Its a special cup and I hope you get a chance to try it.

Another of our direct trade coffees, this time located in the North Yungas region of Bolivia in the colony of Bolinda. David Vilca (who owns the farm and named it after himself) migrated from La Paz to the farm 15 years ago.

He bought this 7 hectares farm as security for his family to make sure they could support himself and them. When he took over he only had 1 acres which was planted with coffee. But after 2 years he became comfortable with the farm and a new interest, he became passionate about coffee and decided to cultivate more. Now he has 5 acres of coffee (of which we have bought it all). He has very little outside help with the farm apart from direct family where his wife helps him greatly.

The varietals on the farm are Caturra , Catuai and Criolla. the farm is under constant improvement, David is now removing much of Criolla and focusing on Typica and Catuai for cup quality reasons.

This is a wonderfully sweet cup as you have come to expect from Bolivia, milk chocolate, with walnut hints to it, thats is so very familiar. Where this coffee opens up is in its acidity, think Pear and juniper berry mashed up in a pestle and mortar (with a little of that walnut and chocolate too) and you have the most delicious and complex coffee. Theres hints of spice and citrus in this taste mash up that makes every cup different, making it evolves and change through its temperature range.

Farm: Finca David Vilca
Founded: 2001
Province: Caranavi
Region:North Yungas
Altitude: 1,570-1,600 m.
Hectares total Farm: 7 hectares.
Hectares Coffee plantation: 5 hectares
Quantity Coffee plants : 20.000
Shade: Natural shade by Inga sp. (Sinquili) and others.
Coffee Varieties: Caturra, Criolla and Typical
Rainfall Period: Nov– February
Average Temperature: 8°C ≤ 19°≥ 30°C
Soil Type: Clay and shaly
Other Crops Grown: Citrus Fruits( orange, tangerine) advocate
Average Age Of Coffee Plants: 8 to 12 years old, Now renovating planta- tions with Caturra and Typical
Certification: Organic

You can buy it here

OK well some one did but only now, the Phil Ter video wasnt on the launch post so its here.

Why? Well, I think filter blends can be cool, and they can be fun, but they get a bad rep. This scared me off, and did so until we were at the end of our new blends. Even since then it’s caused me some sleepless nights.

So why use a filter blend? The same can be asked of “why make an espresso blend?” We have espresso blends in order to add a more rounded / complex experience to the espresso, and some people will have you believe that you HAVE to blend for great espresso. This is something I have disagreed with for years; single estate espresso can be amazing, but I’ve always said that blends also have their place.

These same people who don’t like single origin espresso are the same people who will argue that filter needs to be single estate, and that filter blends have no place.

Well, everything in coffee has its place and this is our attempt to make an amazing blend that will be complex and challenging in a brewed coffee, but retain integrity in the cup. For me a great filter blend should be sweet, fruity, smooth, and balanced.

So we took some of our favourite filter treats and put them together in this challenging blend. I think it really works and I hope you do too.

50% Colombian Oporapa
30% El Salvador La Ilusion Bourbon
20% Brazil Sau Judas

Like all our blend names there’s a great personal link in here too, this time for me and my wife, and if you watch this week’s In My Mug I’ll be sure to tell you.

You can buy it here

Some rather cool wallpapers here

As always on these things now we have a great video to launch it, I hope you enjoy.

Its my top ten coffees of 2011. There were some rules. I could only choose a country once, it wasn’t just on the taste but a collection of feelings, relationships and god dam amazing coffees.

I think I’ve changed it 5 or six times since recording, so nothing should be taken too seriously, but was fun to put together.

Enjoy.

We want to wish you all a very merry one in the only way Has Bean coffee knows (in a video)

This is last years card, with Roland in the Roland cart. But I am sure many of you may not have seen it, so its brand new, shiny new

It looks like this may be a push too far and the take up doesn’t seem so amazing, so I may be doing this on my own head, but we plough on. I hope you support it but I expect to fall flat on my face.

I expect this as the live audience thing has taken off as I thought it might. I only had a couple of people express interest; I guess seeing a warehouse in Stafford is not as exciting to others as it is to me, so maybe another time for that. We will not be having the “live audience”.

But the live-from-coffee-shops-around-the-world goes ahead on September 25^th, as does the Google+ recording. Here’s the list of shops wanting to be involved, as it stands:

3fe, Lower Grand Canal Street, Dublin, Ireland

6 / 8 Kafe, Temple Row, Birmingham

Colonna and Smalls, Princess Street, Bath

Harlequin / the Attic King Square, York

North Tea Power, Tib Street, Northern Quarter Manchester

Transcend Coffee, Edmonton, Canada

But you can also do this at home, and here is how to be involved.

Number One “Get a Google+ account”

If you do not have an account, email me I’ll send you an invite, although I’m fairly sure you can just get one now.

Take a look here for more info.

This will allow you to participate in the live tasting.

Number Two “Download voice and video chat”

This sounds difficult, but it’s easy and free. Just go here and install.

Number three “Friend me up baby!!!”

Google+ is a bit like facebook – you can see what people are talking about. I haven’t got into it 100% yet but I’m trying. Add me to your circles (don’t worry, it’s just for this. If you hate me afterwards just stop following – I won’t know and understand that I can get a bit boring!)

I’m here

Number Four “Be ready on Sunday the 25th of September at 3pm”

I’ll be there from 2 pm in my little Google+ hangout, and I’ll post here on the blog and on facebook and on twitter and start making a noise. You come onto Google+ and join the hangout I will have created. You’ll get to talk to other people who are In My Mug subscribers, and we all get to hear from the coffee shops participating, and hopefully have some fun.

Number Five “ask for your coffee to be sent early”

I know most of your coffees arrive on the Saturday, which will arrive in time. But if you are not one of these lucky people email me with a request to send early and we will send on the Wednesday. We won’t send early unless you ask, but if this helps do take advantage.

I will be ready to answer any questions you may have about this on email, but also from around 1pm on the Sunday on the hangout, so feel free to dive in then.

Also try and make it to one of the coffee shops who are hosting for this. They have been kind enough to support “In My Mug live” and I’d love you to support them. They will be giving away coffee to try (as they didn’t know but were giving it to them as a freebie), so support them by buying something from them too !!!

In My Roastery Episode number 7 is here for your enjoyment / pain. Everything is coming together nicely looks like we will move in next week so maybe a number 8 before we do that.

Let me know your thoughts

We plod on and hopefully will be finished eventually. We live in hope .

Fast forward 8 years and this coffee has remained a very important part of our line up, called Breakfast Bomb, It remains a popular blend but very little has changed with it over those 8 years, breakfast bomb has stayed the same. So it was time to revamp it and bring it up to a modern day standard we can be proud and happy with as we are all the other blends.

So what the idea of Breakfast Bomb (as if I have to say, the names gives it away a little). Its a big bold, in your face, unsubtle wake up blend. It works well in espresso or filter (for my tastes) and is a pick me up. The blend for many years consisted of 80% sumatra and 20% robusta, that was it. We swapped the robusta as we went along for the very best one we had at that time but it stayed pretty much the same.

There is a reason that it has not changed, it kind of works, Indo’s I tend to find have a far bigger effect on me personally with caffeine and the robusta give it more of a kick. Its a balancing act with that robusta to get the effect but not the taste.

So why change it? Its a bit of a sledge hammer without real deliciousness, as the robusta does change the sumatra quite a bit. But because of the huge tastes going on its really tough to change as no shrinking violets are allowed

So the new blend still consists of Sumatra Raja Batak, the Sumatra we have ben working with for a while, and for me is the best sumatra I think we have ever had. Its a dream to blend with, big body without any of the dirt. The next component is the Ethiopian Shakiso Natural one of our special finds of this year, a huge natural. For the final component we keep the robusta, but not any old robusta. We use 20% Indian Kapi Royal Robusta and we went to a huge amount of trouble to find this one. When we sourced this one we spent a lot of time and effort finding one that was the best robusta we have ever tasted, grown at 2100 mtr above sea level hand picked pulped natural process and lots of time taken in the preparation. Is it delicious on its own ? No is the simple answer. But what it brings to the blend is a caffeine kick that only Robusta’s have, it brings a chunk of body, but because its 20% it doesn’t bring any of that rubbery robusta taste along.

So this is our modern day take on an old classic, in the cup its Overtly Big, Huge mouthfeel,Lairy and Full of Caffeine

50 % Sumatra Raja Batak
30 % Ethiopian Shakiso
20 % Indian Kaapi Royal Pulp Nautral Robusta

You can buy it here

Until then you can watch this