Essence

  Roast Story:  Essence is your go-to traditional espresso coffee with warm chocolatey notes that pair beautifully with milk or in a standalone shot. To achieve this roast profile, we extended the roast longer than a typical espresso roast profile to break down the organic structure of the bean to ensure a high extraction in any espresso machine. In other words, Essence is meant to be mixed with milk or syrups without masking the natural coffee flavors embedded in the roast.  Essence came about because we wanted to have an approachable espresso roast that was in par with the general expectation of what espresso is. The funny thing about this roast is that we prefer it on drip or French press here at Alma over espresso. That’s why—if you may have noticed our coffee lineup has a slight preference towards lighter roast coffees—we feature Soulmate medium roast on espresso at our café over our own Essence espresso roast. We share this not to steer you away from using Essence on your at-home espresso machine, but rather to challenge yourself to brew it in different ways and see what you discover.   Origin Story:  This roast is a blend between two coffees, a honey process from Finca La Unica and a washed from Finca Terrerito. Finca Terrerito (Finca T) is our main Alma Family Farm in Honduras. Founded in the 1960s, this is where we do the bulk of processing and quality control on our coffee before they make their way here to our roastery in North Georgia.  Not only does most of our coffee come from Finca T, but it is also where we house all our state-of-the-art equipment. From a water well that goes 400ft into the ground to ensure only the cleanest water for processing, all the way to wet processing, dry processing, and exporting. It all goes down at Finca T!  Finca T was originally purchased in the 1960s by Leticia’s family, it was 200 acres of farmland and was named Finca Terrerito. Funny enough, the word Terrerito is not an actual word in Spanish, and our best guess is that they misspelled the word “Terrenito” (which translates to “little piece of land”) to Terrerito when the land went to be registered. In 2001, Al Lopez, a co-owner at Alma, purchased Finca T from his mother and begin planting some coffee trees while primarily using the land for cattle. By 2008, Al had dedicated his retirement to improving lives through Finca T in the small town from which he was born and raised, eventually forging the foundations of our farm-to-cup coffee you love today!  Today, we are very honored to have built the foundation to this business at Finca T! With only the best equipment and every single step of the process happening under our watchful eyes, we produce a quality of coffee that is truly extraordinary. Finca La Unica was the second coffee farm added to the Alma Family Farms lineup. Leticia, one of the co-owners of Alma and a 5th generation coffee farmer is very proud of Finca La Unica for it’s high altitude, beauty, and strategic harmonious coffee growing amongst nature. When Leticia first took over La Unica, most of the land had been used for cattle grazing. With the help of the amazing farm team, this farm has blossomed to include perfectly aligned rows of coffee trees, strategically placed shade trees, and wild fruit and fauna to be found throughout. Finca La Unica truly is picture perfect!