Organic Nicaraguan Raised Screen Honey Crown Jewel - 12oz. Bag

Intro

This is a unique honey processed coffee from Jinotega, Nicaragua. It is produced by Juan de Dios Castillo on his farm Finca El Pastoral and is certified Organic.

The flavor profile of this crown jewel is smooth and syrupy with prominent cocoa flavors, balanced with notes of cantaloupe, citrus fruits, and mild berries. We are very excited to offer such a wonderful, well-rounded coffee.

Roast

We roasted this batch of Organic Nicaraguan to a medium roast. Depending on the grind and brewing method, this Organic Nicaraguan Crown Jewel can produce rich chocolatey notes, and hints of dried fruits and fresh citrus.

Brewing

As with most Top-Shelf coffees, we suggest using the pour-over method to maximized the aroma and flavor of this Crown Jewel coffee using a 1:16 coffee to water ratio with the water between 200F and 205F. Once grounds are placed in the filter, pre-soak grounds by covering with water for ~30sec to allow for blooming, then finish with either a steady pour or a couple of short pours to complete the brewing process.

Taste Analysis

By Chris Kornman, Royal Coffee

This is a smooth and balanced offering from Nicaragua with plenty of sweetness, lots of body, and relatively low acidity. You’ll note some flavors of lime and lemon (but without the citric zip) at lighter roasts. Moderately developed roasts should showcase lots of chocolatey notes, syrupy body, hints of nuttiness like sweet almonds, and mild berry and cantaloupe flavors. It’s easy to enjoy without challenging expectations, but there’s complexity there for those who seek it. Overall, it’s a crowd-pleasing coffee with lots of potential and we’re thrilled to feature it as a pour-over at The Crown.

Brew Analysis

By Colin Cahill, Royal Coffee

I get super excited to play around with honey-processed coffees, as they can be a bit of a wild card with their layers of fruit, sugar, and funk. They are fun to have on bar when you’ve got customers who are curious about the ranges of flavors possible in coffee, and some of my favorite regular customers come in asking us if we have anything “funky” on bar. To brew this up I wanted to play with that complexity and see what kinds of variation would come out using both flatbed and conical brewing devices, and playing with the contrast that can come from using Saint Anthony Industries’ thick Perfect Paper Filters (on the C70) and Kalita’s classic 185 filter (on the Wave).

I like to go from softer to louder brews, so I began on the C70 with a recipe that we often use as our starting point. The brew came out quickly (relative to most of my recent brews with the same recipe), and was super clean with pronounced berry flavors. We tasted syrupy blackberry and raspberry notes, a lemon-lime acidity, and a lingering aftertaste with hints of milk chocolate, graham cracker, and malt. A gentle clove note flowed through the whole experience, and we were happy to sit and sip on this brew.

Moving over to the Kalita Wave, I wanted to avoid overextraction, so I shortened the bloom time. The brew time was still 17 seconds longer than on the C70, but it yielded a brighter brew that really highlighted a range of citrus flavors. We tasted ruby red grapefruit, satsuma, tangerine, lemon, and lime. This coffee is packed with bright fruity flavors, and is super clean, with very little ferment-y, funky notes coming through. It yields a joyful brew perfect for starting the day!

Source Analysis

By Mayra Orellana-Powell, Royal Coffee

What’s the best way to support coffee producers?

This is exactly the question Juan de Dios Castillo (the family’s agronomist) and his 4 siblings were looking to answer when they created J&M Family Coffee, a privately owned export company named after their parents Juan and Miriam (J&M).

Their first goal was to sell their parents’ coffee directly to international buyers. It was a way to honor their parents who started cultivating coffee during their childhood with the income from the first family tailoring business in the town of Jinotega.  With this first goal completed, Juan de Dios Castillo decided to take the next step and start his own farm called El Pastoral, which has 150 acres of coffee production.

Cherries from Finca Pastoral are selected for more specialized processing rather than the more common washed processing.  This honey processed lot is a stunning example of the skill and commitment Juan de Dios has invested in the family business.

During the harvest, the coffee cherries are carefully harvested, sorted, and depulped.  Then the remaining seed covered in mucilage is transported to the dry-mill where the weather conditions are more stable for evenly drying coffee.  After drying is completed, the coffee is stored and later prepared for export at the same dry-mill.  This is a truly integrated model, in which J&M Family Coffee ensures quality control and traceability from farm to export.

Royal has the distinguished honor of being the first importer to buy from J&M Family Coffee when they started operations in 2014.