For today’s coffee review, I turn my attention to Floyd, Virginia for a coffee roaster which has won a winning reputation from coffee lovers nationwide, Red Rooster Coffee.
As I am originally from a small town, I support small town coffee shops. But my small town which I grew up in was at the time 10,000-20,000 people. Floyd, Virginia has a population of 425 according to the 2010 census.
Perusing information online, the small town has your local hardware store, a country store, a barbershop and known for its bluegrass music and home to the National Music Festival.
The small town is also known for Red Rooster Coffee, the award winning coffee roaster selected by Forbes Magazine in 2018 as one of the “Top 12 Coffee Roasters in the United States”.
Red Rooster Coffee was founded by husband and wife duo, Haden Polseno-Hensly and Rose McCutchan.
Rose who once lived in NYC, moved back home to start the BlackWater Loft cafe in 2005 (which would later become known as Red Rooster Coffee Roaster and Cafe) with her mother and sister, wanted to increase the quality of their coffee and invested in roasting coffee in-house. With the help of family and friends, Red Rooster Coffee Roaster was born in 2010.
Haden, who received an MFA in creative writing in Alaska, lived in Italy, moved back home to marry his high school sweetheart and learn the coffee business, from roaster, bagger, distributor, salesman and also working hard for the community as President of SustainFloyd (which supports the community’s next generation in order to preserve Floyd County’s existing assets and traditional strengths in agriculture and craftmanship to build a resilient rural local economy), also having a hand in organizing the SplitRail Eco-Fair and the 350.org event.
But one thing I’ve learned that with their passion to the community and also to ecology, it all plays a big part in what makes Red Rooster Coffee special.
For one, within a decade, the company won “America’s Best Espresso” at Coffee Fest NYC in 2016, 1st Place Brewers Cup, TN US Coffee Champ Qualifiers in 2019, 1st Place for “America’s Best Cold Brew” Coffee Fest Baltimore in 2018 and has been a Good Food Awards winner for 2017, 2019, 2020. And also have several dozen coffees placed above 90 on Coffee Review.
And just because they are in a small town full of artisans and craftsman, this company aims high in quality for coffee but also being progressive in the direction of the company.
For one, they are the only coffee company in the country with a licensed onsite daycare facility for staff’s children.
They also source their coffee responsibly using Organic and Fair Trade Coffee for their signature blends and many of their single origins. When not using Organic and Fair Trade Coffee, they use premium quality coffee beans sourced from estates and farms that are known to treat workers equitably and take care of the land.
One of the things that you will notice with Red Rooster Coffee, they commission artists to create artwork for their bags.
In fact, they offer biodegrable coffee bags, not the usual foil bags which companies utilize. They also have their bags hand-printed locally using water-based inks, composting their chaff with local organic farms and minimizing their footprint by recycling and reusing within their facilities.
They also hire locally, providing a living wage and full health care benefits to their employees, contribute to local charities and participate in local fundraisers with an intention of developing into an economic and social anchor in their small rural community.
The company has since grown to employ around 30 employees, roasting some of the best coffee in the world.
Which leads me to my review of Red Rooster Coffee’s El Salvador Finca El Cerro Natural.
According to Red Rooster Coffee:
This coffee was produced with BioKrop Project, an initiative of a consortium of various single-origin specialty microlot coffee farms across the six mountain regions of El Salvador. The coffee is produced under the technical advisory of Tierra Bendita, a small family business dedicated to agriculture in Western El Salvador. Its focus is to work with nature to improve the soil using microorganisms, compost and natural fertilizers. These agroecological farming practices yield healthy sustainable harvests in the production of coffee, cocoa, honey, plantains, and other basic grains commodities.
Finca El Cerro owner Don Atilio Zepeda’s farm is located in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain and cultivates Pacamara.
Pacaramara is a coffee bean which is a hybrid of the Bourbon varietal Pacas and the huge-beaned Maragogype which was first produced in El Savador at the Salvadoran Institute for Coffee Research in 1958.
Pacas coffee beans are a Bourbon bean gone through mutation and is smaller, more compact. These plants were discovered by the Pacas family on their farm in Santa Ana, El Savador. They can be planted together closely, especially in high elevations and have similar taste characteristics to a Bourbon coffee bean but is less sweet.
Maragogype is a Typica which has gone through genetic mutation and was discovered in 1870. Maragogype has low productivity because the beans are so large but they produce a high flavor.
And thus, a hybrid between these two beans were made in El Salvador and the result is Pacaramara.
Which leads me to my review of Red Rooster Coffee’s El Salvador Finca El Cerro Natural.
The Red Rooster Coffee’s El Salvador Finca El Cerro Natural scored a 94 point rating on Coffee Review and my experience and review nearly echoes their thoughts of the coffee.
The process these beans go through is dry/natural process in which the beans were dried inside the fruit and the fruit is not removed (like they do in wet-processed/washed coffees).
The tasting notes are raspberry tea, hazelnut, golden delicious apple, meyer lemon.
For me, tasting the Pacamara, the aroma was fruity and floral but once you taste it, you are immediately hit with a fruit (berry), tarty taste. I’ve used this distinction with maragogype, nutty and fruity, but I have to say, the fruitiness is moreso prominent in the Pacaramara.
You can taste the acidity but it’s just right. This is the citrus meyer lemon note.
While the finish retains the fruitiness but also cocoa, butterscotch and a little honey It’s very unique and delicious and I really do like it. It’s complex but definitely a coffee for those who like fruity bittersweet taste to their coffee, will love this coffee.
At under $23 for 12 oz., which is a great deal from Red Rooster Coffee, Red Rooster Coffee’s El Salvador Finca El Cerro Natural is highly recommended!
