New Filter Coffee: Ayarza Santa Rosa

We are super excited to introduce our brand new filter coffee, Ayarza Santa Rosa!

A deliciously juicy coffee, with the initial sharpness of Cranberry, followed by the bright, citrus flavours of Lemon and Orange: A classic Guatemalan. With a balanced body and intense acidity, this makes for the perfect filter coffee to sip away at all day.

A few words from Covoya, who are our green suppliers for this particular batch!

‘This washed lot was processed at our cherry mill in Ayarza, Santa Rosa. In Guatemala, coffee is traditionally processed individually by smallholder farmers, making it difficult to manage and guarantee quality form lot to lot. Our team in Ayarza works with numerous farmers in the region, paying a premium for ripe cherry and processing it centrally to maintain strict standards throughout.

Francisco Nájera is one of many local producers we work with at Ayarza cherry mill. Francisco was born in El Naranjo town in the Jutiapa department of Guatemala. He is 30 years old, married with two children and has been working in the coffee production business for around 15 years. Cultivating various small plots covering just under 1ha in total, Francisco is a small producer but a great entrepreneur, and has excelled in the coffee production business despite the adversity and constant threat of various coffee diseases. He also dedicates part of his time to developing coffee tree nursery services to sell saplings to other farmers in the region.’

We originally named this roast ‘Blue Ayarza’ (in line with Covoya) until a certain team member admitted that ‘Blue’ made them think of Kitchen plasters, and we just couldn’t move past it!

And so, Blue Ayarza was renamed Ayarza Santa Rosa, for this particular roast.

But where does the name Blue Ayarza come from?

‘The region of Ayarza is a special one, landmarked by the drastic landscape and cold blue water from the Laguna de Ayarza and Laguna Azul. The lake was formed by two massive volcanos that collapsed and formed a large crater.
The legends surrounding this lake are numerous and the bottom has never been found. There is a large white rock of a petrified woman who didn’t follow the orders of Jesus. In short, there are simply too many good stories about Ayarza to do it justice!’

{We did just abandon this blog post and fall into a Google image, rabbit hole of Laguna Azul. Wow! What a stunning place.

This fruity, washed, Guatemalan, goes through a rigorous picking process, to ensure only the ripest cherries are selected for the next steps. This includes strict picking and reception standards (picked ripe with less than 3% of greens), cherry floatation, de-pulping and screen sorting to remove any remaining under-ripes.

They will then follow one of these two paths:

Path 1: the coffee is fermented for 14 hours using a Fermaestro to determine the end of the fermentation, washed, dried on the patio and finished in a mechanical drier.

Path 2: the coffee is sent straight to the mechanical washers (removing the mucilage), sent through a Centriflux to remove excess water, then dried at low temperatures mechanically.

Each of these paths will subtly alter the coffee’s profile, as natural factors are added to the mix. One could be described as presenting a much more ‘winey’ character, which is common for fruitier lots. We would call this, ‘Vinoso’.

Other profiles appear super sweet and body driven; we would call this ‘Classic’. They are then separated accordingly, painting a beautiful picture of this region that is packing such huge potential.

We are looking forward to a year of exciting coffee offerings, just like this one! A big thanks to Covoya and  Francisco Nájera for such a flawless lot. Their passion and commitment to the whole process is amazing!

We hope you enjoy Ayarza Santa Rosa as much as we enjoy saying it!

Available now via our website, i store and ‘Coffee Beans for Delivery’ on the Grindsmith App.