2024 B&W Advent Calendar
TASTE ALONG WITH KYLE RAMAGE
How it Works
This advent box contains a set of 4 bags of coffee. You can choose between a 12oz set or a 100g set.
Every week in December, join us online as we reveal the details for each bag of coffee, along with a recipe and brew video!
Description
With this box, we have endeavored to reimagine the spirit of the holiday season through hope, peace, joy, and love. Hope is represented by a thermal shock coffee, a process which inspires our hope for the future of innovation, processing, and flavor profiles. Peace is embodied by our Holiday blend, a coffee that feels comfortable, familiar, and inclusive every time we share it with friends and family. Joy is expressed most exuberantly by a co-fermented coffee, a process that excites and delights us time and time again. And Love, of course, is embodied by a beautiful Gesha coffee - the variety that stole our hearts from the very beginning and remains a beloved fixture to this day.
We hope this box leaves your heart as full as Eddie’s shi… well, you know.
Happy holidays everyone. Play ball!
Advent Week One - Hope
Kyle reveals week one of the Advent Box. Taste along as we walk through this truly delightful coffee.
Jhonatan Gasca - Thermal Shock Pacamara
Origin | Bruselas, Huila, Colombia
Process | Washed Thermal Shock
Variety | Pacamara
Altitude | 1750 masl
Brew Recipe
Brewer | Origami
Grind Size | roughly 660 microns. We did 22 clicks on a Comandante C40z
Water Temp | 200 F
Water Quality | 1 pack of third wave water to 2 gallons of water
Filters | Sibarist fast cones
Ratio | 20g Coffee : 300g Water
Brew Timing
0:00 | 60g bloom | 60g total weight
0:40 | 120g pulse | 180g total weight
1:20 | 120g pulse | 300g total weight
2:30 | Total Brew Time
Jhonatan Gasca is no stranger to failure. In 2010, he failed in his attempt to become a professional soccer player. After re-routing his future and graduating from the Colombian National Technical Institute, Jhonatan returned to his father's coffee farm and started experimenting with fermentation methods. At first, this did not go well. After a couple of years of running trials and being turned away by coffee buyers, Jhonatan grew discouraged and gave up his newfound interest in processing methods for a long time.
Finally, in 2018, Jhonatan was encouraged by his friends from El Diviso and Las Flores to start experimenting again. And this time, he thrived! Jhonatan found the right buyers (our new friends at Lohas Beans) and is quickly becoming a leader in processing innovation in his home country of Colombia. In fact, this coffee was served on the barista competition stage earlier this year by our very own (and dearly loved), Jake McFarland.
After being picked at peak ripeness, the coffee cherries are placed in 200-liter tanks with water, where floaters and other impurities are removed. The water is then drained, and a second round of quality sorting (by hand) ensues. The cherries are left to oxidize for 48 hours in open bags, giving them time to warm up and thus enhancing both sweetness and fruit flavors. After two days, the bags are closed to prepare the cherries for 150 hours of anaerobic fermentation. During this time, the sugar present in the still-intact mucilage interacts with lactic acid bacteria and microorganisms in the fermentation environment, further intensifying those fruity flavors. This second round of fermentation abruptly ends when the cherries are "quenched:" a specific method of cooling down coffee cherries, wherein first hot (50 degrees Celsius) and then cold (20 degrees Celsius) water is used to wash the cherries, eliminating the microbial load and opening the pores in the bean (with the hot water) before rapidly sealing them (with the cold water), locking in all of those delicious fruit flavors. Finally, the cherries are spread out two dry on African beds for two weeks, being closely monitored for humidity.
Floral, like lilies, this coffee maintains some red fruit character - think rainier cherries - from the thermal shock it underwent, but it also has a nice sweetness and vibrant acidity, reminding us of meyer lemons and tangerines. This carefully and uniquely processed coffee brings together the two worlds of naturally processed coffees and traditional washed lots, giving us a lovely flavor profile that is somehow loyal to both.
Advent Week Two - Peace
Kyle reveals week two of the Advent Box. Taste along as we walk through this surprising coffee.
Esteban Zamora - Cinnamon Anaerobic + Shady & Elias Bayter - Juicy Cherry
Origins | Tarrazu, Costa Rica | Tolima, Colombia
Process | Co-ferment
Variety | Various
Altitude | 1350-2000 masl
Brew Recipe
Brewer | Fellow Aiden Brewer
Grind Setting | 5 and 1/3 roughly on Fellow Ode
Water Temp | 200 F
Water Quality | 1 pack of third wave water to 2 gallons of water
Filters | Fellow Aiden Filters
Ratio | 1:16 Coffee to Water
Brew Timing
Bloom | 1:3 bloom at 190F Water temp, 60 sec duration
SS Pulses Number | 2
SS Pulses Temp | 200F
SS Pulses Time Between | 25 sec
Similar to our beloved Holiday Blend, this coffee is a blend inspired by many of our sense memories from Christmases past. To invoke those feelings of nostalgia and calm, we blended two co-fermented coffees from some of our favorite producers:
- 65% Esteban Zamora - Cinnamon Anaerobic
- 35% Shady & Elias Bayter - Juicy Cherry
Esteban Zamora is a mechanical-engineer-turned-coffee-producer, and he processes all of the coffee grown on his family's five-hectare plantation by hand! He is perhaps most renown for this cinnamon anaerobic co-fermentation endeavor, and you’ve seen it on our meny for several seasons now.
Shady and Elias Bayter grew up watching and learning from their parents, who originally grew avocados. In 2012, however, the brothers turned their eyes to coffee and never looked back. Fast forward to today: Shady and Elias manage a beautiful farm called El Vergel, which sits on the slope of an inactive volcano in the Tolima department of Colombia.
Both lots used in this blend are delicious examples of co-fermentation endeavors that have been executed beautifully by the producers who championed them.
Cinnamon Anaerobic | After being picked at peak ripeness, coffee cherries are brought to the wet mill where the fruit is pulped, but mucilage is not washed from the seed. Everything but the cascara (coffee cherry skin) is added to GrainPro bags and combined with 1 kg of cinnamon powder for every 46 kg of coffee cherries. This mixture is left to ferment in an anaerobic environment for six days before finally being moved to concrete patios to begin drying. This drying process is finished in stationary mechanical dryers at the mill because reactions between the cinnamon powder and the mucilage form a seal around the coffee seed, making it more difficult to dry and requiring the use of mechanical dryers.
Juicy Cherry | After being picked at peak ripeness, the coffee cherries underwent three rounds of fermentation: first, a pre-fermentation in plastic bags for 24 hours, followed by an additional 24 hours of aerobic fermentation in cherry. Finally, the cherries were de-pulped and left to ferment in anaerobic environment for five days, alongside dehydrated, ground cherries. Drying took place over the course of ten days using mechanical dryers.
Just like time spent with family over the holidays, this coffee is fun, sweet, and complicated (err…complex). The aroma smells intensely like cinnamon and cherry pie filling, and those two notes are also the first to greet you as you take your first sip. It’s boozy and spiced, reminding us of birch beer - or even a rye Manhattan. Taken together, the cinnamon and cherry co-ferment flavor profiles have blended together to give us a tasting experience not unlike cherry cordials - which is kind of perfect, because those things are just about as familiar to our holiday traditions as the tree itself.
JOY (Dec. 15)
Delightful and lighthearted, this cup inspires in us a joy not unlike our hap- hap- happiest Christmases of years passed.
LOVE (Dec. 22)
Delicate and timeless, this cup is an ode to the coffees we love almost as much as a fun, old-fashioned family Christmas.
JOY (Dec. 15)
Delightful and lighthearted, this cup inspires in us a joy not unlike our hap- hap- happiest Christmases of years passed.
LOVE (Dec. 22)
Delicate and timeless, this cup is an ode to the coffees we love almost as much as a fun, old-fashioned family Christmas.
