Description
Saint Louis
“Head to head, forty-four from the finish. The Swiss and the Belgian.”
I heard from the kitchen while preparing a paella with my friend Juan on Sunday, April 4, 2010. I still had no idea about specialty coffee. Nor did I know that eleven years later, that moment would still be so vivid in my memory.
To quote a classic saying, "A milestone is an event that significantly marks the future of events." And Boonen and Cancellara on the Kapelmuur are a milestone. Not just in cycling.
Talent and physique. The human and the divine. Those two cyclists could have been Coppi and Bartali, or Merckx and De Vlaeminck, Hector and Achilles, or Lennon and McCartney. The Swiss, a focused athlete. The Belgian, not so much. A man and a god (you choose which is which). Two legends who were both the best of their generation, despite coinciding in time.
Cycling isn't just a sport. It's a constant reminder of all that is human. Time, life, or coffee would slip through our fingers if it weren't for these shining moments. Milestones remind us not only of great things, but also show us a path: excellence, beauty. The divine.
In some parts of the world, growing coffee has been a responsibility to the landscape long before the conversation about sustainability began. In El Líbano, Tolima (Colombia), it is. This is a region that, since the beginning of the 20th century, has been characterized by free and anti-clerical thinking. Revolutionary. In 1929, the coffee growers themselves—the Bolsheviks of Lebanon—began a movement to regain control of their crops, opposing the national plan imposed from Bogotá. The coup lasted only two days. The survivors retreated to the most inhospitable areas and were used as cheap labor.
Almost a century later, the grandchildren of these Antioquian intellectuals are managing the coffee farms in the Tolima region. Omar Arango gave up his career as a systems engineer to return to the land his grandparents abandoned with two goals in mind: excellence and sustainability. Twenty-five years later, the coffee grown on the San Luis farm is one of the most award-winning in Colombia.
This Gesha (a variety imported from Panama) is one of those coffees. One that helps a producer and a roaster grow. It's the coffee you'd like to serve in your coffee shop, and it's certainly one of those coffees that reminds you why you love coffee so much.
The process, called red honey, involves anaerobic fermentation of the best cherries at their optimum point of ripeness for thirty-six hours in GainPro bags, which are then dried on African beds.
The result is a very clean, sweet, and silky coffee. Delicate. Floral, with notes of jasmine and fruit, with lychee predominating.
Spartacus and Tommeke entered the Muur together, a myth, and emerged separately, like two legends. In a few years, we'll remember this exquisite coffee, just as we remember that tense moment on the Grammont Wall. With a knot in our stomachs. And nostalgia.