THE ROASTERS TAKEOVER - GARDELLI SPECIALTY COFFEES

One of the main objectives for FCP was to present coffee in a more considered manner treating it as a specialist ingredient.To this end, we rotate our single origin offerings on both espresso and filter regularly, with any one coffee lasting between 3-7 days, providing our customers with the widest possible range of flavours and experiences.

Hand in hand with this goes information and education, showing how region, process and variety can change the flavour experience.With this in mind we've turned to our roasters, giving them the chance to showcase unusual coffees, explore the impact of process, roast profile and variety on flavour.

Once a regular part of our offer, we'll be running the takeovers on a more infrequent basis, using them to showcase something really special and work with roasters you wouldn't normally see on these shores.

With that in mind we're supremely excited to present;

The Roasters Takeover - Gardelli Specialty Coffee & FCP

Italian coffee instantly brings to mind tradition, for many of us this means multi-bean blends, dark roasts and short espresso shots. In other words the anti-thesis of the speciality movement. There is though a new breed of roaster in Italy, aiming to build on traditional values and knit them to the speciality values of quality, transparency and terroir. A two time Italian Roasting champion, Rubens Gardelli is spearheading this movement as part of Gardelli Specialty Coffees.

We'll let Rubens outline the companies ethos:

We are in the coffee business out of pure passion and dedication, it is our intention to bring to your palate the best expression of aromas and tastes from the coffee lots we select, to honour coffee farmers' hard work.
We promote full transparency and traceability of each single lot and work hard to constantly improve ourselves to be a source of inspiration and innovation.
We love to work with people dedicated to coffee, and we would like to build strong relationships with our customers so they can grow their business with us.

We're immensely proud to be able to bring the new taste of Italian coffee to the UK.

Espresso:

Guji - Girma Edema lot .

Natural, Jan 2015 harvest, Oromia, Ethiopia

The Guji region of Sidamo, along the Mora Mora River in southern Ethiopia, produces “forest coffee”, or coffee trees that grow wild. The region also has numerous small coffee farms that pool their coffee in a co-op for milling and export. Guji coffee is heirloom. What that means to us is that it is not a modern cultivar, but a traditional coffee that is unchanged from the very earliest coffees grown in this area. That alone would make us pretty excited about trying it. But there's more…

With wet processing, the coffee cherry is soaked in a vat of water to loosen the sticky fruit that surrounds the seed. It tends to roast more evenly and be brighter, crisper and a bit smoother in the cup than a dry processed coffee. With dry processing, the entire coffee cherry is allowed to sun-dry on raised tables. It is raked every two hours to continually stir it up, preventing mold and insuring a more even drying. The dried up fruit is then mechanically removed from the seed. This is risky business for the mill. Mess it up and you get a moldy, harsh, medicine tasting coffee. Do it right, though, and you are rewarded with a twisty, complex, heady, intense coffee.

Guji abounds with floral, spice, lemony and blueberry upfront.

Fazenda Boa Vista  - Celso & Gertrude Lot

Puled Natural, Sept 2014 harvest, Brazil.

This micro lot comes from the Fazenda Boa Vista, one of the farm working for the Bob o Link project leading by Marcos Croce from FAF. The farm is owned by Celso & Gertrudes, a couple of extremely passionate farmers, living in the mountainous region of Caconde, within the state of Sao Paulo. At an altitude of 1200 to 1340 meters above sea level they farm eight hectares of coffee.

The varieties of the plant being cultivated are Tupi, Catuai, Mundo Novo, and Bourbon.

The methods of production were for commodity purposes until 2006 when they began to pulp coffees after harvesting. Then they discovered that coffees were truly special and went on to win the specialty coffee contest for the state of Sao Paulo two years in a row! In the third year they placed amongst the 50 best coffees of Brazil in the Cup of Excellence.

Amongst the microlots they produce, we choose a mono cultivar, and it is frankly a varietal that is the first time we are doing, called “Tupi”. Very impressive varietal in the cup, it happens to be a resistant varietal, but they have been implanting its use at FAF and their partners, more for the results in quality they're having. It has a higher density than other varietals primarily used, and it's be able to develop lots of fruits besides a nice & chocolate body that its terroir won't neglect to provide.

This coffee is selectively hand-harvested by Celso and his wife Gertrudes and their families to ensure that only ripe cherry is selected for processing. The coffee is dried on raised beds allowing for even airflow around the beans, decreasing the chance for mold formation and encouraging more even drying of the coffee. The farm does not use any toxic chemical fertilizers or pesticides and practices environmentally friendly methods throughout its operation. In Celso farm the Siriemas (Big Brazilian bird with long legs) come to feed on bread at their doorsteps, the springs are protected and garbage is selectively separated and taken to recycling depots.

Filter:

Yandaro - Lot #3

Washed, July 2014 harvest, Kayanza, Burundi.

Yandaro wet mill is located in the province of Kayanza, about 130 km from Bujumbura. The coffee region of Kayanza is located close to Rwanda. It is the quality of its coffee orchard and the altitude of production mainly between 1500 and 2000 masl that makes Kayanza known for the quality of its coffee production.

This wet mill is fortunate to be located at high altitude (2000 masl) on a volcanic soil with average rainfall of 1300mm per year. Cherries collected in this area are therefore very high quality cherries. Coffee producers from around the wet mill are small coffee producers: each one has about 400 coffee trees and collects small volumes of cherries. In 2012, Yandaro processed 174 MT cherries. The water used on the wet mill comes from the Nampanda river, by gravity. Coffees from that wet mill are dried on African beds.

Most of coffees processed in Yandaro are produced at more than 2,000 meters above sea level and the Bourbon variety is widely prevalent. Coffee growing in Burundi is not under shade because coffee bushes are planted on the slopes of hills and maintained by mulch to prevent erosion.

Guji - Tesfaye Bekele Lot

Washed, July 2014 harvest, Oromia, Ethiopia.

This beautiful coffee is grown in the Oromia region, one of Ethiopian’s largest areas. The farm is located in Shakisso woreda, Guji zone, which is in the Southern part of Oromia that borders on the Sidamo and Gedeo Areas.

This is a privately owned farm and is owned by Tesfaye Bekele. The farm consists of 221 hectares and is located between 1830 and 1950 meters above sea level. The general physiographic of the farm is characterised by highly dissected mountains, highlands, plateaus, valleys and plains. The volcanic soil on the farm is bursting with nutrients, which you can visually see as the top part of the soil is dominantly dark-brown in colour.

At the washing station, the washed coffees are pulped with an Agared machine. This is a pulper that has no mucilage remover. The coffee beans are fermented for about 35-48 hours in fermentation tanks, depending on the climate. There are 3 lagoons for collecting waste water. After the coffee is washed, it is then dried in parchment for 9-15 days on elevated beds.

As coffee is pulped, the sugars remain on the bean and these sugars are then fermented in water in fermentation tanks for a period spanning 48-76 hours, depending on the heat and altitude from where the coffee is delivered. Once sugars are completely eliminated through the fermentation process the coffee moves under the sun for drying in parchment.

The acidity of washed Ethiopian coffees is much more pronounced due to the fact that the sugars have been removed from the coffee. In contrast to the natural process, where sweetness is key, one can more clearly perceive the acidity in these washed coffees.

The Takeover starts on the 17th of August.