Featured Roast/Torréfaction de la semaine: Big Bean!

This week’s featured roast is a Maracaturra Micro-lot from Santa Celia. Santa Celia is in San Ramon in the coffee region of Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

The bean shows some of its ancestry in its size. The Maracaturra or Maracatu is a coffee variety out of Brazil. A crossing of the Caturra and Maragogype varieties – the later producing some of the largest coffee beans found.

Size is not necessarily an indication of quality (in regions like Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya it is used as such, but the Ethiopian Yergacheffe beans are often quite small), but the Santa Celia does have a good flavour. I was actually surprised at the intensity of of this coffee. I had expected good flavour, but with less intensity. I find some dried fruit coming through, vanilla. One might even make some comparisons between this and some beans from the Oceanic coffee regions like Sumatra. A big bean with big flavour!

Nicaragua Santa Celia Maracaturra Screen 20 UTZ
San Ramon, Matagalpa, Nicaragua
1000-1150 meters above sea level
Soil Defficiency in Zinc, Phosphorus, and Calcium
Variety: Maracaturra
Sun Dried and Guardiola (when weather demands)
Sorting by Size, Density, and Color

Warning! At home I use a hand grinder to grind my coffee. It took forever to grind this bean. The grinder seemed to have trouble grabbing the large beans! Still, nothing beats the aroma of fresh ground coffee! Worth it!