Tasting Notes: Regulars who adore this coffee have tasted notes of pecan and toasted pretzel. It has a lovely creamy mouthfeel that lends itself to a delicious espresso or a French press. This is a great coffee to drink with milk.
Sourcing Notes: This coffee comes to us through our importing partners at Semilla Coffee (no relation to the legendary Hartford coffee shop, Semilla Cafe + Studio). I was drawn to work with Semilla because I saw other coffee roasters, whose product and mission I deeply admired, were putting their trust in them as an importing partner. Coffee has a long and complex supply chain; there is a lot of distance, physically and structurally, between the farmers who bring the beans into the world and roasters like me who curate them for American consumers. For me as a small startup roaster, a good importer is someone who can help me navigate that complex journey from far to cup in a way that allows me to offer top-quality coffee to my customers without extracting value from the farmers. After seeing testimonials from their other partner roasters and speaking with the Semilla team, I am feeling good about working with them.
From the Importer: "Monkaaba is a collectivist project founded by seven smallholder families, and led by Esnaider Ortega-Gomez and Didier Ortega. Originally, this project was based out of the Ortega-Gomez home in the vereda of Sevilla, outside San Agustin. Based on the principles of open access and community support, every weekend during harvest time, their home was opened to any smallholder who wanted free sample roasting and cupping with the aim of providing unbiased and clear feedback and recommendations around quality. From our original purchase in 2020 of six producers, the Monkaaba project has blossomed into a tight-knit network of 60 families, all of whom are driven by an interest to know more about their coffee, how it might be improved, and how they can form resilient, stable relationships. It may surprise the coffee drinker and even the specialty coffeee professional to know that the vast majority of Colombian smallholders, despite all their nation’s fame as a coffee producing country, still find themselves locked out of a market that would offer them a basically sustainable price. Indeed, even by the National Coffee Grower Federation’s (FNC) own numbers, only about 2% of the country's coffee is sold outside of the commercial market. San Agustin has a long and storied history of coffee production, being one of the first areas to participate in the Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros (FNC). There are some 6,000 growers in this area, and yet the vast majority continue to sell their coffees either for market prices or en verde for about half of market price.
The Monkaaba project is made up of many smallholders with the same stories. Around 60% of these growers are underthe age of 35, and sold primarily in on the local "black market" either in wet or dry parchment. The remaining 40% have had some access to the specialty market, but never with year over year guarantees, nor with transparency and respect.
Esnaider and other storied growers like Agusto Ortega, Daniel Munoz, and Jaime Burbano wanted to create a new structure that supported smallholders to improve their knowledge, quality, and profitability through pedagogical support. When Esnaider asked us to accompany him in this project, we didn’t hesitate to support. To work with our friends, while also being able to focus on finding impeccable quality from producers who need a solid buyer, is exactly what Semilla was created to do."
Bean Variety: Pink Bourbon