About the Coffee Cafe Granja La Esperanza (CGLE) is a family-owned farm operation in Colombia's Valle del Cauca region, run by the Herrera family. They've been growing coffee for decades and are known for pushing processing methods further than most farms in the country, particularly in anaerobic fermentation techniques that have made them a consistent presence at Cup of Excellence competitions. The farms sit at elevations between 1,700 and 2,000 meters. Equation Coffee is a producer from Huila, a region in Colombia's southern highlands where farms typically sit between 1,500 and 1,900 meters on mountainous terrain fed by the Magdalena River valley. Huila has become one of Colombia's most recognized coffee-producing departments, with smallholder farmers accounting for the bulk of its output. Bomb Devil is a blend built around two opposing processes. The CGLE component is a natural processed coffee that went through extended anaerobic fermentation, meaning the whole cherries were sealed in an oxygen-free environment before drying. This slows fermentation and intensifies flavour development in ways that washed processing doesn't allow. The Equation Coffee Huila component is fully washed, where the fruit is removed before drying, producing a cleaner, more structured cup. Hatch combined these not to split the difference between them, but to let each push the other. The natural adds weight and density; the washed keeps it coherent at high extraction, particularly as espresso. Blending naturals and washed coffees in specialty roasting is less common than single-origin offerings, and harder to get right. The two coffees need to work together at a specific ratio without one flattening the other. Hatch built this blend specifically to hold its shape under espresso conditions while still expressing the natural's fruit intensity, and also pulled it back far enough to work through milk. About Hatch Hatch was founded in Markham, Ontario, and its origins go back further than the roastery itself. The founder began roasting coffee by hand while living in West Africa, well before Hatch had a building or a business around it. That early hands-on approach shapes how they still operate. They run three roasters including a Loring 70kg and a Loring 35kg, and hold seven active Q-Grader certifications on staff, which means a significant portion of their team is trained to evaluate coffee at a professional level. Hatch has won Roaster of the Year at Th3rd Wave Coffee Awards in 2022 and took a Coffee Collection Innovation award in 2023. They describe themselves as still operating with a startup mentality, focused on quality, innovation, and experimentation rather than scaling for its own sake.
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