Willing Coffee
PRE-ORDER - La Cabra El Ajial 250g
PRE-ORDER - La Cabra El Ajial 250g
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Please note this is a pre-order item - stock is due for delivery in early September. Shipping or stock pick up available, you will be notified when your order is ready for collection from Willing Coffee Mt Lawley.
El Ajial 250g
Colombia
- Producer Luis Alfredo Lopez
- Region Nariño
- Altitude 2100 masl
- Varietal Caturra
- Process Washed
- Harvest November 2024
El Ajial
El Ajial is a tiny 3 hectare plot where Luis Alfredo Lopez grows coffee perched on a steep mountainside in Buesaco, in Colombia’s mountainous Nariño region. We have come to appreciate coffees from Nariño over many years, for their dense sweetness and intense, concentrated flavours in the cup, with a high degree of clarity. Incredibly high altitudes, often over 2000 masl, and excellent sun exposure mean sugar-rich, slow-matured coffee cherries, with ample fuel for fermentation and roasting to create complexity and intensity.
The Lopez Family
Luis’ family have grown coffee outside the village of Medina Orjuela for generations. Luis inherited his small plot from his father 20 years ago. His father was his main mentor in coffee, alongside his older cousin Jesus Angel Lopez. They instilled the importance of quality in Luis, aiming for the high prices of the speciality coffee market. Alongside that, Luis tries to maintain the traditional ‘campesino’ lifestyle; keeping a cow on the farm for milk and fertilisation, and growing food crops among the coffee trees, including corn, avocado and nitrogen-fixing legumes.
A careful process
This lot is of the Caturra varietal, processed using a washed method. The cherries are floated for density, before de-pulping. Parchment coffee is then placed in open tanks for 24 hours, before drying on raised beds for 2-3 weeks. This careful fermentation translates the potential of these intensely sweet Nariño cherries into a bright and complex profile, with notes of tropical mango, while holding on to the crisp red berry acidity we’ve tasted from so many high altitude Nariño coffees.
Brewing advice
Water is one of the most critical components of an excellent coffee experience. We recommend using mineral water of a soft Total Dissolved Solids count, ideally below 150 ppm.
Rested coffee During the resting process, harsh and astringent flavors, which can even be perceived as a ‘roast’ character, soften out, allowing a clearer and brighter expression of the coffee’s character to shine.
We recommend resting our coffees for at least 10 days after the roast date, and we often find excellent results, especially for particularly dense coffees, beyond 6 weeks.
Brewing Our straightforward approach to coffee carries over into brewing. We recommend our roasted coffee for all brew methods, regardless of whether it is immersion, percolation or espresso. We believe that there is one correct way to roast a single coffee, roasting lightly, in such a way as to release its innate qualities and showcase its quality. Learn more about different brewing techniques and specific brew guides here.
About La Cabra
Aarhus / Denmark
La Cabra Coffee is a modern coffee company established in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. Curious about what lay further down the coffee chain, we threw ourselves into sourcing and roasting our own coffee, our own way, in 2013. Part of the advantage of growing in a small town is the lack of external influence, allowing us to forge an honest and novel approach to coffee. This honesty and dedication led to a reputation at home in Aarhus, where a passionate team still runs our coffee bars and bakery.
Attention also began to trickle in from further afield, and today La Cabra is a widely recognised coffee roaster; we are proud to be working with many valued and quality driven wholesale partners to create exceptional coffee experiences in cities across the globe, and with dedicated home users and subscribers in more than 60 countries. Over the past few years we have further expanded our coffee horizons, moving to our new roastery location in Copenhagen, and opening our first international locations in New York, Bangkok and Oman.
