Good morning and welcome to today’s review of Traction Coffee Roasters’ Villa Maria, a coffee from El Salvador!
Other reviews in this series: Sumatra Kerinci | Stable (blend)
TRACTION COFFEE ROASTERS EL SALVADOR VILLA MARIA
Traction Coffee Roasters is a fairly new company that just recently celebrated their first anniversary. Traction started as a conversation among friends while out on their mountain bikes, and eventually the idea grew legs. Co-founded by Shawn Neer, Mike Murfitt and Noe Lopez, Traction is named for that necessary thing you need when on a bike, and their goal is to, “help you get a grip, move forward and gain Traction.” They’re roasting coffee out of the mountains of Colorado and, so far, I’ve enjoyed the other selections they sent me.
This morning’s coffee is their Villa Maria, from El Salvador. This coffee is grown by the Valiente family, who own two farms in El Salvador. Traction doesn’t put a lot of info on their site, so that’s about all there is to share. Doing some digging around on their social media platforms, I couldn’t find other details, either. We do get tasting notes of, “honey, pomegranate, cherry.” I think this coffee is either a natural or a honey process as there was a lot of the fruitiness I associate with non-wet processed coffees in the fragrance of the ground coffee and in the flavors in the cup. Central American naturals tend to be quite a bit more subtle than their African cousins, but this coffee seemed to have a lot more fruitiness than I would expect from a washed coffee, so I’m pretty sure it was a natural or a honey. Unfortunately, this coffee lot was limited in size and Traction have sold out of it before I could get this posted for you, but check out their other selection, linked above!
I’m using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with a Kalita 155 filter. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind and I pour my water through a Melodrip to minimize coffee bed agitation during brewing. This coffee got a 30 second bloom and the total time came in around 3:20.
The aroma from the brewed coffee has a lot of plums in it, for me. Taking a sip, this is a medium-heavy bodied coffee and there is a lot of “red fruit” right up front in the sip. I’m getting more fresh red plum and the suggestion of the tartness that comes from plum skins (although dialed way back compared to an actual plum!). There is some cherry here, too, and I’m getting some cranberry out of this coffee. I made fresh cranberry sauce just a few days ago for Thanksgiving, so that flavor is still very alive in my brain! These fruits are all sugary and sweet, as well as having an inherent acidity and tartness, and that’s true in this coffee, too. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a honey-like sweetness to the cup that gives it some balance. There’s a hint of a floral note in the second half of the sip and this coffee finishes sweet and has a long aftertaste that is a bit tart and has a lot of cherry and cranberry, too.
This is a really good coffee! With more thought, this can’t be a washed coffee, and there’s enough fruit here that I’m going to call it as a natural. Hopefully one of the Traction guys will let me know on Instagram after I post this review there! If flavors were colors, this coffee would scream “red!” It’s fresh, sweet, balanced, fruity and has a lot of high end without being harsh, a lot like cranberry sauce loaded with sugar. There’s really no ferment to speak of, so if this is a natural, it was handled very well from farm to bag, and for only being a year into roasting, this is testament to what Traction has in store for the future, I hope!