Nicaragua Maracaturra (January 2016 Roastery Subscription Coffee)
The January 2016 Reserve Subscription Coffee is Nicaragua Maracaturra. I just recently got mine! Like all the Reserve Subscription coffees, it is roasted at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room, located at 1124 Pike Street, here in Seattle. I’ve talked about the Roastery often: one lesser-known step of the process of coffee roasting is the “green coffee loading pit.” I strongly suggest visiting that older article. There are so many steps from bean to your cup!
In late October (I think it was 10-26-15*) I dropped by the Roastery and saw a batch of this Nicaragua Maracaturra coffee being roasted for a shipment to Starbucks stores in the China – Asia – Pacific market. This coffee was roasted a couple of times in that October – November time frame for shipment overseas. Included are a few pictures so you can see the coffee at a few points in the roast profile and the burlap sack that it comes from the farms to Starbucks in.
That day in October when I caught up with this coffee being roasted for the CAP market, I talked to Master Roaster Josh about what the “Maracaturra” part of the name of the coffee means. Here’s what he told me:
“This varietal produces an unusually large bean. It’s as large as the Longberry, if not longer and a fatter bean. Coffee Roaster Josh says “It’s easily the largest bean I’ve ever roasted.” The word “Mara” means “crowded” – the coffee cherries are so big on the branch that they look “crowded.” Caturra is the varietal. So the coffee is “mara caturra” – “Crowded caturra” varietal because of what the big, crowded cherries look like on the coffee plant itself.”
I love learning this kind of thing!
Note for the Starbucks Reserve tasting card collectors: There is no nice U.S. tasting card for this coffee.
