On Bar: Guatemala Finca San José Ocaña

I met Chris Garrison, the owner of Old World Coffee Lab, a couple of weeks ago when he was in town for the latte art competition at Evoke in Edmond. He was nice enough to share some of his coffees and hang out with us at Clarity for a bit, and we were really impressed with his coffee. In particular, we fell in love with a coffee from a family-owned estate called Finca San José Ocaña in Guatemala. The farm has been in the Sanchez family for 110 years! They grow bourbon and catuai trees, process it in their own mill, and ship out some of the best Guatemalan coffee I've had, ever.

Based in Reno, Nevada, Old World Coffee has been around for about five years, but they just started roasting last year. Here's a little from them about their roasting philosophy:

Photo courtesy of Old World Coffee Lab

We pay homage to the origins of coffee by developing the unique flavor profiles, dialing in and allowing for each strain of coffee bean to be its truest self.

“Treating coffee with respect is the main ingredient to much of what we do.”

We’re thinking outside the box, shifting our mindset to a bottom-up approach, and it starts with the coffee. We’re hooked on the feeling to pursue a never-settle-for-good-enough mentality.

This experience will challenge what each of us has come to accept coffee to be, it should inform us of the of great amount of work -- from the producer, farmer, exporter, importer, roaster, and finally to the barista -- that went into bringing us this coffee.

Come try this Guatemala. We're brewing in on the Chemex bar and on espresso! In the mean time, I'll leave you with this short little video about Old World.

Cheers!