Colombia - El Jaragual Espresso [Second Harvest 25/26]

Mitaca (fly crop) restock - 
This coffee started with a decision to create an espresso from the coffees from El Jaragual - the first year we selected 2 single variety lots and blended them pre-roast.

We’ve since worked with Jonny to both build the blend directly at the dry mill in Colombia and commit to higher volumes than any other single origin. For this 25/26 crop, we decided to make a slight tweak to increase the amount of Castillo - just bumping the berry fruit character up.

This coffee is a brilliant example of how sustained partnerships create better results for everyone. Working directly with Jonny allows us to refine the blend based on what we're learning in the cup; whilst our volume commitments help streamline his logistics and planning. It's exactly the kind of long-term collaboration we had in mind when we started Scenery, and we're stoked to bring it back for the fourth harvest with this latest restock.

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Espresso, Immersion (Aeropress/French Press), Moka pot

Medium-Light Roaster Influence:
We've built the blend from coffees that shine with a heavier hand with the roaster influence. To make this coffee more suitable for espresso extraction, we're both roasting roasting with an overall longer roast time, and with a touch more development (time in the roaster at the end of hte roast) - to shave off some acidity and emphasise sweetness and body, whilst also retaining the complexity inherent from the processing.

Best rested for: 2-3 weeks

For Filter: We recommend a ratio of 65g/L and 94°C water

For Espresso: 18g in, 42g out, 30-35s for a classic style of espresso. Can also pull 18g / 50g / 20-25s turbos

We’re tasting: 
Sweet melon, papaya and milk chocolate aromatics. In the cup there's a big cranberry red-fruit note - like cranberry juice; as well as dried sweetened cranberries & goji berry. As it cools, the acidity evolves towards lactic - the top notes reminding us of raspberry ripple ice-cream, the bottom notes more of the vanilla & caramelised sugars of Crème Brulee, with a general tropical fruit background.

Traceability:

Country of Origin:	Colombia
Region:	Amalfi, Antioquia
Farm:	Finca El Jaragual
Producer:	Jorge Mira and Jonny Martinez
Variety:	60% Variedad Colombia, 40% Castillo
Elevation:	1500 MASL
Process:	Washed / Thermal Shock / Yeast Inoculated: Ripe cherries picked and floated, held in cherry for a 24-hour anoxic ferment in sealed barrels. Cherries are then pulped and washed with 45°C+ water to remove 80% of the mucilage, with the reduced mucilage parchment returned to barrels for a further 24-hour anoxic ferment. Cherries are then inoculated with wine yeast for a further 48-68 hour aerobic ferment, followed by a 5°C fermentation crash cold wash. Patio dried in a Solar Drier.
Import Partner:	MiCafe
Harvest:	Crop 25/26 Arrived UK: 11/25 Fourth harvest purchasing from Jonny & Jorge at El Jaragual.

 

The Story

When we first cupped lots from Jonny & Jorge's first harvest, we knew their Rosado was an instant purchase for the filter range - but we also wanted to find a way to fit a second purchase in the offering. We contracted the Colombia lot for the intense sweetness, and additionally the Castillo upon receiving a fresh set of extra sample material (brought over with a re-supply when we air-freighted our first lot of the Rosado!). While filter lots can present a reasonable amount of volume, there are few things better for making larger volume commitments than espresso.

Having built our own interpretation of their work via blending 2 variety separations for the first season, we've worked with Jonny to build that blend upstream in Colombia, purchase and commited to future seasons working together. This coffee is our flagship collaboration together, and one that will continue to grow and evolve - we're stoked to showcase the work that Jonny & Jorge do.

El Jaragual:

One of our sourcing goals with Scenery is to work with vertically integrated, producer owned supply chains where possible - and to not just follow trends with only buying the hottest name producers. Suffice to say we are firmly impressed with this first harvest from El Jaragual and expect the quality to only go up from here.

Finca El Jaragual sits at 1500 MASL in the Amalfi municipality of Antioquia, Colombia. This region is nestled in the northern section of the central spine of the Colombian Andes mountain range and is ideal for growing high quality coffee. The farm is named after Jaragua grass - an African wild-grass that has become naturalised to Colombia, frequently grown for feedstock and fodder, drought resistant and hardy.

Amalfi is a slightly less common area for coffee production, sitting further north than the “Triángulo del Café” regions of Caldas, Quindío, Risaralda and Tolima. While the conditions are still excellent to grow coffee, the issue becomes that of picking - whilst more classical regions with a higher density of farms will have a near constant supply of itinerant or seasonal labour, so far one of the biggest challenges at El Jaragual has been securing pickers. This challenge is exacerbated by climate change - the harvest is not as concentrated into the main and fly (mitaca) crop - instead trees flower and ripen nearly non-stop, requiring year round picking. It is essential that a farm picks and clears ripe cherries - an excess of over-ripe fruit on the trees or on the floor is a welcome invitation to broca, the coffee boring beetle - which damages the fruit and the young, immature seed inside. Keeping the trees clear of overripe fruit is one of the most effective non-agrochemical mechanisms to keep broca numbers down.

Originally a 150-hectare plot, the farm was briefly split as Jonny’s cousins acquired 90 HA about a decade ago.  The remaining 60 HA were purchased by Jonny and his brother about 5 years back, in 2019 - with the work between now and then converting part of the farm back to coffee production and waiting eagerly for the first harvest. 

The majority of El Jaragual is planted with forestry, thanks to Jonny’s cousin's experience as a forestry engineer. A mixture of pine forest plantations being grown for sustainable timber, alongside protected plots of native forest.

Jonny and Jorge are growing a number of varieties at El Jaragual, under plantain shade trees. 

The processing at El Jaragual has been done with a deft touch - extended ferments, with yeast inoculation, and some thermal control (hot water washes, cold water crashes) to modulate the fermentation rate and green porosity. 

Overall, an increased amount of technical intervention in the processing, but not on the level of bioreactors and lab plants - a really nice bridge between the classic style of processing and the new, something we can really get full throttle behind in supporting.