DAK – Juice Box Espresso 250g | Colombia

About This Coffee

Juice Box is a washed Chiroso from Urrao, in Antioquia, roasted here for espresso. The name is doing honest work — this is a coffee built around acidity and fruit clarity rather than around body, and it tastes closer to a washed Ethiopian than to most of what Colombia sends out.

That resemblance is not a coincidence. Chiroso is a variety grown mainly in Antioquia that has only been on the specialty radar for a few years, and genetic work traces it back to an Ethiopian landrace. Nobody has placed it more precisely than that yet. What it gives in the cup is the vivid, lifted acidity associated with Ethiopia, grown on Colombian terraces at around 2000 metres.

Processing happens at Las Perlitas, in cochadas. Every four to seven days a new picking is depulped onto the days that came before it, homogenised, and then washed together on the final day before drying. It is a batching method built around the reality of smallholder picking — nobody brings in a full day's worth on their own, so the lot accumulates. Most of it ferments under water throughout, which holds the profile clean and keeps out the excess funk that other ferments introduce.

Taken to an espresso roast, the fruit concentrates rather than flattens. DAK previously sold this coffee as Honeymoon and renamed it once Honey Burst joined their range, to stop the two getting mixed up on the packing floor.

In the cup: blood orange, rhubarb and honey. Bright, concentrated and juicy, exactly as the name promises.

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