.l.
- Varietal: Bourbon
- Processing system: Pulped Natural