Gonzalo Hernandez - Costa Rica - Wush Wush - Honey
More awesome coffee from the world's largest private collection of coffee species and varieties, Coffea Diversa! Wush Wush is an Ethiopian landrace discovered in Wushwush, a small town in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Keffa zone. This is a very pure and sweet expression of this famous variety. Expect a floral and aromatic coffee with notes of rosehip, dragonfruit, and white tea.
Info
Farm
Coffea Diversa is a botanical coffee garden and the world's largest private collection of coffea. It is owned and run by Gonzalo Hernández, who has been collecting and cultivating rare and unique coffee seeds for over 25 years.
Microclimate
Biolley has a humid tropical microclimate with warm temperatures year-round, typically 20–30 °C, and high annual rainfall, especially during the May–November rainy season. Its forested, mountainous surroundings create stable, lush conditions ideal for growing high quality coffee.
Future
Gonzalo believes that the sustainabilitiy of this type of coffee farming is immense, as there is no genetically uniform population like there is in a mono-varietal plantation. These traditional farms are more susceptible to pests and diseases and lack the biodiversity of a 'multi' farm.
Elevation
Coffea Diversa sits at 1200-1350 masl in Biolley, a remote part of southern Costa Rica on the border with Panama. The farm borders La Amistad International Park, which is the largest forest reserve in Central America with 500,000 hectares of primary rainforest.
Variety
Wush Wush is a wild Ethiopian variety found near the village of Wushwush in southwestern Ethiopia. It is a tall, slender tree with elongated leafs similar to many other Ethiopian landraces and Typicas. The yield is low, ripening is long and the cup quality is very high.
Process
This lot has a short oxidation phase to soften the fruit before pulping and being laid to dry on raised beds in it's mucilage.
Genetics
"We have multiple botanical variants growing in the same ‘terroir’ and microclimate. So the climatic variable is fixed, and one can assess solely the genetic expression of each variety."
Cupping through Coffea Diversa's catalogue is truly a coffee enthusiasts golden ticket. It is life-changing. Coffee, like any industry, has trends. The most recent was the 'fermentation' or processing trend, the next, or current, is certainly that of varieties and the exploration of coffee plant genetics. You then realise Gonzalo began Coffea Diversa in 2003, and that the rest of us are just late to the party. In fact the industry as a whole is still catching up, World Coffee Research lists only 53 coffee varieties in their 'Varieties Catalogue'...
Coffea Diversa
“The name Coffea Diversa is latin for 'diversity of coffee'.”
The name seems fitting. The variety garden in Biolley, Costa Rica, currently holds 850 coffee varieties, all with 10 plants of each. Gonzalo selects the most unique and interesting coffees to grow in small plots as 'production'. Gonzalo now has coffee gardens in both Guatemala and the Jamaican blue mountains, to expand production and assess how these varieties grow in different terroirs. They also need the land: some of these varieties are so incredibly low-yielding that expansion was necessary. Take Kapataka for example, Gonzalo has 750 plants of this rare species, it yielded 4 pounds of coffee...
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