Dec 2016 – Ecuador Firefly
Coffee of the Month
Campos is thrilled to be the first coffee company to bring Firefly to Australia. It has taken us a while to find specialty coffee from Ecuador, and from the aroma to the last sip, it was clear this would be a great start! Firefly is a truly unique cup with distinctive notes of baking chocolate, maple syrup and red cherry.
The story of Firefly is as unique as the coffee itself. 20 years ago, South African born conservationist and wildlife photographer Murray Brian Cooper set up a biological reserve in Ecuador, and five years ago, began producing coffee there. Despite being relatively new to the trade, he wowed the industry with consistently high scores of 86+ per lot, and is part of a zeitgeist of young farmers pushing quality coffee in this fast emerging origin.
Murray has spent much of his life invested in the natural world. He moved to Ecuador to become a forest ranger and is renowned internationally for his photographic portraits of Andean birds, hummingbirds in particular, with his work being published in National Geographic.
His small 47-hectare Firefly farm is nestled amongst an unspoiled humid forest of cedars and Andean trees, rivers and waterfalls. Once cherries are harvested, they are naturally fermented, fully washed and dried on African-style raised beds.
Our Guest Taster
Paul Songer
Cup of Excellence, Head Judge
In the world of specialty coffee, Paul Songer is the expert on sensory analysis with 25+ years experience in the industry. He holds the much-coveted position of Head Judge on the Cup of Excellence panel, where he met and became rm friends with Campos founder Will Young.
Paul immediately pinpointed Ecuador Firefly as having a well-balanced ‘Andean flavour’, which is pretty spot on considering this coffee is cultivated on the Andes mountain range of South America.
He described Firefly as having ‘a nice acidity but not overwhelming, medium body and a nice balance of aromatics’, while his senses detected ‘a touch of maple syrup and molasses, orange blossom and concord grape’.
Paul started his coffee career as an espresso machine repairman before gravitating to coffee tasting. He worked in a coffee lab in Vermont for seven years before moving to private consulting, spending a long period of time in Bolivia. He enthuses Firefly as being similar to the coffee he tasted during his time in Bolivia, also part of the Andean region.
The Cup
Flavour Andean, concord grape, jasmine
Aroma Maple syrup, orange blossom, sweet
Acidity and body Nicely balance acidity, medium length, finish mostly sweet