Traditional:

November's traditional coffee subscription, Tajamuco, is named after the farmers centre that serves the local coffee growing community. The centre hosts a varietal garden, cupping facilities and water filtration. The coffee is grown along the steep slopes of Huehuetenango, where the gradient is severe, but the terroir and rainfall is perfect for creating exceptional cup quality.

Guatemalan coffee's always feel like a great fit for the traditional subscription. That's because they're naturally very dense coffees that roast evenly and offer lots of brown sugar sweetness and nut flavour. Tasting notes with this coffee are toasted hazelnut, molasses and milk chocolate.

But it's important we don't get too bogged down in trying to achieve those specific flavours at home. Your style of brewing will highlight different qualities. Our usual quality control involves what we call cupping. This is a very basic brew method that makes it easier to compare and contrast coffees.

We taste each bowl in a similar way to a wine tasting. We slurp and spray the coffee over our palates and appreciate the nuances and taste of every sip. And I'm just going to do a quick demo for you now.

There's a rich quality to this coffee that makes it great for espresso or stovetop brewing in particular, the roast level allows for adding a small amount of milk without masking the flavour of the coffee.

Discovery:

November's Discovery Coffee hails from the Risaralda region of Colombia and the farm of Beatrice Heraldo. We were introduced to Beatrice's coffee through our partnership with El Carmen, one of our best selling coffees and her son, who works in quality control for the association, who produced this coffee.

Beatriz has managed the farm, La Esperanza, since 2002. Her son is a certified Q processor and her daughter, a biologist. Together, they have developed an extended fermentation process, which involves sorted coffee cherry being left in sealed containers before popping and washing.

This gives the coffee a more complex flavour and highlights the dominant fruit flavours. Think baked plum, candied lemon and apricot. But it's important we don't get too bogged down in trying to achieve specific flavours as your style of brewing will highlight different qualities.

Our usual quality control involves what we call cupping the coffees. This is a very basic brew method that makes it easier to compare and contrast coffee. We taste each bowl in a similar way to wine tasting. We slurp and spray the coffee over our palates and appreciate the nuances and taste of every sip. And I'm going to demonstrate that for you now.