Cafe Grumpy » Colombia

Holiday Gift Ideas (Part One) – Colombian Coffee Sampler

cafegrumpy — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:16:38 +0000

It is that time again! Over the next two weeks, we’ll be posting some holiday gift ideas for your coffee-loving friends.

We are proud to present these three unique coffee selections from Colombia. We have been working with the El Meridiano Co-op, Desarrollo Co-op & Jose Ider Zapata for a couple of years now. We feel that these selections showcase the hard work and dedication of these producers with their distinct and complex profiles.

-El Meridiano, Produced by El Meridiano Co-op, Herrera, Tolima
Mellow sweetness with notes of honey and red apple. Tangerine brightness. Waffle cone in the finish.
-Desarrollo, Produced by Desarrollo Co-op, Gigante, Huila
Red grapefruit, candied apricot, peaches & cream, brown sugar, tangerine.
-La Coqueta, Produced by Jose Ider Zapata, Herrera, Tolima
Delicate herbal rose aroma, maple sweetness, citrus zest.

The Colombian Coffee Sampler Set ($40) contains three ½ lb bags of coffee beans (sealed in bags with one-way degassing valves). The set comes in a kraft gift box with our logo stamped on it. For our out of town friends, you can order the sets online here.

Painting Exhibition by Steven Weinberg (Park Slope)

cafegrumpy — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:24:19 +0000

Artist Steven Weinberg just returned from Colombia where he had the great opportunity to stay with some of the farmers in Gigante who produce the coffees we buy and you drink. During his stay, he painted landscapes of the places he visited and portraits of the people he met.

We are really excited to be able to share this work with you. Come in for a coffee and check out paintings of where the coffee you are drinking came from!

Steven and his traveling/writing partner Casey currently reside in Park Slope. They are the co-founders of Local Language Literacy and have worked on numerous publications together. For more information, please visit their website here.

Join us for an artist’s reception on Thursday, August 11th at 6:30pm. The show runs throughout August.

New York Artist Brings Colombia’s Coffee Culture Home

cafegrumpy — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:52:01 +0000

“A New York artist is on his way from the southwest-Colombian Huila department to his home town to display a collection of paintings he made of the coffee production process in one of Colombia’s renowned coffee regions.

Steven Weinberg, a painter and fanatic coffee-drinker, went to Huila to produce watercolor paintings that will be displayed in a Brooklyn coffee shop in August.

U.S. Coffee roaster (Cafe) Grumpy sent the New-Yorker to the tiny village of Gigante, Huila to portray how the coffee was grown, picked and dried, before being sent north for roasting and consumption.”

Read the full article here and visit Steven’s show this August at our Park Slope location.

El Paraiso (Espresso)

cafegrumpy — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:16:36 +0000

Red raspberry, lemon lime, honey sparkling sweetness.

Micro-lot. Caturra varietal. Grown at 1800 masl. Washed then dried on raised beds. Vacuum-sealed at origin.

Check out images from Colleen’s trip to the Rojas family farm here.

Colleen’s Colombia Trip Report – Bogota, Gigante, Pilalito, Manizales, Armenia

cafegrumpy — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:23:12 +0000

Five Days in Colombia doesn’t sound like a long time and then when you look at a topographic map it sounds like even less time. Thankfully I was traveling with some highly organized people. Though highly organized people also wake up much earlier then my natural alarm clock.

In the beginning of December I flew down to Bogotá to visit with our exporter, Virmax. We have been working with Virmax since the first days our roasting adventure! I met Alejandro and Giancarlo almost two years ago at an event Gimme hosted. I realized then that they were running their business in a very responsible, organized way with a lot of the same goals in common. I was impressed with their long term thinking as well as their knowledge of the Colombian coffee market. They seemed to be truly dedicated to making connections between farmers and small roasters. They have been great teachers for me ever since our first meeting.

It was a pretty natural decision for me to want to visit with them and they were kind enough to give us so much of their time. On the first day of my visit we cupped coffees in their Bogotá lab and talked about the structure and organization of Virmax’s operations. They were impressively open and excited to share with us exactly how things are run. Cupping coffees with them was a great way to create a common language and talk about our aspirations for our coffees.

The second day we got on a plane early in the morning and flew to Neiva where we took in a van to Gigante. This was a really exciting town for me to visit. One of the coffees that has been major part of our espresso comes from the growers surrounding this town. After a meeting of the co-op members we toured Jose Lisardo Rojas’ farm. The care and quality he shows to his farm and coffees struck a cord with me. His family takes incredible care of their land and a lot of pride in showcasing their coffees. I feel very lucky to be buying selected lots from his farm.

That evening we drove to Pitalito. In the morning we cupped coffees with their buyers in Pitalito and saw the actual machine, we had spend Monday talking about, in action. We left that evening and flew back to Bogotá for the night and flew out the next morning to Manizales. It was in the plans to visit the decaffeination plant there but unfortunately the plant closed early and gave their workers extra time off for the holiday. So we continued to Armenia, the town where Virmax’s dry mill is located. Spending the day there and seeing the mill run was like playing connect the dots in my head. Seeing the sorting standards and processing happening really put in perspective for me the final stages of coffee before I even get to see it.

Friday we left early in the morning to visit Cerro Azul a farm going into their first production year of geisha. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful farm to grow such a beautiful coffee. We had the chance to cup a sample of the coffee the first morning we were together in Bogotá it was amazing. It was complex, subtle and unlike any other Colombian coffee I have ever tasted. We arrived just as some of the pickers were bringing coffees in. The selection and quality was remarkable. The farm is set up to pay their pickers throughout the year and not just during harvest insuring great veteran pickers for each harvest.

I went to Colombia with the goals of understanding our coffees better and getting to know each person who makes Virmax work so well. I achieved and surpassed these goals, which I never would have been able to without the support of our amazing hosts at Virmax. I could never match the hard work they do everyday in running their company.

El Meridiano (Colombia)

cafegrumpy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 01:44:29 +0000

Mellow sweetness with notes of honey and red apple. Tangerine brightness. Waffle cone in the finish.

Cooperative consisting of 58 small-hold farms. Grown at 1500-1900 masl., these Caturra, Colombia, and Typica varietals are processed by each farmer using a micro-mill to wash, then sun-dry the coffee on covered raised beds.

The farms of El Meridiano average 4.5 hectares and collectively produce approximately 1000 bags of coffee per year. Inter-cropping shade trees like plantain, and guamo, maintains a canopy that defuses the sunlight permitting the berries to ripen in time.

Virmax Relationship Selection. Vacuum-sealed at origin.