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2018: A Year In Review

Though 2018 has come and gone, we’re so grateful for the recognition our coffee gained. In 2018, we won four bronze medals at the Golden Bean coffee competition. We also earned five sky-high scores from Coffee Review in 2018. All of us here at Durango Coffee Company are looking forward to an equally exciting 2019!

Bringin’ Back Bronze At Golden Bean

Golden Bean is the largest global roasters competition and conference, and in 2018, we won big. There were over 900 coffees submitted for the chance to win this year, and we took home four (yes, four!) bronze medals. We’d say we couldn’t believe it, but that would only be the partial truth. We’re honored to be recognized for the work it takes to make the best coffee in Colorado.

Check out the Golden Bean medals on two of our best coffees: Las Lajas Perla Negra and Kenya Mwiria. Then, read on for more details about each award-winning coffee.

Perla Negra — Three-Time Award Winner

Our Las Lajas Perla Negra, which means “Black Pearl,” won three bronze medals at the Golden Bean this year. Perla Negra brought home the bronze in three distinct categories: Single Origin Espresso, Milk-Based Espresso, and Espresso.

Third generation coffee farmers Francisca and Oscar Chacon grow this award-winning coffee in the best part of Costa Rica. On their farm, Las Lajas, the Chacones experiment with naturals, and the amazing results are different than anything previously grown in Costa Rica. The Chacones’ farm is also one of the few farms in Costa Rica to grow organic coffee.

Perla Negra has a round body, tropical fruits, citric acidity, and tastes delicious a variety of ways. From pour over to cold brew or the award-winning espresso, this is some of the best coffee you’ll ever have. Check out what our customers have to say about our Las Lajas Perla Negra:

 

Kenya Mwiria — Bronze Medal Winner

This year, our Kenya Mwiria won a bronze medal in the Pour Over Filter category at the Golden Bean. Kenya Mwiria is a microlot coffee, which means that the trees which grow this coffee produce extra special beans. The coffee beans are phenomenal, better than anything the other trees on the farm produce, so they are isolated and cared for specially. Mwiria, which is grown in the Nyeri district of Kenya, shows firm acidity with hints of dark chocolate, black currant, and grapefruit.

We like it brewed in the Kalita Wave — a stainless steel pour over dripper that maximizes evenness in the extraction of coffee.

Coffee Review 2018

That’s not it for 2018! Our coffees also scored highly on one of the world’s leading coffee guides: Coffee Review. The website launched in 1997 and pioneered the 100-point coffee rating. Coffee Review‘s goal is to help coffee lovers select the very best quality coffee in a way that also “reward[s] farmers and roasters who invest time, passion, and capital in producing high quality coffee beans.” Each month, Coffee Review publishes a tasting report complete with coffee reviews. Every year Coffee Review also shares their top 30 coffees with the nearly one million visitors of the site.

Perla Negra, 95

Our three-time bronze Golden Bean-winning Perla Negra ranked #14 on Coffee Review’s list of the Top 30 Coffees of 2018. It also tied for the highest rating (95) in a tasting of natural-processed, single-origin espressos in Coffee Review’s August 2018 tasting report. According to Coffee Review, a score of 95 means “Exceptional,” “Perfect in structure, flawless, and shockingly distinctive and beautiful.”

Coffee Review describes our Perla Negra as “…Deeply rich, crisply sweet, fruit- and chocolate-toned…” Ultimately “A bold, lively, expressive natural-processed Costa Rica espresso, with suggestions of tropical fruit and chocolate fudge as the richly sweet throughlines,” this highly-praised coffee will not disappoint even the toughest of critics.

Kenya Mwiria, 92

In 2018, our Kenya Mwiria also scored well into the 90’s on Coffee Review. With a high score of 92, Coffee Review describes our Kenya Mwiria as “Rich sweet, floral and chocolaty…Crisp, sweet structure with balanced acidity; smooth, satiny mouthfeel…” A score of 92 indicates an “An exceptional, solid coffee with some excitement and distinction in aroma and flavor.”

Our Kenya Mwiria also tied for the fourth-highest rating in a cupping of coffees from U.S. Mountain State roasters in Coffee Review’s October 2018 tasting report. The bottom line is that our Kenya Mwiria is “A chocolate-toned, floral Kenya cup, with bittersweet notes of citrus zest, pleasingly roasted toward the darker end of medium.”

We also received high ratings for three additional coffees in 2018: a 94 for our Guatemala Retiro Natural Process, a 93 for Ethiopia Misti Valley, and 93 for our Rwanda Remera Kabeza.


2018 was a great year for our best coffees. Tell us if you plan on trying any of our award-winning and highly-scored coffees in the new year!

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