Ride and Grind coffee

We were contacted on social media by Ride and Grind about their stunning looking coffee and they asked us if we would like to sample a couple of their blends. Not only does the coffee look fantastic, is tastes amazing as well.

You can order from the Ride and Grind website HERE

Thank you to Ride and Grind.

Sure to warm up your engine and get your motor running every morning, Ride and Grind coffee beans are balanced, well-structured and rounded.

With fabulously quirky packaging, which will definitely take pride of place in our kitchen, these cans of fuel are packed with coffee beans which have been roasted on a hand built roaster in a shed in Edinburgh. 

From a brand that operates out of a 1974 side car, its founder combines his passion for quality coffee and motorcycles to create a striking visual for this delicious product. 

We tried the Brazilian “Motor Oil”, with red grape, smooth toffee and hazelnut notes, and “Honduras” with a tropical taste.

Honduras – Carlos Alfredo Estevez

• Process: Natural
• Varietal: Red Catuai
• Altitude: 800-1000 masl
• Taste notes: Strawberry, pear, shortbread, tropical
• 250gr

Carlos Alfredo Estevez is a second generation coffee farmer from the Corquin area of Copan. Carlos’ parents cultivated various different crops in their lifetime, from sugar cane to tobacco, riding waves of price fluctuations until they eventually settled on coffee farming, which for their generation was fairly profitable.

Carlos and his brothers inherited the small amount of land they had and continued to produce coffee, until recently when his brother changed to cucumber farming. Carlos lost his land some years ago since it wasn’t making any money and was just causing the family to take on debt. Carlos is a trained agronomist and started out with Aruco as a technician, visiting farmers and giving training on farm management.

Four years ago when Falcon started the quality uplift project in Honduras, Carlos was appointed as manager of micro-lots and specialty coffee. This has seen him learn about all aspects of coffee quality, covering plant nutrition through to innovative fermentation and drying methods, all in order to coax the most out of the coffee in the area.

Having seen the success of the micro-lot project, Carlos decided to buy new land and start farming coffee again. He found land in the higher lands in the area, all above 1450masl, where coffee quality is higher. Carlos grows caturra, lempira, parainema and Ihcafe 90, some of which was recently planted and some was already growing when he bought the land. The name of this farm is El Supte. The producers will receive about 70% of the FOB price for their micro lots.

All the processing for the ML’s takes place at the Aruco mill to centralise and have greater control over the process to create consistent procedures but also to reduce the risk on the producer.

The mill is also at 800masl which gives a drier more stable climate to dry the coffee compared to up at the farms where the weather can be less predictable. The coffee will be delivered to the mill where they assess the cherry (take Brix) and decide on the process for the coffees depending on space and what the producer has done already. The cherry is cleaned and washed and then floated to remove any immatures. The coffee is then taken to the beds where it is dried for between 20 – 30 days weather depending where it is turned hourly.

Brazil – Fazenda Zaroca

Process – Natural
Varietal – Topazio
Altitude – 1150 masl
Tasting notes – Red grape, Toffee, Hazelnut

250gr