Caramelized sugars are the focus, with subtle nuance ala vanilla bean hints, almond syrup, walnut, lemon zest, semi-sweet chocolate, and a sweetly-disappearing aftertaste.
Finca Buenos Aires Estates, a fairly large farm of about 215 hectares in the Dipilto growing region of Nueva Segovia, is . Sweet Maria’s team visits Buenos Aires mill to cup through small batches, such a detailed processing make them a regular competitor and placement in the Cup of Excellence competitions. From the farm visit, the sourcing team have been impressed with the clean sweetness of their cultivar-specific process batches.
This one is all Caturra, which is a cultivated mutation of Bourbon that occurred in Brazil in the mid ’30s, but was planted in South and Central America mostly in the 1950s. Buenos Aires is a rather low farm compared to other origins we buy, the farm spanning a range of 1200 – 1500 meters above sea level. I find their coffee to be very balanced, clean, mild to moderately bright and sweet, perhaps showing how relative farm altitude can be in relation to cup quality.
The dry fragrance shows a mix of brown sugar, roasted almond ,and vanilla. Pouring how water teases out bittersweet chocolate notes amidst dark caramel sweet smell in the steam. The brewed coffee shows subtle nuance atop crowd-pleasing bittersweetness, and the complex roast flavors are dominant when roasting to darker levels. The sweetness covers flavors of raw cane-sugar to caramelized brown sugars, accented by notes of vanilla bean, and almond flavored syrup. There’s a sweetly-disappearing aftertaste, with mild bittering aspects of walnut, along with semi-sweet chocolate in the finish.
- Origin: Nicaragua
- Region: Dipilto, Nueva Segovia
- Farm: Finca Buenos Aires Estates
- Altitude: 1200-1500m
- Cultivar: Caturra
- Processing: Wet Process (Washed)
- Drying: Patio Sun-Dried
- Sourcing: Sweet Maria’s