Barista Magazine

DEC 2015 -JAN 2016

Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005

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for lunch at a café Jairo owns with his girlfriend, called Icono. The baristas were drawn immediately to the impressive brew bar inside, and excitedly approached the espresso machine. After all, they'd been going through withdrawal from not making espresso for the last five days. As we enjoyed the café's signature crepes, Icono's baristas brought us cappuccinos, pouring latte art tableside, and the barista champs were captivated. Back on the bus, it was another four hours to Cali, where we would spend two nights. Fresh and rested the next morning, we met visionary farmer Camilo Merizalde. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he and Julian Holguin of Finca Las Nubes produced the rare Sudan Rume variety that Sasa used to win the WBC in Seattle last April. Again, we switched to the small bus in anticipation of narrow, winding roads that would be even more treacherous given the morn- ing's cloudy skies. We stopped at Finca Inmaculada, which stateside is known for the special-project coffees Intelligentsia has notably purchased and sold in the past. Café Inmaculada rests in Valle de Cauca at 1,780 meters, and besides the Sudan Rume, is known for other extraordinary and rare varieties, including the teeny-tiny Laurina, and Maragesha, which, as you guessed, is a cross between Maragogype and Gesha. To put it simply, Café Inmaculada is one of the most beautiful farms you'll ever see. Its location is as close to perfect as it gets, with ample sunshine, nutrient-rich soil, and fantastic rainfall. We hiked through the farm for a few hours, with Camilo stopping every so often to point out things that were, essentially, works of coffee-farm art, such as a gravity-fed drip irrigation system set up to deliver precise amounts of nutrients to each individual tree. There was an experimental green- house allowing Camilo to control the environmental conditions such as wind, shade, rain, and sun, with exacting accuracy. Camilo ferments all the coffees in stainless-steel tanks, complete with agitation and tem- perature control, after which the coffee is dried on shaded beds stacked high in a covered courtyard with fans moderating air flow at all times. When we cupped the coffees Camilo presented to us, we were speechless—even Sasa, who has visited Camilo several times before and worked with him extensively over the years. Here's an example of why: After cupping the coffees blind, the group discussed their scores. Sasa scored cup A 92, and cup B, which immediately followed A, a 90. When Camilo revealed that cup A was Castillo and cup B was a Gesha, Sasa's jaw dropped. As soon as he regained composure, he told Camilo, "I want to buy some." This trip was, as all Café Imports trips seem to be, awesome in terms of education and exploration, and unforgettable as a social experi- ence. I haven't told you nearly everything, how enraptured the group was with panela, an unrefined whole-cane sugar common in Central America, that Noah organized an impromptu panela blind tasting one night. I haven't told you about the nights that the American baristas spent talking with such urgency and passion, they didn't notice the sun about to break on the horizon. There was the time we all gath- ered in one hotel room to hear Sasa discuss his philosophy on barista competitions, and share trade secrets with the group. There's not enough paper to explain it all here, so I encourage you to ask one of the members of this expedition the next time you see them. Colombia is considered one of the most magical coffee-producing countries for a reason, and we left understanding that. Thanks to this trip from Café Imports, six champion-level baristas left irrefutably inspired. The group gathered on the open-air second story of El Mirador's processing facility to learn about Banexport's experiments. From le : Ryan Soeder, Gianni Cassatini, Lem Butler, Sam Schroeder, Noah Namowicz, Radames Roldan, and Luis Arocha. 36 barista magazine

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