Every year Aida Batlle creates an extremely unusual and outstanding selection of the best peaberries from her three farms Kilimanjaro, Mauritania and Los Alpes. With a mix of Bourbon and Kenia grown across the farms, a peaberry selection processed by the washed method bodes for a exclusive profile of crisp fruits, sweet caramel and intense aromas. We only have three vac packs left of this coffee, and boy do we plan to enjoy it before it goes!
Aida’s Grand Reserve is a legendary coffee, and we’re extremely honoured to be able to introduce this to the UK for the first time, especially due to the way we’ve come about roasting it. When Gwilym Davies won the WBC in 2009, Aida very generously wanted to give him this bag of Grand Reserve as a prize. Gwilym equally generously passed it on to us, as he doesn’t roast much from his cart on Whitecross Street! There is no way we could sell this coffee for any sort of profit, so we are passing on the love and good fortune that we’ve been shown and we’re giving all proceeds from the sale of this remarkable and delicious coffee towards the medical bills of our fellow friend Ricardo Espitia, the executive director of the Consejo in El Salvador, who suffered a stroke in January last year.
I first met Ricardo almost six years ago, and it was his tireless efforts to promote his countries lovely coffees that set El Salvador up to become my favourite origin. We were thrilled to have him come visit us at the roastery the summer before he fell ill, as we had just taken delivery of our seasonal El Salvadors for him to taste!
When I went to El Salvador for the Cup of Excellence last year it was good to see that Ricardo was doing better, but there is still a ways to go until we’ll have the pleasure of seeing him back at work, bringing coffees from El Salvador into the spotlight.
We should be clear about this ”“ when we say we’ll donate all proceeds we mean that for every £20 you spend on a bag, we’ll send £20. We’ll cover the cost of roasting, bagging, credit card fees and all the rest.
We hope you will take this rare opportunity to not only try one of the most delightful coffees in the world, but to help us let the good will and grace continue to flow through the simple pleasure of a great cup of coffee.
