Pacamara Norwegian Yeast Maceration

250g bag of whole bean coffee

tl;dr:

Origin: Nicaragua
Region: Matagalpa
Altitude: 1200 m.a.s.l
Process: 156-hour fermentation, Carbonic Maceration + kveik yeast  

Notes of pineapple, cherry candy (lollipop, jolly rancher, etc.), hops, white wine

Ok, this is a special one. And I'm going to start off with some pricing transparency:

Cost to me after shipping, tariffs, etc.: $23/pound green

Cost per pound after roasting (12% weight loss): $26.50/pound or $58.42/kg

My cost per 250g retail bag: $14.60 (plus marginal packaging costs)

Cat Nap labor cost: $20/hour

This is the most expensive coffee I've bought up to this point (though there is much more expensive out there!). I like to keep my coffee accessible and that includes sourcing great coffee that I can sell at an accessible price point. This one likely goes beyond the realm of accessibility for many folks. If that's the case for you but you want to try some of this coffee, reach out and we'll figure something out. 

So now it's storytime. 

I drove up to the HQ of Gold Mountain Coffee Growers in NW Washington, DC, so I could pick up a 70kg bag of coffee in person, save on shipping, and meet the Gold Mountain team. The company is run by Ben Weiner, who also owns Finca Idealista, a coffee farm in Nicaragua that produces some of the amazing coffee imported by Gold Mountain alongside many other Nicaraguan farmers they work to support. While Ben was out making local deliveries, Brough and Bethanie from Gold Mountain showed me great hospitality, setting up a cupping with a great selection of their coffees. And this was one of them. And it's the one I kept going back to. It kept evolving as it went from hot to cool. Amazing new flavors kept presenting. And I was sold. This specific coffee was still at their warehouse in Maryland, so they shipped it to me early the next week, and it arrived in a handmade, hand-painted wooden box.

So now some info on this coffee from Gold Mountain and Finca Idealista:

Finca Idealista partnered with yeast experts from the wine and beer industry to experiment with yeasts and anaerobic fermentation processes. This experimentation involved getting all kinds of special brewing and testing equipment to Nicaragua and undergoing numerous experiments with and without yeasts, cupping them all, and refining the process until results were amazing. This particular yeast has been used for decades in Norway but is not a common yeast in coffee processing.

So there we have it. I love this coffee. I think you will as well. I really like Gold Mountain/Finca Idealista and I have more coffees from them and some of their partner farms out now or coming soon. Tutti Frutti is one and it's also a current favorite. 

Cat Nap Coffee Roasting is a small-batch limited-release specialty coffee roaster located in Staunton, Virginia specializing in innovative, experimental, and all around special coffees.