2024 Honduras • Washed
Rootbeer Float (Grevil Sabillon)Parainema
chinotto • key lime • cream
Sourced from friends, this Parainema lot was picked and processed by Grevil Sabillon on his farm in Santa Bárbara, Honduras. Herbal and weird (in the best way), this hybrid cultivar has flavours reminiscent of rootbeer, with a complex herbal quality, refreshing acidity, and creamy sweet finish. Fermented as a traditional washed process using concrete tanks for 24hrs before being washed and dried. Roasted for filter. Bright, herbal and sweet.
- Variety:
- Parainema
- Location:
- Santa Bárbara, Honduras
- Harvest:
- April 2023
- Processing:
- Washed
- Cup Profile:
- chinotto, key lime, cream
Rootbeer Float (Grevil Sabillon)
Grevil farms alongside his wife Hildaly Leiva, where they both produce excellent examples of Parainema (and we buy from both each year).
Parainema
It all started in 2010 when a research institution in Costa Rica gave a specific selection of a cross between Villa Sarchi x Timor Hybrid (then called T-5296) to the Honduras coffee institute. The intention with this hybrid was for its resistance to coffee leaf rust and certain nematode infestations (something of great relevance to farmers in Honduras, especially when intercropping with bananas – whose nematodes interfere with coffee plant roots).
Meanwhile, likely around the time that IHCAFE (The Honduran Coffee Institute) was releasing the seeds for farmers to plant, Hildaly’s neighbour Eulogio (known as Yoyo for short) got what he thought was Pacamara seeds from the Honduran Coffee Institute. Over the next few years, Yoyo shared these seeds with his neighbours and they also started to plant them.
In the subsequent years, various buyers would visit, and were perplexed at this ‘paca-weirdo’ (an affectionate colloquial term we all used at the time). It was harvested when the fruit was deep purple, and the fruit looked oblong and pacamara-like to be sure, but the end of each fruit would sort of stick out a bit and other inconsistencies just made us all wonder.
By the time 2015 rolled around, Yoyo would take 1st place with his “Pacamara”, but IHCAFE revealed that it must have been a miscommunication or a typo because this weird and wonderful variety was Parainema after all.
Processing
Parainema coffee fruit is best harvested beyond the normal red-ripe colour to where it has turned a deep purple colour instead. Much is the case with other similar hybrid varieties that include some Robusta-Arabica hybrid parentage, such as Castillo in Colombia. Once picked, the coffee fruit is depulped before being transferred to a fermentation tank for approximately 20-30 hours. Over that time the microbes and enzymes present in the tank break down the sticky mucilage left on the seed from the depulped fruit. After the fermentation the parchment is washed with water to remove and remaining mucilage. The washed parchment is then taken to be dried for 14 days.