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Beans: Las Palmas Microlot #11, Pacamara, Natural, Los Pirineos, El Salvador.
Shop: Muttley & Jack’s, Cafe Esaias, Stockholm, Sweden.
Muttley & Jacks – Las Palmas #11: Background information.
This special coffee comes from the Swedish coffee roaster: Muttley & Jack’s. Founded in Stockholm in 2017, Muttley & Jack’s is a prize winning micro-roastery delivering hand-roasted speciality grade coffee to homes and cafes throughout Europe. I stumbled into them when visiting Esaias, a coffeeshop in Stockholm and decided to try their Las Palmas. Los Pirineos is the farm that has been in Gilberto Baraona’s family since 1890, though much was destroyed and the farm abandoned through the civil war that ran for 12 years in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992.
It has been Gilberto’s life intention to rebuild what was lost, and he continues to do quite an amazing job. Las Palmas is one of the additional blocks of land added to Los Pirineos by Gilberto, the block is at 1320 meters above sea level. This lot comes from the pacamara variety that is grown there and was processed as a natural coffee.
Muttley & Jacks – Las Palmas #11: Opening the package.
Muttley & Jack’s coffee comes in a package with a lot of information for the buyer. The packaging art consists out of black coffee beans, a logo with information on the front, some shop information on the back and on the bottom the roast date, the type of roasting machine and even which batch. The front has information on the farm, the variety, the process, some tasting notes and the altitude of growing. This is a lot of information and to me it’s very complete at that. Writing down the batch number could even be a way to communicate better with the customer when something is wrong with the roast.
The package has a de-gassing valve and a ziplock to keep the coffee fresh. When opening this package, I immediately notice the fruity aroma’s that were hidden inside. It’s sweet, fruity but not too heavy on the nose. The Pacamara bean is crunchy and when I bite down on one of them, an explosion of flavours pour out: a bit salty, chocolate, cherry, blackberry and raspberry can all be found straight away. Let’s brew!
Muttley & Jacks – Las Palmas #11: The tasting.
I’ve tasted this coffee on the Aeropress, Siphon and V60. Since this coffee was so good, I also brewed it on the Cafflano Go-Brew and Cafflano Kompact. The best ratio for me is 1:14 on the V60. For the Aeropress I use cold blooming with 20gr of coffee on 240gr of water. The Siphon is a 14gr/175 recipe where you keep the water from boiling. But honestly, it doesn’t matter on which brewer you brew this coffee, it’s bound to be great.
When brewing the coffee, the fruity aroma of blackberry pops up. There is also a cherry blossom scent which faintly comes forth while the brew is still hot. After it cools down, let your nose linger above the brew and you will notice how the Blackberry is now so much sweeter and could remind you of blackberry jam. The brewing alone will tell you so much about this coffee.
I pour the coffee in a wineglass and swirl it round to notice a soft plum aroma on the nose as well. I take a sip and slurp oxygen inside as if it was wine, which is funny because this coffee reminds me of a red wine as well. The flavours of blackberry and plum are easily recognized. This coffee is nicely balanced which means that there is no aspect of the coffee that is overly apparent. The medium/high wine-like acidity, the creamy velvety mouthfeel, the sweetness, the fruitiness; they all comes together perfectly. As I swallow the coffee the blackberry and plum are still there. If you wait for a second and breathe back air through your closed mouth, raspberry, cherry and a raw cocoa can be noticed as well. The aftertaste lingers for quite a long time so take your time drinking. The raw cocoa that I mention is more the mouthfeel of the cocoa, rather than the actual flavour by the way.
Muttley & Jacks – Las Palmas #11: The Verdict.
This Las Palmas #11 is roasted fine, mighty fine. Muttley & Jack’s have outdone themselves with this beautiful Pacamara natural. Everything is balanced and all the flavours come out perfectly. If you love the flavour of Blackberry and plum, you will not be disappointed by this coffee. But don’t stop looking for more flavours when you recognize these two, because you would be missing out on the cherry and raspberry flavours that are waiting to come out in the aftertaste. Way to go Muttley and Jack!!!!
Out of courtesy to the roaster, you can click on this link to go to their webshop. (this is a non-paid link)