TASTES LIKE
Nectarine + Jasmine + Silky
Ecuador — Finca Los Almendros Sidra
Provenance
The first release in a run of exceptional lots marking eight years of Nightjar — a look back at the coffees, growers and principles that shaped our first chapter, and a nod to where the next one goes.
We open with a coffee that holds a settled place in the Nightjar catalogue: an unusually floral Sidra that shows what careful, patient brewing can pull out of a cup.
This is the same lot our head of quality, Rosalind Beck, took to the National Brewers Open in 2023, where it placed second.
A welcome return, and a marker for everything that follows it.
Process
Once the cherries reach full ripeness they are hand-picked and de-pulped, then sealed into air-tight steel tanks flushed with CO2 to build an oxygen-free environment for fermentation.
The slower, tightly controlled approach lets the coffee's own sweetness and aromatics keep developing, sharpening the character of an already unusual variety without blurring its clarity.
For this maceration a share of the removed cascara goes back into the tank, adding a further layer of flavour — a method the Villalba family calls the 'Almendra' step.
After roughly 46 hours the cascara-steeped coffee is drawn off, rinsed gently and dried slowly in temperature-controlled houses on shaded raised beds to about 11% moisture, holding balance and structure through to the final cup.
Recommended brewing
BEST
Pour over (conical)
Kite — S Brewer
Kite — S Brewer
GREAT
Pour over (flat-bottom)
Basalt V4 Narrow
Basalt V4 Narrow
VERY GOOD
Immersion press
Pressform Clear
Pressform Clear
