SHADY LANE

A LIGHT DARK ROAST:
People have been drinking dark roasts for over two-centuries and it seems both short-sighted and careless to ignore history. And yet if you roast too dark, all of the unique flavours of origin are lost and you simply taste the bitter burn and one-dimensional char of the roast process itself.

Shady Lane is a new way of roasting that uses a gentle approach and precise technique to strike a compromise: it engages in our coffee past with an approachable low-acidity  but also showcases the deeply sweet and delicious chocolaty notes possible with particular origins. It is new and old because as the Pavement song concludes, "the worlds collide, but all that we want is a shady lane". 

ORIGIN:

Daniel Muñoz comes to coffee by way of sugar. His family farm grew sugar cane and he started a panela factory in San Augustin before purchasing his Villa Camila farm. His aim was to grow speciality level coffee and interesting varieties, like this Pink Bourbon. As he states, “We have to have a life with purpose, we have to take care of the environment, we have to improve our quality of life, we have to commit ourselves 100% to quality” which is clear with this incredible lot. 

His coffee comes by way of the grower initiative Monkaaba.I had the great pleasure of meeting Esnaider Ortega Gomez and Didier Ortega from Monkaaba last year, when they came and visited the roaster with Brendan Adams from Semilla. The collectivist project that started with seven families seeking a cooperative “based on the principles of open access and community support”. As Brendan explains, the “Monkaaba project has blossomed into a tight-knit network of 60 families, all of whom are driven by an interest to know more about their coffee, how it might be improved, and how they can form resilient, stable relationships”. For information on the group's crucial work, please read more: here.

FLAVOUR:
We are huge fans of Daniel's coffee, which is why its so frequently on our filter menu but with this year's spring crop we wanted to showcase its deeper and lower notes with an espresso roast profile. The cup opens on a gentle apricot note that tastes like fruit in cooked in a crumble cake. There is a wonderfully creamy nut that tastes like hazelnut butter before the cup goes to a deep sarsaparilla or root beer flavour with a sprinkling of cocoa. It takes milk well but this pink bourbon is also incredibly dynamic as a shot.