About the Coffee Elias and Shady Bayter grew up in a farming family in Colombia, but not a coffee one. Their background was in avocado farming. At some point, they shifted to coffee at their farm, El Vergel, and began experimenting with fermentation and processing in ways that set them apart from most Colombian producers. Their mother, Martha Montenegro, works alongside them. Together, the family has built a reputation for producing coffees that are distinctly expressive and technically precise. This lot starts as a full cherry anaerobic fermentation, meaning the coffee cherries are sealed in an oxygen-free environment and allowed to ferment before processing begins. From there, the coffee goes through a co-fermentation stage with watermelon and yeast, lasting several days. Anaerobic co-fermentation is still relatively uncommon and requires close monitoring to avoid off-flavors. The Bayters have worked to make it reliable and repeatable. The variety is Caturra and Colombia, both traditional Colombian cultivars, grown at El Vergel and processed entirely on-farm. Alongside their processing work, El Vergel invests in sustainability projects and ongoing farm improvements. This particular lot is also decaffeinated, which adds another layer to what it went through before reaching your cup. Decaf has a reputation for tasting flat, largely because most decaffeination strips out more than just caffeine. Starting with a coffee this intensely processed gives it enough character to hold up through that stage. The result is a decaf that doesn't taste like a compromise. About Monogram Ben Put, Justin Mah, and Jeremy Ho started Monogram in Calgary after working together as baristas early in their careers. They opened their first cafe in the Altadore neighbourhood in 2014, originally in a space half the size of what it is today. The three came from different backgrounds, music, health sciences, and development, but shared a frustration with how inaccessible specialty coffee felt at the time. Monogram was their attempt to fix that. Ben Put has won the Canadian Barista Championship seven times and placed third at the 2025 World Barista Championship. That competitive background shapes how Monogram thinks about sourcing. Their producer relationships tend to be long-term and specific: they work with Mariana Iturralde at Finca Takesi in Bolivia, Jamison Savage at Finca Deborah in Panama, and the Lamastus family at Elida Estate, among others. These aren't rotating suppliers. They're ongoing partnerships built around flavour and quality over time.
