CABALLERO / HONDURAS (Anaerobic Washed Process)
Caballero / Honduras
Flavor Profile :
Papaya, Stone fruits, Chocolate.
Producer : Marysabel Caballero & Moises Herrera
Farm : Mogola
Region : Chinacla, La Paz, Marcala
Country : HONDURAS
Variety : Catuai
Process : Anaerobic Washed
Altitude : 1600masl
Harvest : 2022
This coffee is smooth and could be drunk every day.
On the palate, there is a gentle papaya-like sweetness, followed by a juicy stone fruit-like acidity.
There is a subtle chocolate aftertaste.
The Mogola estate where this coffee is grown was planted by Don Fabio, Marysabel's father and a pioneer in Honduran coffee production.
A few years ago, Marysabel and her husband Moises took over the plot and, like the other plots on the Caballero estate, they grow mainly the Katsuai variety.
Caballero is produced using the anaerobic washing process.
This process aims to control the fermentation process and deliberately alter the coffee's flavour profile.
The high quality, clean acidity and rounded, smooth impression are the characteristics of this process.
During the coffee process, all processing methods involve fermentation (to varying degrees).
Fermentation is the process by which micro-organisms break down sugars to produce compounds which, in the case of coffee, are found in the pulp and skin of the coffee cherry.
Anaerobic is a process in which fermentation is accelerated under oxygen-deficient conditions, a fermentation that takes place through micro-organisms that are active in anoxic conditions.
Moises places the harvested cherries in sealed plastic tanks where the cherries are fermented under oxygen-deprived conditions.
The coffee undergoes an anarobic fermentation process and then passes through a pulper to remove the skins, as in the normal washed process.
The parchment that has passed through the pulper and had the skins removed is left to soak in clean water for 12 hours to remove the sticky substance called mucilage.
Again, the stickiness is broken down and removed by the power of microbial fermentation. Fermentation in the general washed process takes place at this stage.
Once the mussilage has been removed, the parchment is dried on drying beds for 11-20 days, depending on the climate.
In the past, specific gravity sorting was carried out using washing channels found in African washing stations, but now a sorting machine has been installed in the dry mill to separate light beans from heavy beans.
For example, unripe, low-density beans are light and are sorted and removed from the ripe, high-density beans.
Mr and Mrs Caballero have a good understanding of what roasters and importers are looking for in their coffee.
They are also very active in interacting and communicating with buyers, and last year they visited our café and the roastery.
At that time we had just launched their naturally refined coffee, so we asked them how they had adopted a new processing method that they had not done before.
Moises replied that they were responding to what their customers wanted.
We have been drinking their wonderfully clean washed coffees for a long time, so what if the two of them did natural or other refining methods...?
We understand the excitement of those who came up with the idea.
Moises always responds to such requests in a way that exceeds expectations.
All our coffees are very clean, whatever the method of processing.
Rarely do you get a strong sense of fermentation from natural or anaerobic process coffees, but this is not the case with the coffees produced by Mr and Mrs Caballero.
This proves that the fermentation and drying processes are managed at a high level.
Click on the link below to purchase.
⇒生産者マリザベル＆モイセスへのインタビュー記事はこちらから。
