Konishiwa!!!
We had the great opportunity to visit Japan by the hand of our friends of Kanemats during the last SCAJ 2011. It was now our time to visit since they have visit Colombian coffee project twice. Kanemats visit the projects in Huila when we have a great direct trade with different groups focus on specialty coffees from Bruselas, Pitalito, Algeciras among other local towns and also the Farm Granja La Esperanza in Trujillo Valle to meet one of the most important varietal coffee projects in Colombia.
Kanemats is a company that cares about quality and direct trade, making a difference in both sides of the commercial chain.That is why during the visit in Colombia this year, it was possible to see how visited farms in Huila develop some of their practices, how the beneficio is done and the importance of the direct trade to get direct from the best farmers their coffee and give better price to better growers. In a big market as coffee is, it is difficult to find clear links and traceability between the agents in the chain and get this coffees to bring them intact as far as Japan.
Kanemats choose two of some of the recent coffees they import from Colombia to Japan, one of them was from Caney, a group of producers from Bruselas Huila, a small town located at 15 minutes from Pitalito – Huila and a Beautiful Geisha from Granja la Esperanza. It was our opportunity to taste the coffee we exported some time ago to see how it taste ones it arrives at the hands of the importer and retail store.
We were very surprise of the freshness and taste of the coffee, The Geisha was exported in a vacuum pack and Caney was shipped in regular yute bags, both coffees were great in espresso and cappuccino, we never tried Geisha as good in espresso as the one we have at the booth. Actually we always suggest to brew this coffee but it was amazing in espresso, we were wrong. We all know that roasting can change the coffee profile, but the thing with Geisha is that the roasting process has to be done with a very special curve, other wise such a great coffee will taste plain, simple an unnoticed. But well roasted will be creamy, soft, delicate, with character and will show the particular note and taste of Geisha. not mention that Colombian Geisha taste different than Panama or any other origin. Caney coffee by the other side had great acidity, caramel taste, citric sweetness and a very nice aftertaste. Also was very carefully roasted for this occasion, we well very impress because we have tried this coffee many times at home an the flavor was much better. We can say that we can give, if there were a score from 0-100 in espresso cupping, we have to give 92 to the Geisha and 88 to Caney.
The most amazing experience was the opportunity to visit the roasters and coffee shops owners, chat and talk about coffee, get to know their proposals to the market and learn from this new culture of coffee. Thank you very much for that sharing and we hope to keep in touch with a great cup of Coffee. We very proud that all the effort of our growers and us take some place in your stores, we hope that this cup of coffee can can tell the customers a lot about Colombia.
Arigato.
