Fast and dirty on what’s on the menu at dirtyCup.com’s host, Safehouse Coffee and Tea.

~What We’re Roasting Right Now ~

Email hunt@safehousecoffeeandtea.com for wholesale pricing

Fazenda Monte Alegre, Minas Gerais, Brazil $14 retail

100% Bourbon varietal, pulp natural processed to accentuate the stone fruit and citrus flavors and increase the body. This bean is selected and processed specifically for use as a single origin espresso. Jose Francisco Pereira oversees the farm year-round.

Sustainable farming technology is practiced throughout: erosion control, intercropping, wind-breakers, water management, etc. Coffee milling is eco-friendly: all water on the farm is of drinking quality.

Monte Alegre’s work force has full medical assistance, with resident doctor, nurse and safety engineer. All families living on the farm have electricity, running water, school for young children and free transport for older children to attend school in town. All employees have access to on-farm playgrounds and sports facilities, freedom to unionize and all civil rights enjoyed by urban workers. Personal protection equipment is provided to all labor performing risky tasks.

Monte Alegre Estate pays wages above the regional average. On-the-job training is permanent for workers at all levels. The Estate is a fully sustainable business in all aspects: environmental, social and economic. Sustainability and coffee quality pervade all activities, from farming to trading.

Finca Alaska, Santa Ana, El Salvador $18 retail

100% Bourbon varietal, fully washed process. Ernesto Menendez inherited the farm from his father when he was only a teenager and turned it into a Cup of Excellence competitive farm in just a few seasons. This bean is highly sought after every year and we got the first cases from the very first shipment this year – a coup for a company our size. This year’s crop is Ernesto’s best yet, with a fine acidity, handfuls of tree fruit, silky body and an immeasurable balance to round it all out.

Ernesto is currently replanting cypress trees in some areas of the farm and each year plants new red and orange Bourbon trees on Alaska. These two Bourbon varietals help to produce an extremely fine and distinctive coffee, enhancing the brightness of the acidity and delivering a huge range of flavour and fragrance characteristics.

Alaska’s coffee is harvested with extreme care, under Ernesto’s continual supervision. Only perfectly ripe cherries are used and post-harvest cherry selection is always done at the farm to eliminate any remaining immature bean or dry pods.

Finca Las Nubes, Esquipulas, Guatemala $14 retail

Various 100% Arabica varietals, Strictly Hard Bean, fully washed and sun dried, grown at 1500m. Very bright grape acidity, juicy, creamy body, stone fruit, strong aromatics.

Finca Las Nubes is located high in the mountainous region of Esquipulas. The area is populated with pine and cypress trees and a natural haven for many species of wild birds. The farm is some 236kms from Guatemala City and is owned and run by Don Fabio Solís, his wife, Doña Sonia and their children.

Finca Las Nubes was the winner of the Cup of Excellence competition in 2001 with a huge score of 96 points out of 100 and can rightly claim to have been the finest coffee in all of Guatemala in that year. In all, 256 farms entered this quality discovery competition in 2001, and they have maintained that quality every season since.

Sidikalang Co-op, North Sumatra Province, Sumatra  $14 retail

100% Rasuna varietal fully washed, grown at 1200m by a loose cooperative of small farmers in North Sumatra Province. Heavy body, boozy fermentation, strawberry, hoisin sauce, ginger, slightly earthy, a “wild” coffee.

This is a truly singular bean, being as it is a very old strain grown and hand-picked by mountain peasant farmers on plots of 1-2 acres per farmer. It is easily identifiable as an Indonesian coffee by its loamy earthiness, but what is unexpected is its abundant fruitiness and that elusive food-like deliciousness the Japanese call umami.

Finca El Bosque, Esquipulas, Guatemala $14 retail

100% Arabica made up of Bourbon, Caturra, and Pache varietals, fully washed and patio dried. It has a very bright grape acidity, juicy, creamy body, dark stone fruit, cocoa, and strong aromatics.

El Bosque farm is located near the capital Guatemala City on a hillside running parallel and a way off from the main road. It may, in future, be jeopardized by urban development but since we have been working with El Bosque prices, returns for the farm have made it a much more stable situation. The farmers, the Solis Family are very motivated and encouraged by the new world of direct relationship external sales rather than having to rely on the usual suspects: multinational mill buyers.

Finca El Carmen, Ahuachapan, El Salvador, 100% Red Bourbon $14 retail

El Carmen Estate is located in the heart of the primary biological corridor that extends through El Salvador, a part of the Mesoamerican Life Corridor System that stretches from Mexico to Panama. In El Salvador, where more than 80% of its coffee is produced under shade, this eco-system is based mainly in the coffee forest. This region is considered an important sanctuary for many species of fauna, especially for migratory birds that travel between North and South America every year.

El Carmen is located 4,300 feet (1,300m) above sea level on one of the finest Strictly High Grown (SHG) coffee production areas of Central America. It is organized with the classic Estate Farm concept, where great emphasis is given to maintain the identity of each lot, from the time its coffee cherries are harvested until the green beans are ready for export.

With the continued effort of Antonio Alfaro, head of the third generation of this coffee family, El Carmen became a symbol of the village, Ataco, now characterized by the beauty of its ancestral farm, the quality of its coffee, and by the help and support given by the Alfaro family to the village and its people.

El Carmen combines all of the ideal ingredients required to produce a genuine Gourmet Estate Coffee. It is hand-picked at perfect ripeness, free from yellow and unripe beans and de-pulped the same day as harvested, processed separately, and kept unblended from any other bean. It is then naturally fermented at mountain temperatures and then washed with pure spring water, and sun-dried on clay patios. Parchment coffee is stored in wooden silos, left to ‘rest’ for a minimum of 60 days under ideal conditions to reach uniform humidity and color. Finally, the beans are prepared at zero defects, and screened to size, according to clients’ specifications.

It has a medium malic acidity, distinct citrus fruit that intensifies as it cools in the cup, very sweet, highly consistent. Moderate body and long pleasant citrus tang in the aftertaste.

Finca Matalapa, Libertad, El Salvador $18 retail

Finca Matalapa is a classic estate coffee, long before there were mini-mills and micro-lots. It has a complete independent mill to service the farm, from the tree through wet-processing, patio drying, hulling and preparation, to loading the coffee in jute bags and packing the shipping container. The mill is filled with fantastic, classic coffee equipment painted in bold colors. And it’s the passion of the owner, Vickie Ann Dalton de Diaz, and the mechanical love of the archaic mill equipment that keeps the mill running and the coffee tasting so wonderful. Finca Matalapa is in the Libertad area, not far from the capital of San Salvador, on a west-facing slop ranging from 1200 meters up to the ridge top at 1350 meters. It’s a 4th generation coffee estate totaling 120 hectares and was founded in the late 1800’s by Fidelia Lima, great grandmother of the Vickie. She maintains 14 acres of virgin tropical forest and keeps her coffee plants shaded with over forty varieties of larger trees. The cup has the character we long to find in El Salvador Bourbon-type coffees, though because of the strong winds in the area they find the native Salvador Pacas varietal to fare better in this region. Pacas is a natural mutation of the Bourbon varietal.

Fully washed and comprised of Bourbon and Pacas varietals, Matalapa is a versatile coffee that accepts a wide range of roast treatments. It has classic balance and sweet accent notes that can be coaxed into the cup, based on degree of roast. The dry fragrance has sweet nuts in the light roast, almost like praline and some soft floral notes at City+. The cup is very approachable, and you can seek out some sweet, mild citrus in the wet aroma, with syrupy malt sweetness. The cup has a buttery body, laced with slight floral and citrus accents. As it cools the cup becomes more and more bright and dynamic. (Also ideal as part of an espresso blend, an SO espresso, or as French Press type coffee). Layered, folded over itself. Very round in the front with an open/clean and bright finish. Lots of toffee in the maltiness. Opens up with orange blossom notes as cools.

Riuki Peaberry, Kiambu, Kenya , SL-28 varietal $18 retail

Riuki is part of the Nyakiri Coffee Farmers Co-op. Society in Kiambu district of Kenya. This area is old coffee farming land, not far from Nairobi, which is why it is dominated by large coffee estates. Many of the estates here are held by multi-nationals and farm coffee using agribusiness techniques with an eye toward yield. That is why having a cooperative of small-holder farmers in the midst of Kiambu is special, and offers the members some better options than simply selling their coffee cherry to a mill at the day’s going rate.

This lot has a malty sweet scent in the dry fragrance, and the wet aroma has fruit juice notes, a bit of peach and apricot in the light roast. Ruiki Peaberry is certainly a bright coffee, especially in the unfettered lighter roast levels of City to City+. It has a pronounced lemon drop sweetness and citric acidity for days. As it cools, an apricot custard with lemon gelee forms as clear as day.