Lauren

El Salvador - Day 3 🌋☕️ On our final day with Fernando he took us to two of his farms on the slopes of the Santa Ana volcano, the highest active volcano in the country. Since the 2005 eruption, the rich, fertile soils of Finca El Corozo and Finca Santa Elena have continued to produce outstanding dwarf Bourbon, Geisha, and Pacamara 🍃 Finca Santa Elena is home to several century old Bourbon trees. Fernando explained how the coffee harvested from these trees is hugely popular within the Japanese specialty market due to its cultural significance. At Cuzcachapa Mill, we cupped a table of coffees from Fernando and Ricardo’s farms, exploring a range of varieties and processes. We finished with a tour of the patios, raised beds, printing room, dry mill, and warehouse, as the sun set on our time in El Salvador 🌅 @cliftoncoffee

El Salvador - Day 2 🌴☕️ Day two took us to one of Fernando’s lower altitude farms, Finca La Española. A place where shade trees are just as important as the coffee itself. His passion for biodiversity is incredible; he’s propagated hundreds of shade trees across the farm and he can still recall each one from memory 🤯 In the afternoon, we headed to Finca Los Balcanes for a tour of his QC lab and dry mill. @cliftoncoffee

El Salvador - Day 1 🌿☕️ We started the day at Finca Buena Vista, which definitely lived up to its name, ‘Beautiful View’. Ricardo took the time to give us a tour of his farm, the drying patio, nursery and mill. Fresh crop E1 parchment was spread across the patios, slowly drying under the sun. Ricardo explained how he’s introduced leaf blowers to turn the coffee, a smart shift that makes the process more efficient and far less physically demanding than traditional hand raking. His nursery was flourishing, full of young coffee plants and a variety of shade trees waiting until they’re mature enough for planting. On route back to San Salvador, we were super lucky to be able to catch some ripe cherries being hand picked at a lower section of the farm. This felt like a perfect way to round off our first day. @cliftoncoffee

A weekend pick up from @cornercoffee_co this time from @people.possession 🇫🇷 My quick clever dripper brew got this tasting like sweet cloudy lemonade and freeze dried raspberries with the super soft texture of marshmallow fluff ☁️

The year all the hard work paid off.. Never in a million did I think I’d end this year with my dream job, let alone capture the exact moment we got the call 🥹 I’m so grateful to be surrounded by the most supportive, compassionate, intelligent and charismatic people. Big roasts, boozy beans and good vibes. The sky’s the limit, 2024 LFG!✌️

Keeping the between batch brews super silky @cliftoncoffee

A couple of coffee stops on our trip to Manchester a few weeks ago!🐝 @siopshop @idlehandscoffee

Still ploughing through our Amsterdam coffee haul, this one from @friedhats 🇳🇱 This Columbian SL28 cultivar has been naturally processed and allowed to ferment for over 200hrs. Super punchy fruit forward boozy vibes, an all round good time 🫠 It shines when I’ve brewed it using my aeropress, I always use the inverted method as my personal preference I just find it so much easier compared to the conventional way. Once I hit upon something that works for a particular coffee I’m reluctant to experiment more just in case it’s not a good as the last time.. cut to the chase this recipe hits the spot for me with this coffee. ☕️ 12g ground on the finer side of ‘Medium-Fine’ and 200g of 94 degree water. 💦 I also use two paper filters, instead of just one. I put all the water in, in one go to make sure it’s all saturated and allow it to bloom for 30secs. 🥄 Then I stir it back and forth 20 times fairly slowly and controlled. 🔃 I flip it and start to plunge at 2:30 the brews done by 3 mins. I found it to be pretty sweet but balanced with kiwi like fruity acidity, I’ll be gutted when I’ve brewed the last of this one 🫶

A nice little pick up from Rum Baba whilst we were away in Amsterdam. Enjoyed this one as an everyday brew at home knocking up some flat whites and cappuccinos, it really paired well with milk as you’d expect judging by the tasting notes. Can’t complain!🙂 @rumbaba33

Defying expectations @friedhatsfukucafe 🇳🇱 Outstanding coffee, super nice people and a very chill vibe even on a busy Saturday morning. I ordered a washed Kenyan espresso & natural El Salvador flat white. I kinda wanted to order from the super special menu but didn’t want to be an inconvenience seeing how busy it was, but the coffee we did have was exceptional.. and there’s always next time for the super specials 👀 The espresso had a thick syrupy body, proper fruit forward almost jam like sweetness. And the flat whites had the most perfect texture, temperature and just looked bloody glorious. A funky stone fruit vibe going on too. #friedhatsfukucafe

Back behind the bar after two weeks off, a little rusty to start with but after pumping out hundreds of brews this weekend it’s safe to say I’m back into the swing of things 😅 @pitchfork.and.provision @cliftoncoffee @daisybankdairy #barista #latteart #swan

I brought this coffee as an easy drinker something Elinor & I could both enjoy at home whilst we have some rare time off together. @redbankcoffee really delivered on this one, super smooth, sweet and as expected a classic chocolatey profile. They’ve got a really nice selection online at the moment! I chose this one because it’s processed in a way which I hadn’t seen before a blend of tree-dried natural and pulped. The relatively low altitude this coffee was grown at (1150 masl) really helps when dialling in on my barista express too. The built in grinder struggles with denser beans grown at higher altitudes so I have to be fairly selective when I’m choosing what coffee to buy. #homebarista #baristaexpress #specialitycoffee