This week, we are stoked to announce a second coffee from Marlon Bolaños: Ombligon Natural EA Decaf. We will also begin to offer our seasonal rotating omni-light blend, House Shoes.
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Colombia Marlon Bolaños Ombligon Natural EA Decaf:
Marlon Bolaños's project "The Three Coffee Farmers" produces some of the highest quality we have ever seen from Huila. Despite growing up in a coffee producing family, it wasn't until the age of 17 that Marlon took an interest in it, signing himself up for a Barista education course at SENA where he learned brewing, green coffee grading, and sensory analysis. Upon returning from that course, Marlon began planting differentiated varietals like pink bourbon, gesha, and chiroso while experimenting with new fermentation techniques on each subsequent harvest. Flash forward to today, and the farm is now owned by Marlon and his 2 brothers, Pedro and Hemerson. Marlon is responsible for quality control, fermentation protocols, sampling and part of the logistics operations. Marlon has also competed and won in several barista and brewing competitions over the last several years, taking spring water from his family's farm for brewing. It's especially suited for coffee due to the natural trace mineral composition, and now coveted by peers after earning the name "Champion's Water." This EA decaf Ombligon blew us away on the cupping table with a lack of typical "decaf off-notes" and a strong fruity acidity. Bursting with red fruits, a good bit of funky tropicality, and a highly sweet syrupy body carrying it throughout, this coffee stands on its own as a single origin release and shines brightly with origin flavors. In the cup, we find heavy strawberry syrup notes combined with a bright raspberry soda note that blew us away on the cupping table. As it cools, a tart cherry juice note settles in alongside a comforting brown sugar tone that lingers long after the final sip.
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House Shoes:
As we have grown as a roastery, we have become more and more interested in the idea of blends and what they can do both logistically and for flavor improvements. There are often coffees we receive that just don't quite live up to our expectations, or don't quite fit our "ultralight" standard roast profile. As a way to ensure the hardwork of producers doesn't go to waste, we've decided to funnel those sorts of coffees into a discounted, bulk quantity blend roasted omni-light to better suit the green. For this first iteration. we chose Rwanda Jirama Red Bourbon Washed and Kenya Muinami Estate Ruiru Natural, and chose to blend them at an exact 50/50. The Rwanda washed component delivers very clean stonefruit, a lovely lemonade acidity, and a silky body. The Kenya Natural is bursting with clean red fruits, oolong tea and cola spices. Together, we find notes of strawberries, raspberry lemonade, and a lovely specialty dark chocolate bass note that carries this very well as a 1:2 classic espresso or batch brew.