DAK – Honey Dude 250g | Ecuador

About This Coffee

Honey Dude is a natural Typica from Hacienda Pillcocaja, in the Azuay province of southern Ecuador, and it is a coffee DAK buy directly rather than through a trader.

The Crespo family took on the property twelve years ago with the intention of producing coffee on it, and the way the farm is laid out reflects a decision made early and stuck to. The wet mill sits 800 metres from the planting, close enough that cherry reaches processing the same day it comes off the tree rather than sitting in sacks while it is moved. The water used through the mill comes from a well on the property. None of that is glamorous, but the gap between a good lot and an ordinary one is usually decided in those first few hours after picking.

Drying happens on raised African beds under 70% shade, over twelve days. Shade drying is the slower option and it costs bed space, but it stops the surface of the cherry from case-hardening in direct sun while the inside is still wet — which is how a natural ends up tasting muddled.

The variety is Typica, which is worth a word. It is the oldest cultivated Arabica lineage, the plant that most of Latin America was originally built on, and it has largely been replaced because it yields poorly and catches everything going. Farms that still grow it are choosing cup over economics. Ecuador is one of the places where enough old Typica survived for that choice to still be available.

In the cup: honeydew, cookies and maple syrup. Sweet and creamy, with the melon note sitting on top of a thick, syrupy, biscuity base.

Freshly roasted by DAK Coffee Roasters in Amsterdam and imported to the UK by ROAST EDIT Co.