Artisan Roast - Bella Aurora - Nicaragua

From Artisan Roast:

"We met Joaquin and Maria Lovo way back in 2012 during a sourcing trip to North Nicaragua and its a pleasure to finally bring some of their coffee up to Scotland.

Bella Aurora lies literally a stones through from Honduras and like much of the Dipilto area the coffee sits under dense, lush shade vegetation. This helps slow the ripening of the coffee down, encouraging improved sweetness and flavour profile once the beans have been roasted and brewed. Joaquin and Maria go the extra mile as well and the farm has a whole handful of third party certifications that represent their very holistic view to coffee farming. This approach has paid dividends over recent years and the family have been successful in a couple of Cup of Excellence programmes in Nicaragua.

This micro-lot comes from a small section towards the top of the farm called 'El Corsario', or the pirate, oddly named after a prize bull owned by Joaquin of the same name. The Lovo's take real care and attention to their caturra cherry selection during the picking season. After harvesting the de rigueur method of processing in Dipilto is dry fermentation for around sixteen to eighteen hours before being washed and skin dried on the farm's tiny patio. Since the drying area is so small on the farm all coffee is then transferred to Dipilto for final drying and quality assessment.

Bella Aurora is a delicious, straightforward chocolate driven warming cup of coffee. After the initial milk chocolate flavours there are sweet toasty and caramel like aromas followed by an amaretti biscuit like finish. The mouthfeel is smooth, dense and creamy and the acidity is low in intensity but lingers long."