Tasting Notes

Not your parents Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee! A bright, fruited cup. Aromas of watermelon and strawberry mingle with notes of hazelnut and caramel in the cup. 

Background

Gonzalo Hernandez likes to brag that he’s amassed the world’s largest private collection of coffees trees: more than two hundred species, botanical varieties, mutations and cultivars that grow on his exotic Costa Rican “coffee garden”, Coffea Diversa. His collection includes some of the rarest in the world -- coffees many have neither heard of nor tasted.

Of each variety Gonzalo has only a few trees, and his coffees are sold in small 10 kilogram bags to knowledgeable roasters and friends around the world, first come, first serve. We first visited Coffea Diversa and met Gonzalo 11 years ago, and we’ve been looking forward to sharing these ever since.

A few years ago he started a farm in Jamaica's Blue Mountains in partnership with the Sharp Family of Clifton Mount Estate, growing a selection of his best cupping varieties from the Costa Rica farm. This farm is finally starting to produce and Paradise is one of the first roasters in the world to have an opportunity to share these coffees. 

Champagne Natural

Last year Miguel travelled to Jamaica during the harvest season to do trials of yeast fermentations with several of the varieties grown at Coffea Diversa. After cupping the various trials we blended the varieties together to make a large enough lot for export. Separated into washed and natural lots. The Champagne natural lot came out to just 50lb

Champagne Natural is a method we began developing in 2019 based off of research in Brazil that showed the potential of using selected yeast strains to improve to quality of coffee. We have continued to refine and evolve this process every season through continuous experimentation and cupping.

The process starts with sanitation of the cherries and removing any floating low density fruit. The cherries are then placed in a Bioreactor, covered with water and inoculated with wine yeast strains. After several days of fermentation the sugars in the fruit have been consumed and converted to alcohols, acids, and CO2, and also aromatic Esters which can give aromas reminiscent of fruits and flowers. At the end of fermentation the cherries are no longer sweet, but crisp and tart and effervescent from the CO2, tasting like champagne.

The cherries were then laid to dry on raised shaded screens. After the coffee beans were dried to below 11% moisture they are rested for several weeks in the dried cherries before milling.