Corozo Crop 2025
We are thrilled to announce the arrival of the Finca El Corozo New Crop 2025!
What does this mean for your cup? It means the beautiful green coffee beans from our partners at Finca El Corozo have been harvested, perfectly processed, shipped, and are now being graded and roasted by the expert team at Clifton Coffee Roasters. We asked our head of coffee, Tom, to talk about the importance of our corozo crop and why we celebrate.
Why do we celebrate our corozo crop?
Each year receiving a new crop is a very exciting part of the process. I have been lucky enough to work at KIN+ILK for 8 years now. I remember tasting our first El Corozo crop and hearing all about the farm it came from. Over the years the quality of the coffee has never wavered. Our continued relationship with Fernando is strengthened year on year and the coffee process is refined year on year under his watchful eye. I had the privilege of visiting the farm myself in 2024. I was able to see El Corozo a couple of weeks before the coffee would be harvested. Arriving at El Corozo must be the highlight of my career so far! We walked through the trees and coffee plants, trying cherries off the plants as we went. Looking up at the shade casting trees and looking down to the mountain lake it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. This is where our coffee comes from and these are the people that grow it for us. An experience that has been shared by my colleagues past and future. It allows a different perspective and whole new way of looking at a cup of coffee.
What changes with each crop?
Our coffee is single origin. As single origin as you can get, from one farm and one varietal of coffee plant. This provides completely unique conditions for growing coffee. With each year there can be different challenges to overcome. Weather plays a huge factor on how the coffee cherries mature. They can only be harvested at peak ripeness to achieve the best flavour. Our producer Fernando Lima has been farming for over 45 years and his experience is key in overseeing the process. He is on a lifelong pursuit for perfection, honing his craft over decades and overcoming all obstacles. El Corozo itself was born out of a crisis. The Santa Ana volcano Ilamatepec erupted in 2005 and decimated the immediate area. Finca El Corozo sits at 1900 metres above sea level on this very volcano. In the years after Fernando was able to replant this area and the fertile volcanic soil produced excellent results. He won a cup of excellence award for this coffee and it has gone strength to strength since then. He has been able to grow geisha plants also with great success in the past few years, a testament to the conditions as this is a very sought after varietal only able to grow at high altitude. Each crop will have a slightly different profile. Flavour notes ranging from orange peel to hazelnut praline. We have also changed the process of the coffee over the years from honey to washed with the Bourbon varietal and from washed to natural with the Geisha. We trust Fernando when making these changes and that comes from years of a great direct trade relationship.
Clifton Coffee
We have an equally long relationship with our roaster Clifton Coffee. They provide us with a consistently excellent product each week. Finely tuning our roast profiles to perfection and collaborating on new projects. I visited El Salvador with Paul and James from Clifton and learnt so much about the process from them as well as from Fernando. Clifton have grown in size over the years as have KIN+ILK. Their roastery is doubled in size from my first visit and we have gone from 2 cafes to 5. In recent years we have looked at new ways to improve sustainability and now buy all our coffee from them in boxes of 10kg instead of individual bags. We now look forward to our next new crop cupping and the exciting development of a new geisha crop also.
Main difference in taste between brewing methods?
Our house coffee is roasted differently for espresso and filter. Clifton actually roast all their coffees at two different profiles to best suit those brewing methods. Espresso is roasted darker than filter so you get a different flavour profile with each roast. Espresso can be drunk in many different ways from straight shots to lattes and americanos. Espresso coffee is extracted quickly this is achieved using pressure to speed up extraction. We look for between 26-29 seconds for the perfect espresso shot. Everything is heightened when drinking espresso straight, you should taste bright acidity through sweetness going into bitterness but without a strong aftertaste. Our recipe finds the balance of all these notes creating a delicious drink. Thick and rich mouthfeel full of body and texture. Mix with perfectly texture milk at different ratios to create lattes, cappuccinos and flat whites. With milk again our coffee takes on a different profile moving into malted biscuit notes. With our filter version the balance is much more subtle, this roast highlights the more delicate flavours of the coffee. With a larger brew of 2 litres taking around 6 minutes this is a more gentle approach to brewing coffee and a paper filter makes for a smooth tea like mouth feel. Delicious as it is or with a small amount of milk. A pour over is the king of filter coffee when it comes to interesting and exotic coffees. Allowing you to taste the profile of the coffee and extract all the unique characteristics. A clean mouthfeel best sampled with lightly roasted coffee, it is a skilled art to produce a great cup with complex recipes required to get the best out of the coffee. It is a drink for coffee purists who want an unadulterated taste of their favourite origin.
Why everyone who is getting into coffee should try batch brews?
Batch is back! We love the batch at KIN. Not because it’s easy but because it’s delicious. Black coffee to me has to be filter. If you are to compare batch to americano think of it as comparing fruit juice to a fruit squash. Americano is essentially a watered down concentrate, batch is designed to be drunk at that ratio. With an espresso based drink you will have crema sitting at the top. I love drinking espresso, flat whites and filter (and the occasional iced vanilla latte, don’t judge me). Filter coffee gives you a much cleaner taste. At KIN we love when people ask to try the filter and we are happy to give you a sample to try before you buy. Be warned the caffeine in filter hits different I find a cup of filter can keep me going long after a double espresso has warn off. So come in and have a chat to your barista about what’s on batch, they’ll respect you for it I promise. We also offer it in our fantastic Embargo deals. As a drink in our grab and go meal deal and with our pastries for takeaway.
So, if you’ve made it this far, you probably understand why we love celebrating our Corozo crop every year. To mark the occasion, we’ve lined up a few exciting offers for you. First up: we’re offering free shipping on Finca El Corozo for the whole month of December. Just use the code COROZOCROP at checkout. If you have a coffee-loving friend or family member, it’s the perfect time to treat them to a genuinely great bag of coffee. And now for the big one. We work closely with Clifton, and this year we’ve teamed up to give you the chance to win something special: a Wilfa Uniform Grinder (known as one of the best grinders on the market) plus two bags of Finca El Corozo in either Espresso or Filter.
To enter, all you need to do is sign up to our KIN Community mailing list. The winner will be announced on December 16th. Good luck, and thank you for celebrating the Corozo crop with us.