July 2016: El Salvador Finca San Roberto
Coffee of the Month
Big, rich, caramel flavours dominate this coffee. Combine this with milk chocolate, hazelnuts, red berries and a hint of pear on the finish, and you’ll have a solid high altitude coffee from El Salvador named Finca San Roberto. So we cannot wait to spend the next month running this through our grinders in the shops.
This is very much a barista’s coffee. So much so, that we spent some time in El Salvador this year with the French Barista Champion, Charlotte Malaval, as she prepared for her bid to become World Champion. It turned out that of all the great coffees in El Salvador, she too picked the San Roberto to take her all the way to the top, and it worked very well! Charlotte placed third with this farm’s coffee in the quarter finals, and first in the semi finals, only to just miss out on the grand prize in the final round this year.
The farm is also a champion in itself. San Roberto took the top prize in the 2005 Cup of Excellence with a score of 90.47. Owned and operated by brother-sister duo Luis and Alicia Perez, this farm has remained at the top of the list in El Salvador for some time. Their family has proudly produced coffee here for the last 128 years and they refuse to put a damper on the slow and steady winning momentum built up over the generations.
The farm is minuscule at only 4 hectares, but it’s impact is global. The choice of this year’s French Barista Champion, and this Australian coffee roaster’s pick for July!
Our Guest Taster
Rebecca Kerswell
Coco Chocolate
Rebecca Kerswell is the founder of Coco Chocolate, an Australian artisan chocolatier with a solid pedigree as a supplier for many high-end food establishments ranging from David Jones Food Halls through to Harvey Nichols in London.
Earlier in the year we had the pleasure of working with Rebecca on a Campos Coffee x Coco Chocolate collaboration, where we created a seriously delicious coffee dark chocolate block using our signature Superior Blend and Rebecca’s incredible chocolate crafting skills. After munching on lots of chocolate last month we thought it was about time to invite her in to try the exciting new Finca San Roberto from El Salvador.
In the cup Rebecca started hitting notes of rich chocolate undertones, blackberries and a caramel finish. Another big one that popped up was ‘sweetness’, but Rebecca put it best by saying, ’it’s hard to just say sweet when you compare it to chocolate!’