Makeworth Coffee

Most of what we chase is light and expressive. Essencia is the exception that earns its place. We don't roast dark as a rule, and this sits at the darker end of our range, far enough to build body and sweetness without flattening the nutty, savory side that makes it work. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

ALMOND | DARK CHOCOLATE | VANILLA

It has fooled plenty of people who were certain it wasn't a decaf. If you've written decaf off, start here. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

RED FRUIT | CINNAMON | HONEY

Intensity isn't hard to produce. A long ferment will give you intensity. What's hard is intensity that still tastes sweet and stays in balance, and almost nothing manages both. This does. The berry yogurt is right there, the volume is turned up most of the way, and it still lands clean and sweet instead of sharp. That's precision in the culturing rather than luck, and it's what a 120 hour protocol is actually buying. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

BERRY YOGURT | PEACH | BANANA

This is an intensely expressive coffee. Watermelon juiciness, bubblegum aromatics, cotton candy sweetness, and it still lands clean and precise rather than muddled. That combination is the whole argument for the nitro process. Most coffees this loud give up structure to get there. This one holds onto it. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

WATERMELON | BUBBLEGUM | COTTON CANDY

This is the second time we've bought this coffee. That's the clearest thing we can tell you about it. Co-ferments are easy to make loud and hard to make clear. Most of what gets offered to us tastes like candy, or like something was added and then turned up. Edinson's peach reads as peach, sweet the way ripe fruit is sweet. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

PEACH PIE | CANE SUGAR | VANILLA

Most of what we're carrying right now has been processed hard. This one hasn't, and that's the point of it. It's a natural, but you don't taste the processing. What you taste is Pink Bourbon grown well and dried without anyone trying to turn it into something else. Cherry wine, cacao and strawberry, all of it sitting in balance rather than one thing shouting. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

Cherry Wine | Cacao | Strawberry

Cherries were picked at full ripeness, floated to remove underripes and defects, then washed in 50°C water. They were depulped with a measured amount of mucilage left behind as fuel, then sealed in anaerobic tanks with a defined inoculant. Through the entire ferment, Jhon tracked four numbers: Brix for remaining sugar, pH for acid development, total dissolved solids for mucilage breakdown, and electrical conductivity as a confirming signal. He pulled the tank when the readings hit target, then arrested fermentation with a 35°C wash. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

RED JAM | HIBISCUS | CACAO NIBS

Unblended Coffee was founded by siblings Lucas and Sofia Cuadros, who set out to rethink how Colombian coffee reaches the global specialty market. Lucas recognized that many Colombian producers had little connection to where their coffee ultimately ended up. Much of it moved through cooperatives and was blended into larger lots, making traceability and recognition difficult. At the same time, younger generations were increasingly leaving coffee farming behind. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

96 hours of carbonic maceration in barrels, then 16 days drying on raised beds. The Gesha region runs warm, which is why naturals develop as well as they do here. The layers of complexity are what sold us on it. It rips on espresso and can shine through milk, and it's balanced enough to run well on filter or slow bar. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

LIMEADE | STRAWBERRY | KIWI

Danche is a cherry collection and processing site in Gedeb woreda, Gedeo Zone, inside the area that sells as Yirgacheffe. Yirgacheffe is a market name rather than an administrative one. It covers Gedeb, Yirgachefe proper, Kochere and Wenago, so a coffee can carry the name while sitting an hour's drive from the town. At 2,200 meters this is near the practical ceiling for arabica in Ethiopia. Cherry ripens slowly up here. The seed stays on the tree longer, accumulates more sugar and more acid, and comes off denser than the same variety grown a few hundred meters lower. The lemon in this cup is t Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

LEMON | CHERRY CANDY | FLORAL

Oswaldo Pérez farms Flor del Café in Agua Dulce, in the municipality of Cuilco, high in the Huehuetenango department. [CONFIRM WITH ONYX BEFORE PUBLISHING: two conflicting accounts of this farm are circulating in roaster copy, one a smallholder consolidation story and one a larger multi-generation estate. Get the farm size, the planting history and the spelling of his name from the lot documentation.] Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

LEMON | MILK CHOCOLATE | APRICOT

Somebody in your family made coffee like this. A pot on by six, still going at nine, nobody measuring anything. Heirloom is our attempt at that cup, made with coffee we actually chose. Dark chocolate and caramel first, with dried fruit underneath keeping it from going flat. Full body, low acidity, sweet all the way through the finish. It takes milk better than anything else we roast. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

DRIED FRUIT | DARK CHOCOLATE | CARAMEL

Patlanalan is a community in the municipality of Quimixtlán, Puebla, on the Gulf-facing slope of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The municipality runs from 900 to 2,600 meters and averages around 1,960. At 1,700 meters this lot sits mid-slope. Puebla is not a name people associate with Mexican coffee. Chiapas, Veracruz and Oaxaca take most of the volume and all of the attention; those three plus Puebla account for 85 percent of the country's coffee area. Quimixtlán is remote even within Puebla, which is part of why coffee from here has only recently started moving as separated lots instead of disap Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

PEACH | HONEY | GRAPE

Symmetry is the bag we keep at home. Interesting enough to notice on a slow Saturday, easy enough that it still works at six on a Tuesday morning when you're not paying attention to anything. Red fruit and berries up front with dark chocolate underneath holding it together. Bright without being sharp, sweet through the middle, clean on the finish. Source: makeworthcoffee.com (roaster’s own copy).

RED FRUIT | DARK CHOCOLATE | BERRIES