Fresh Roast: Tres Santos (Intelligentsia)
Columbian coffee, along with it’s mascot Juan Valdez, is the most recognized name in coffee from Latin America. This brand has come to represent high quality coffee to most Americans, but, unlike most brands, saying something is Columbian doesn’t attest to it’s growers, manufacturers or distributors, and so isn’t a particularly great judge of overall quality and leads to small, independent farmers being squeezed out of the market. In fact, most specialty coffee distributors in the states steer clear of Columbian coffee and focus on the Latin American countries, like Guatemala that focus solely on premium origin coffees.
Intelligentsia, in its usual style, has gone in to work with small producers and farms and tasted cup after cup of small lot coffees, finding some amazing flavors. Tres Santos, from a cooperative group of small farmers in the Cauca Valley, is the result of that work. It’s a beautiful cup, packed with flavors… cherry and chocolate meets a floral aroma with a hint of vanilla.
I roasted into the second crack, for a gorgeously dark bean starting to give off some oils. A very fine grind is needed on these beans, but they produce a beautiful crema, and a sweet and rich shot.
Intelligentsia is two for two in my most loved home-roasted beans…
