Citrus • Papaya • Rose Water
Over the last six years, Merit Coffee has watched Finca La Senda’s processing methods evolve and mature, striving to improve their quality each year. Since we started buying from them in 2017, we have given little direction on our end, just cupping feedback and customer feedback after each run, encouraging them to run wild with it. This year, we saw the rewards of their efforts. The Tropical Honey is the best we’ve ever received from their farm. It’s sweet, balanced, and complex with a comforting caramel finish, perfect as the cooler months roll into Texas.
The timeline of this relationship serves as a prime example of coffee sourcing as a whole. Great coffee takes time and should never be rushed. Quality is built through experience and must always have room for ingenuity and experimentation. Nothing in coffee works out as planned, but if you keep an open heart, it always works out better than expected! In most cases, coffee is an annual crop, which means that year-on-year improvement is the only way. This slow and steady approach also means that in this game, patience is not only a virtue but a necessity.
Bringing this back home to the Senda Tropical Honey. There have been years where we waited too long to launch the coffee. There have been seasons when one lot arrived cupping lower than the pre-ship sample. There have been ups and downs, just like any relationship. But it has paid off this year for Merit and our customers. We hope you love it as much as we do!
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