News
[powr-social-feed id=767df565_1471392182]La Fem de Las Diosas October 16 2015
Back by popular demand, the exclusive La Fem de Las Diosas (The Goddesses)! Dedicated to more than just growing coffee, La Fem is a dynamic network of community based cooperatives run by women and support true development and respect for women’s rights. Fiercely independent and determined to succeed in the coffee industry, the 250-member cooperative has made much progress, both in terms of sustainable commercial relations for their coffee as well as the promotion of issues such as women’s education, housing and health.
Las Diosas develops project work focused on issues concerning women’s health, universal access to education and economic and moral support for single mothers. Purchasing this coffee you support women’s empowerment, organic agriculture, food security, sustainable development and more.
Once at Desert Sun this coffee is roasted to a medium level and tasting of citrus and spice
Welcome Back Piura August 04 2015
The Norandino Coop and their farms have distinguished the Piura region of Peru, as one of the only producers of this high quality unwashed coffee. Piura Gold is grown in fields located between 3,280 and 5,249 feet above sea level. The unwashed process for this coffee dates back many years and is widely sought after for the unique flavor this process creates. This is one of the most popular Desert Sun single origin offerings and we’re proud to have it back in our single origin family. Piura Gold is characterized by its consistently sweet blend of tropical fruit and caramel flavors, full body and cocoa finish.
Marcala Honeyed of Honduras June 23 2015
We are excited to introduce the newest member of our Single Origin family, Honduras Marcala Honeyed.
Honduras Marcala Honeyed is medium and creamy. This special coffee has a taste of honey, tropical fruit, and vanilla.
The Honey process uses only perfectly ripe cherries and creates a unique coffee that's between a natural and washed processes. If you have had our Piurra Gold (natural process) and Colombia (washed process), think of this Honduras as the middle ground between those coffees. It carries some of the fruity characteristics of the Piurra Gold, but finishes with the more traditional bold flavors of a Colombia.
Information about this coop
Fast facts
Café Orgánico Marcala (COMSA) was founded in December of 2001 with a vision of creating new and alternative development opportunities for small-scale coffee farmers in the region. The organization originally brought together 69 small-scale farmers of Lenca origin who were interested in selling their coffee collectively under the umbrella of a rural credit union.
At that time, the predominant production system in the region used conventional (chemical) practices and sold to the local coyotes, often at prices that did not even cover their production costs. One of the primary founding objectives of COMSA was to seek out and promote new ways of thinking – both in production, moving from conventional to organic production; and in markets, moving from commercial to specialty buyers.
In the beginning the challenges were enormous, as transitioning from conventional to organic practices can cause dramatic drops in production yields. Many members became discouraged and dropped out of the organization. In response, the COMSA BoD and technical team looked for new methods of intensive organics to support their transition and established a strategic alliance with the Corporación Educativa para el Desarrollo Costarricense – CEDECO.
With CEDECO’s support, staff and members of COMSA learned new and innovative practices to transform their lands into integrated organic farms – promoting soil and water conservation, and the preservation of local plant and wildlife. Meanwhile, members began to see improvements in coffee yields, better family relationships and rapid growth in membership for COMSA.
With their initial successes, members became more and more open to experimentation with innovative organic practices. Their organic evolution is as follows: 2001 – use of organic materials, 2006 – application of micro-organisms in compost; 2010 -exploring the use of minerals; 2012 – production of fermented live solutions; 2013 – strengthening the grey matter (brainpower) of their technical team, members and strong educational program with their youth and women’s groups.
Last season COMSA exported some 53,000qq (140 containers) of high quality green coffee, with the unique regional characteristics of Marcala: medium body and pronounced acidity, and nuances of floral, lemongrass, peach, wild berries, etc. This coming harvest, COMSA expects exports to approach 100,000qq (240,000).
In order to assure best quality control, COMSA now manages their own wet and dry processing plants and are organic certified with Biolatina and export under FLO, SPP, Denominación de Origen Marcala (DOP) and UTZ.
May Coffee Workshop May 05 2015
April Training April 07 2015
Ecuador Specialty Lot March 10 2015
The Ecuadorian Bracamores Cup is a limited offering from our friends in the APECAP cooperative. This cooperative blended together the finest Bourbon and Typica coffee cherries from the Benito and Segundo's farms located 1,200-1,400 meters above sea level. This coffee was set aside to be submitted into the Bracamoros Cup competition held in Palanda, Ecuador and placed 8th. This coffee is a limited offering from Desert Sun Coffee Roasters in celebration of the new spring season. Enjoy tasting notes of milk chocolate, vanilla, caramel and mandarin oranges. The coffee finishes with a bright "tangy" acidity and a syrupy body with a sweet lingering aftertaste.
Click Here to order this special coffee
The process:
-A careful cherry selection was conducted selecting fully-ripe and over-ripe red cherries, floated to screen for immature cherries and afterwards depulped.
- After depulping the coffee was fermented for 12 hours in plastic tanks and washed.
- An additional selection was conducted post-ferment, taking care to remove all visible defects.
-Dried on Raised-Bed, ventilated solar driers for 30 days, turned every 2 hours to ensure uniform and consistent drying down to 12% moisture content.
The 5 Elements to a Good Cup of Coffee March 09 2015
According to the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) there are five elements necessary to transform roasted beans into a great tasting beverage:
- Correct ratio of coffee to water. This ratio is the main factor in determining the strength of the brew. The SCAA recommends a ratio between 3.25- 4.25oz. coffee per 1⁄2 gal. water.
- Matching the grind level to your type of brewing equipment. Grind level and type of Brewing method work hand in hand.
- Proper operation of the brewing equipment. This element refers to time of contact between coffee grinds and water, temperature of the water, and the uniform flow of water over the grounds, or turbulence.
- Finding your optimum brewing method. Brewing the same coffee in different brewing equipment greatly affects the taste and body characteristics of the finished beverage.
- Good-quality water. Since an ideal drip coffee beverage is actually more than 98% water, it is crucial to make sure that water is as clean as possible. A filter that removes chlorine and inhibits scale build-up is usually essential in our region for clean taste and proper brewer operation.
Carefully ensuring that all five of the essential elements are in harmony with each other is crucial to setting up a quality brewing process.
But, how can we know if harmony has been achieved? Beyond the simple taste test what else can be done?
Luckily, modern technology offers us a more in-depth view in regards to the basic make-up of a coffee beverage. Through careful analysis of the finished beverage using state of the art diagnosis we can adjust parameters of a given recipe to maintain consistency and quality in every beverage you prepare and serve.
That is why we have developed a brewed coffee analysis program that allows our customers to get as close to the ideal cup as possible. So, let us stop by your business and provide an analysis of your brewed coffee, because the goal of our Brewed Coffee Analysis program is to help you bring out more of what you love about our coffee. Together, we can create the perfect cup for you!
Give us a call today, 970-247-1100, to schedule a brewing analysis at your shop!
10 Blend is here! November 06 2014
Ten, its how many fingers you have, how many toes you have, a perfect score in sporting events, the base for our numbering system, the limit on an amplifier level knob, the top of the scale used to measure many things, a measure of perfect beauty, and many other things.
Ten is also the number of years that Desert Sun Coffee Roasters have been roasting 100% organic, fair trade coffee in Durango Colorado!
To celebrate ten years in business, we have created a very special coffee blend of 3 unique African coffees to tempt your pallet! We call this blend TEN BLEND. Ten Blend is an intense, medium roast coffee blend that is rich and full bodied, with notes of citrus and berries. Ten Blend is different from any blend we have ever done, and it is only available for a short time, so be sure to get yours!
The Coffee Plant October 28 2014
While coffee is one of the worlds most popular drinks, most people are not even sure exactly what it is. Coffee comes from a small tree or shrub like plant that only grows to fruition naturally in the tropics (we actually have a few plants growing at the shop). I digress; coffee beans come from inside the cherry on the plant from which they grow (they are botanically considered seeds, not beans, yet they are referred to as beans because of their similarity). Inside this cherry there are two seeds, the actual green coffee beans.
Coffee Cherry
The two most commercially common species are Arabica and Robusta. The important differences between Arabica and Robusta are in the quality of the cup. Arabica beans produce a superior taste in the cup, being more flavorful and complex than their Robusta counterparts. Robusta beans tend to produce a more bitter brew, containing more caffeine. High quality coffee consists of 100% Arabica beans. Lower quality, cheaper blends may have some proportion of Robusta beans, or they may consist entirely of Robusta.
The plant itself grows 8 – 15 feet tall depending on the variety and growth conditions. In Arabica coffee, clusters of 2-19 white flowers, with five or six petals, grow at the leaf axils on the branches. After pollination, the flowers wither and bring forth a fruit, the ‘cherry’, just over a half inch in diameter, ripening in 7-9 months (9-11 for Robusta). The coffee cherry has a red or yellow skin when ripe (green when unripe). The pulp of the cherry is rich in sugars and water which are glued over the parchment that covers each bean.
Flowers that will turn into coffee cherries
When the cherries are ripe it is time for them to be picked and processed. Only ripe cherries will make the best tasting coffee. All of our coffees are hand picked, as opposed to machine picked, so our producer partners can ensure that the only the best cherries get processed. Processing is the final step before the beans are ready to be shipped out of country of origin.
Thank you for the last DECADE! October 16 2014
Thank you so much for the last 10 years! Please join us in celebration
Weekly Coffee Facts August 21 2014
Hope for the Congolese Coffee Farmer July 11 2014
For more than twenty years the DRC has been facing a war that has left millions dead and several millions displaced. Before the war the region was a hot spot for coffee production, but with little access to international markets and rudimentary equipment the industry withered. To sell their coffee farmers had to smuggle their coffee across Lake Kivu into Rwanda. This plight claimed the lives of one thousand people each year.
Today in the countries eastern hills the coffee bean is bringing hope and a brighter future to the farmers living in the fertile highlands of the Lake Kivu region once again.
Desert Sun’s green coffee importer, Cooperative Coffee is working with farmers in the DRC to bring their coffee to the specialty markets. This means Congolese farmers no longer need to risk their lives crossing into Rwanda.
Coffee farming is now viewed as something to strive for, whereas in these communities before, the role model for wealth and success for rural youth was extortion, or illegal mining, or illegal lumbering of the rain forest. Now that’s changing.
Visit the Sopacdi website to learn more about their promising future.
Quality Coffee May 29 2014
When we talk about quality coffee what exactly does that mean? It means care and attention throughout every step of the process until it reaches the consumers hand. One mishap in any of the steps will produce a poor quality cup of coffee. This is how we ensure quality at Desert Sun Coffee Roasters:
The first step in great coffee starts all the way back to the plant from which it came. The Coffee Plant will be ready when it has ripe cherries on it. All of our coffee is hand picked (as opposed to machine picked) to ensure that only the ripe cherries get selected for use. If un-ripe cherries get picked, they will impart off-flavors in the coffee. Imagine eating an un-ripe strawberry. Yuck. Since coffee is a large source of income for the farmers that we work with, they take a lot of care in picking only the ripe cherries from the coffee plant, and how they dry and handle the coffee before taking it to the coop. At the coop, they will test the farmers’ coffee for moisture levels and if it’s too moist, reject their coffee. The coop then sorts the coffee by size for consistency. They also sort out green coffee for defects. The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) has a list of standards and protocols which you can find here to learn more. In order for coffee to be considered specialty grade, it cannot have any primary defects, a maximum of 5 secondary defects, 0 quakers and a cup evaluation of at least 80 points (This rules out mainstream supermarket coffee). You can see the specifications here or you can click here to read about all the standards and protocols for specialty grade coffee. After the coffee has been rigorously sorted through, the farmer coop is ready to send samples to our importing coop.
Our importing cooperative, Cooperative Coffees, will receive a pre-ship sample for our evaluation. This sample is graded, sample roasted, tested for defects and scored by our on staff cupper/evaluator. They will then determine if the sample is to be accepted or rejected. If accepted, the coffee is shipped to our warehouse where it will again undergo a random sampling. From here we will once again decide whether to accept or reject the sample. Once accepted the coffee will then be available for us to purchase from the coop. We also manage a website called Fair Trade Proof that contains every document for the coffee from farmer to roaster.
Now that the coffee has been through several quality steps, when Desert Sun orders our green beans we can be assured that we are receiving the highest level quality of green bean. But that’s not the end of the quality process. Like I said before, quality must be assured throughout the entire process of the bean. When Desert Sun receives green coffee, the coffee is put into a humidity controlled room to best preserve the bean. Since we are a certified organic processing facility, this also means the beans are not exposed to any sort of chemicals. We begin our quality steps by sample roasting to profile the flavors of the bean. Sample roasting is our small roaster that we can roast small batches of coffee several different ways to see what flavor profiles each bean is capable of. After determining the best profile for each bean we will then re-create that roast in our large roaster. Every bean is roasted and cupped, roasted and cupped, again and again for quality assurance. Coffee cupping is a professional technique for evaluating the characteristics of coffee. The best of the best coffees are what we offer for our Single Origin line up; even our best single origins go into our blends.
Lastly, quality is also about freshness. At Desert Sun we roast to order, meaning that your coffee is fresh when you order it. Once roasted, the coffee is put directly into airtight bags with gas valve. This is because coffee, once roasted, degrades with exposure to air. Airtight bags ensure that the bean is not exposed and stays fresh while allowing the gases from the beans to escape. We wouldn’t want your coffee bag to explode!
Now we have a quality product. Every step in the chain has carefully been attended to and results in the highest quality specialty coffee. Now preparation is of the utmost importance. If coffee is incorrectly prepared, then a poor quality product will still result. The SCAA has a set of standards for quality preparation. It offers a Golden Cup Award to those who have proven their ability to brew coffee to defined standards of quality. Desert Sun has received a Golden Cup Award for our commitment to quality and proven ability to brew coffee according to the standards prescribed by the SCAA.
What is quality coffee? Quality coffee is care and attention to the product from farmer to cup. One missed step along the way can result in loss of quality. At Desert Sun we are passionate about quality and through the networks of small farmers and our importing cooperative we ensure that our coffee gets the attention it deserves, every step of the way.
The Coffee Rust Crisis April 07 2014
Honduras has declared a state of emergency due to the fungus and has lost an estimated 15%-25% in production losses. Guatemala and Costa Rica have been the hardest hit losing an estimated 30%-40%. Co-op Coffees producing partners have said there has been little real support for small-scale, organic farmer groups. Unfortunately, industry and government relief proposals are relying on small intensive, chemical solutions.
So what is Co-op Coffees and Desert Sun Coffee doing to help these farmers? Together we have initiated a special Roya relief fund. This relief fund is adding a per/pound charge collected off the sale of the coffees of our effected partners. These funds are being allocated to partners (in proportion to the volumes we purchase) to be applied to specific projects focusing on re-planting, organic fertilization or intensive organic training programs, food security garden projects or other initiatives to generate additional family income.
In conjunction, we are exploring alternative micro-initiatives, such as linking our purchase contracts to long term credits, supporting greater farmer to farmer exchange of best organic practices and exploring external fund-raising via non-profit organizations. Together we are working with farmers to overcome this epidemic. We’ll keep you posted throughout this year.
Types of Coffee: What is a Blend? March 05 2014
When you think of a blended coffee, think “just a great cup of coffee.” The main difference between blended and single origin coffee is simply that the former comprises a mix of the latter. That is, blends take on the distinct flavor notes and characteristics of distinct single origin coffees and strike a balance of flavor and consistency.
Blends are most often characterized by roast level such as: light, medium, dark or extra dark. When you see a coffee label and read Morning Blend, French Roast or Italian Roast, the nomenclature refers to the coffee’s roast level, or darkness. It’s sort of like "rare" versus "well done" when describing a steak.
One common misconception is that darker, “stronger tasting” coffee contains more caffeine. But in actuality, roast level is unrelated to a coffee's caffeine content. The reason for this is that caffeine molecules in coffee break down the longer the bean is exposed to heat. Thus it's the lighter roasts that tend to pack the most buzz!
The coffee roast level gradient illustrated. (Credit: Sweet Marias)
Blends comprise our flagship coffees. Their complexity and character lies in the artistic approach to creating a cup that is balanced and consistent year round. We combine a sweet coffee, a bright coffee, and an earthy coffee to create balance. Blending is creative and fun, but also labor intensive, and must be intelligently coordinated with green coffee supplies. What makes blending fun for us is that we’re given the freedom to express our own, unique style.
So next time your sipping a fresh cup of Desert Sun Black Velvet or Southwest Morning, note the varying complexity and flavor that makes each blend its own, and hopefully you'll be able to appreciate them all!
Types of Coffee: What is a Single Origin? February 19 2014
Single origin coffees are cultivated, harvested and processed from a single region in a coffee producing country. The coffee varietal, climate conditions, altitude, harvesting and processing each play a role in developing the character of a single origin coffee. Consequently, a single origin coffee from the horn of Africa takes on a dramatically different taste profile than a coffee grown in the jungle of Indonesia, and these distinctions can be a lot of fun to pick out!
Coffee connoisseurs often prefer lightly roasted single origins for their nuance, delicacy and challenge. For example, is a hint of mustiness in Sumatran coffee from the Gayo region a defect, or part of the coffee’s coveted character? Or the taste of blueberries in Ethiopia Sidamo; is it ferment or fruit?
Map of coffee producing countries around the world, with the top ten producers in yellow. (Credit: Natioinal Geographic)
At Desert Sun we offer an assortment of lightly roasted single origin coffees from around the world. These coffees, however, come and go seasonally and are limited in supply; so when one runs out, it might not be available for a while. Also, being a fruit, there is no guarantee that one season’s coffee crop will taste the same as the last.
You might see why single origins are not always the best choice for a “house coffee” at a coffee shop or restaurant, but do have fun with them and use them to learn more about the nuances of coffee flavors and origins. Check out a list of our current single origin coffees available!
Announcing Our New Website February 11 2014
At Desert Sun Coffee Roasters we have learned a lot in ten years, like how to fine-tune our roaster to optimize our blends, and how to bag a thousand pounds of fresh coffee without spilling any beans (okay, a few always manage to get away), but we understand there's always room to improve.
It dawned on us that our website could be improved. We wanted to make the process of buying delicious Desert Sun Coffee online as easy and straightforward as possible for you, are valued customers. So (drum roll please)...
Welcome to the new desertsuncoffee.com!
Here are some of the big changes:
- Learn about and shop for our 100% organic, fair trade coffees and enjoy a smoother, simpler checkout process!
- We now offer FREE shipping on all orders over $49!
So take a look around, cruise through site, and please let us know what you think! And as always, thank you for choosing Desert Sun Coffee as your source for the best organic, fair trade coffee roasted in the Rocky Mountains!
Cheers,
The Desert Sun Team
It dawned on us that our website was due for a refresh. We wanted to make the online coffee shopping process easier for youIt dawned on us that our website was due for a refresh. We wanted to make the online coffee shopping process easier for you- Previous
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