🍂 Fall in love with the new El Paraiso! 🍯

We are bringing our impact to the next level this Fall, with a sweet nano-lot from El Paraiso, Honduras! This Honey-process coffee will make you fall in love with its delicate, rich aromatics that invite you to dive into a sweet cup that features notes of ripe figs and brown sugar molasses, elegantly balanced with a subtle tartaric acidity, reminiscent of green apples. It truly is the perfect coffee to welcome the Fall/Winter season! We have particularly enjoyed it as a hot brew on pour-overs and French Press, and as an amazingly sweet and smooth Cold Brew on the rocks (yes, it’s still quite warm down here in Florida!)

The story on how we got to source this coffee for our Ethos family began with a call for help 3 years ago… when Ruben and Maria (your coffee farmers!) reached out through our social media channels, as they had heard about us, and our mission to champion life-changing prices for small farmers… we mentioned that we have loved Honey processed coffees from Honduras in the past, and buy only high-scoring coffees (86+) for our Ethos family - so we set this as the goal. With admirable perseverance, unmatched hard work, and some help and advice along the way, just 3 years later, this tiny 5-person, family-run farm got to export their high-scoring coffee directly to the USA for the very first time this year… all of which was grown using Organic practices, and meticulously fermented and dried as a Honey, exclusively for our Ethos family (who paid them 3 times the current “Fair Trade” price for it! 🙌). Today, we are overjoyed, proud, and beyond grateful for this amazing privilege to make one more small farmer family’s dream come true… we hope you’ll love it, and look forward to continue Brewing Greatness in the world with you!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. Deeply grateful to everyone who bought tickets for our Tasting Experience, which starts this Friday! We promise we’ll do another set of dates in the Spring -if and only if - we get rave reviews from everyone this time!

🎉 "PACHECO" - our newest High-Impact Honey! 🇭🇳

Our newest High-Impact coffee from Honduras is now available as a single-origin! And - thanks to your valuable advice on the name, it is called “Pacheco” - as it comes from the town of Pacheco in La Paz, Honduras. It is our newest high-impact partnership through our collaboration with Chad and Christie of Mtn2Sea Ministries, and the more we have gotten to know them, the more inspired and in awe we are of their calling to make a difference… Chad is currently in Honduras right now, doing a lot of the groundwork to amplify the impact that coffee can have in this community, and we truly can’t wait to see the transformation (we have plans to join him next year). This coffee is incredibly sweet, balanced, and full-bodied that offers a kaleidoscope of flavor gems to savor in every cup. A truly special collaboration with people who deeply share our desire to be the difference, and one which we hope to be able to support for many years, and change many lives in Honduras!

This Summer, you can also look forward to the launch of the 2022 Ethereal Summer Blend (late May), the new seasonal “Sunrise” herbal tea (a refreshing blend of lemongrass, rose hips and other botanicals), and more videos on coffee methods on our Facebook and IG @ethosroasters. Plus, we’ll be back next month with our 2022 “RE:” technical summer series with an Iced Coffee deep-dive, a fun historical piece and… anything else we haven’t covered but you’d like to know more about? (all our past technical series begin with “RE:” so you can easily search for them in our blog archives).

If you’re getting back to traveling more this year, we hope you’ll bring some Ethos with you in your adventures… if you do, please tag us on your stories (@ethosroasters), so we can share with our Ethos family! We can’t wait to see all the places you’ll go, and the coffees you’ll choose to go with you!

Always looking forward to roasting for you, and always deeply grateful to begin each day Brewing Greatness in the world with you!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

RE: Coffee Processing: Washed + Honey + Natural Demystified!

You have probably seen the terms ‘washed’, ‘honey’, and ‘natural’ in our coffee descriptions, yet we thought a more in-depth explanation would make it a little more meaningful - and take your coffee connoisseur game to a whole new level!

First, some context on ‘Coffee Processing’ - this is the crucial step that transforms coffee cherries into “green coffee” that’s ready to be exported/imported/roasted! ALL coffees - yes, ALL coffees - must be processed before we can roast them! Otherwise, we would be trying to roast a ‘coffee fruit’, not a ‘coffee bean’ (technically, a coffee seed). Specifically, we need to remove three main layers (from the outside in) to get to our precious seeds: (1) pulp or exocarp, (2) mucilage or mesocarp (a sticky layer high in sugars), and (3) parchment (a papery layer protecting the seed).

There are three main processes worldwide : (1) Washed or Wet Process, (2) Honey (and variations), and (3) Natural or Dry Process. And it is when the layers are removed that makes all the difference!

Washed coffees get the first two layers, pulp and mucilage, removed as soon as possible after harvest. This is achieved by mechanically de-pulping and throughly ‘washing’ the coffee beans, and leaving only the parchment layer during the drying process (which can be under the sun, using mechanical dryers, or a combination of those two). Once beans are dried to ~12% moisture, they’re milled to remove the parchment layer and packed in 60-70 kg bags for export. This is the most popular method for Specialty coffees, as it yields incredibly clean, consistent, well-balanced cups. The highest scoring coffees worldwide are typically washed.

Honey coffees are characterized by the partial removal of the first two layers (pulp and mucilage), always leaving some pulp and mucilage around the seed to ‘ferment’ during the drying process. Depending on the amount of pulp/mucilage left, you may have a ‘Yellow Honey’ (no pulp, little mucilage, short fermentation, closer to a Washed), a ‘Red Honey’ (some pulp, most mucilage, medium fermentation), or a ‘Black Honey’ (most pulp and mucilage, long fermentation). ‘Honeys’ are very labor intensive, as they require constant monitoring and care during the weeks-long fermentation/drying under the sun. They’re also risky, as the whole harvest could be lost in an uncontrolled fermentation (i.e. yielding rotten, alcoholic, or medicinal notes). Yet, they can also yield amazing, sweet, complex, unique fruit flavors!

Natural coffees are dried with all layers! This means they’re dried as a fruit, under the sun or a combination of sun drying with mechanical dryers. Dried fruits are then ‘milled’ to remove all three layers (pulp, mucilage, and parchment) and coffee is packed for export. This is the most common method for Brazilian coffees, yet, it’s worldwide popularity has risen in recent years. It leads to sweeter, fruitier, and more full-bodied cups (vs. Washed), yet, as in the Honey process, there’s always the risk of an uncontrolled fermentation due to the high sugar content during drying.

We have excellent examples of all 3 processes currently online: try Poaquil or Kenya AA vs. Los Pinos (yellow honey) vs. Red Honey vs. Yirgacheffe, for example! We’re also working on some exciting new additions on this front with our ‘Poaquil’ partners! (we’ve been secretly experimenting for the past 2 years to bring something really unique to you… hopefully in just a few months!)

I hope this was insightful… and left you a little inspired to try something new!

Always incredibly grateful to get to roast for you, and Brew Greatness in the world with you,

Lisbeth

PS. We’re so excited about our Guatemala trip next year!!! We have a few spots before we hit our maximum number of people for the trip (which we would love to do, as we probably won’t do another one for a while!). The penalty-free deadline has been extended to 7/24… if you feel called, join us!