Advent W2 Mystery Coffee Reveal - Sheep and Raven

Week 2 of Mystery Coffee Advent Calendar turned out to be even more difficult than Week 1. Time to share the details about our second coffee.

About the farm and coffee:

Vergel was primarily a vegetable farm prior to entering the coffee world. Around ten years ago Elias expressed interest in segregating a portion of their farm to try and grow coffee. Interestingly enough somehow Elias got his hands on some incredibly unique coffee saplings.

Now world-renowned for their koji application onto both natural and washed processes the two brothers started a new company called Forest coffee which also invests heavily in their surrounding farms. Teaching others to process their coffee with new techniques as well as bring their coffees to the international market.

This coffee is one of El Vergel's jewels, it was developed based on a crazy experiment thought by Martha, the mother of the Bayter brothers, and there comes the name "Queen Gesha", and not only because of the essence of the process itself but by the characteristics developed through this new process which has come to create a unique floral profile with an intense blue and purple type of flavours.

About the processing:

This coffee was put through a Carbonic Maceration of 96 hours, and submerged in water to control even more the temperature, which helped the coffee develop more towards the floral and delicate flavours of Gesha. After the fermentation was done, the coffee was dried at a particular micro-lot dryer at El Vergel, which works with shallow temperatures (28 to 32 celsius degrees) and that has to be moved manually 3 to 5 times a day.

About the selection:
Comments by Dawid

Quite a few things going on here, but all of them have a one thing in common - competition. Firstly, this coffee was sourced by World Barista Champion Aga Rojewska and roasted by World Coffee Roasting Champion Felix Teiretzbacher. Second of all, this is the most expensive coffee in the whole set and one which truly can be called a competition style coffee. Queen Gesha is used all around the world in both Brewers and Barista champs every year. This particular lot was shipped from Colombia to Europe last September - it's the freshest as you can get.

Why Queen? I remember a lot of people liking this particular lot roasted by Manhattan in the last two years. Some of you even called it one of the best coffees ever. I think it's a good example of highly processed coffee which can still taste good (even for clean processing lovers) without being overwhelming. Definitely tricky to brew but once you got it right with low PPM water and faster brew times (at around 2 minutes), Colombian Gesha natty flavours were definitely there.

Sheep and Raven is also a new roaster for Mystery Coffee League. I hope you liked it, and we will be able to invite them back next year. The main focus of this project is competition style coffee, which is a perfect fit for 2024 season.

Patrick J was the only person which got both the roaster and bonus question correct. Congrats!

The winner of Week 2 round is andreucs with 23 points. Followed by Patrick J with 22 points and For with 21 points.

TOP3 of Week 2 round:
1. andreucs - 23 points
2. Patrick J - 22 points
3. For - 21 points

In the race for the Acaia Lunar, FdeBarista is leading with 78 points. Closely followed by For with 77 points and Jarg with 75 points.

TOP3 of Q4 2023 round:
1. FdeBarista - 78 points
2. For - 77 points
3. Jarg89 - 75 points

In the season end standings, Jarg89 is leading with 224 points. Followed by FdeBarista with 219 points and Sami with 212 points.

TOP3 of 2023 Season:
1. Jarg89 - 224 points
2. FdeBarista - 219 points
3. Sami - 212 points

Schedule for the remaining weeks:
Week 3 - submission deadline Dec 23, reveal Dec 24
Week 4 - submission deadline Dec 30, reveal Dec 31

Roaster's line-up for the next three months:
DECEMBER 23 - Mystery Coffee Advent Calendar
JANUARY 23 - Rozali from Berlin 🇩🇪
February 23 - AMOC from Rotterdam 🇳🇱

Mystery Coffee League is sponsored by Acaia, 1zpresso, Kruve and ACME.

You can join Mystery Coffee League at anytime! Just join our Discord and feel free to ask any questions!

Thanks for the pics Herman!