Finca Victrola - Seattle's Only Urban Coffee Farm
What you are looking at is the 2013 crop of Arabica beans grown in our cupping room under natural sunlight at sea level in Seattle. It may not remind you of the bountiful branches lined with bursting red berries in Guatemala or Ethiopia you've seen photos of, but it’s ours and it’s treasured!
Last year the Finca Victrola harvest was even smaller and some cherries were lost post-harvest. Nevertheless, we dried the petite lot from our little tree ‘natural’ style and roasted them using a patented micro-batch method developed in the Victrola Roastery.
Despite our high hopes, the result left much to be desired in the flavor department. The experience left us realizing we shouldn't quit our day job & reminded us that the task of processing cherries in coffee producing countries is a difficult one!
We have learned from our experiences and have plans to utilize some farming practices involving stressing & hydrating/fertilizing the plant to yield as much as we can. Then we’ll try a different drying method and we’ll see what we get. The pressure is on as we only have the one tree to work with and it produces a small amount of cherries only once a year!
Wish us luck & I’ll be sure to update the blog as we go through the harvest, processing & roasting steps here at Finca Victrola.
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