Mexican love potion
If you don’t love coffee from Mexico yet, we have a remedy for that!
This is coffee from Finca Chelin, that is from ENRIQUE LOPEZ
(we should now add “YES, THIS LOPEZ”)
Speaking of comparisons, if coffee were music, Enrique Lopez would be Rick Rubin. The most innovative farmer of Mexican coffee. Coffee has always been in his family, but he really started taking it seriously about 10 years ago, after his father passed away and after whom he took over the farm.
We are talking about art, but his farm is more of a laboratory, where coffee is considered on a molecular scale, adapting the fermentation process perfectly to its structure.
What’s it like on the farm?
He starts with really ripe cherries (dark red-purple, preferably around 26 ° Brix). Collected and washed, they wait in concrete tanks until the evening of the next day – this is about 30 hours of fermentation. Then the pit is extracted – the pulp is removed and they are transported back to concrete tanks for further fermentation (as if they were to become washed coffee). In the early morning of the next day, they are dried. First for 2 days in direct sun to enhance the acidity and complex fruit profile, then in the shade. In this way, coffee goes through different types of fermentation. First in the cherries, then in the tank alone, which increases the apple-like acidity and brings out the flavors of ripe fruit, and another on the shaded beds.
Interestingly enough, Enrique doesn’t use the nomenclature Black/Red/White Honey to distinguish how much pulp is left on the bean, like most producers – he chose to always leave the same amount, and “color” refers to the duration of this stage of fermentation (Black = 2-3 days, the longest).
No kidding – quite seriously, it’s probably one of the best Mexican coffees, so if you don’t have an opinion about Mexican coffees yet, this one will raise the bar somehow rather higher.
Enjoy!
