The Curator's Ledger

Ombligon is the only variety in this archive whose origin nobody can confirm. It grows in Huila and effectively nowhere else. The name comes from the navel-shaped dimple at the base of the cherry. The leading theory holds it to be an Ethiopian landrace that reached Colombia decades ago and settled there. The competing theory calls it a natural mutation of stock already in the Americas, on the evidence that it shares wide leaves, tight cherry clusters and vertical branching with Caturra. Nobody has settled where the variety came from, though that doesn't change how it tastes.

Finca El Diviso sits above Pitalito at 1,750 metres. Nestor Lasso and his brother Adrian are the third generation on the family land and the first to abandon volume for quality, working alongside Jhoan Vergara of neighbouring Las Flores. The farm has put coffee on the world stage in consecutive years: Anthony Douglas won the 2022 World Barista Championship on an El Diviso Sidra, and Jack Simpson took third in 2023 on El Diviso Ombligon.

What makes this lot different is when Lasso stops it. After 132 hours of oxidation and another 24 sealed in its own juice, he shocks the cherries at 60°C to halt the fermentation, which keeps the fruit aromatics from turning into the vinegary sharpness fermented coffees get blamed for. This is the first Ledger coffee I'd honestly call funky, and I mean that as a compliment.

There was no Ledger in May. The reason was personal. To everyone who kept their subscription through the gap: thank you for waiting.

La Josefina sits in Ecuador's Amazonian foothills, between Sumaco and Cayambe-Coca, on soil fed by ash from El Reventador. Leopoldo Andrade and Ligia Merizalde founded the farm. Juan David Benavidez runs the processing. This Typica Mejorado gets a saline wash, a 24-hour fermentation, then 35 days of slow drying on shaded African beds inside polytunnels. The control is in that drying. It produces a Natural without the heaviness the process usually brings.

The note is mango.

I chose this lot for that note. It is an ode. Those who know, already know why. Either way, it is one of the cleanest naturals Ecuador has put in a cup this year, and that is reason enough.

Batian is a Kenyan variety, and you'd normally only find it growing in Kenya, which is what caught my attention here.

At Finca El Puente, legendary producers Marysabel Caballero and Moises Herrera collaborated with Wendelboe to plant Batian—a resilient Kenyan hybrid cultivar—deep within a small forest in Honduras. The protocol was absolute: no fungicides, no synthetic fertilizers. This was a pure biological farming trial guided by the strict principles of Wendelboe's own Finca el Suelo project.

The trees are still young, and it tastes nothing like the bright, sharp Kenyan coffees I'm used to, it's a lot softer. I picked Batch 14 because the project is just getting started and I wanted us to taste it early.

This is the last highly exclusive coffee from Felipe Contreras’ 2025 crop. The team at Finca Gascon continues to impress with their sustainable approach, rooted in family tradition from Felipe’s grandfather Gildardo, who dreamed of owning a coffee farm since childhood. Embracing permaculture principles, they integrate shade trees and natural irrigation while using regenerative methods like recycling fermentation lixiviates into compost.

This Geisha is a hybrid washed and it goes through a double oxidization process, hence its name. The cherries are oxidized a first time on a fermentation pile for 48 hours, creating heat inside because of all the sugars oxidating. Then, to create a cleaner cup profile, the fermentation process is broken in two, meaning the cherries are depulped and oxidized for a second time, another 48 hours, after which they are washed and put to dry for 12 to 18 days.

Jose "Pocho" Gallardo runs Finca Nuguo, a Best of Panama winner, and he processes coffee like an engineer. This lot comes from a family parcel next to his main farm. He takes the ripe cherries down into the valley where he can control the conditions, ferments them sealed for four days, then dries them on raised beds for 30 days until they hit 11% moisture. The result is a natural that tastes clean instead of heavy, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

This coffee does not exist on the retail shelf. It is a "Wholesale Exclusive," a ghost lot from the archives of The Coffee Collective in Copenhagen. We secured the final roast of the season specifically for The Curator's Ledger.

Mulugeta Muntasha is a laureate of Ethiopian coffee. Based in Arbegona, Sidama, his farm sits at a staggering 2300 MASL. His meticulous work recently earned him 3rd Place in the 2024 Cup of Excellence (COE). This lot is a testament to that pedigree.

If our inaugural release was a study in terroir, Ledger 002 is a masterclass in processing technique.

We have secured an exemplary lot of Pink Bourbon from Finca El Placer in Quindío, Colombia. Producer Sebastian Ramirez operates less like a farmer and more like a laboratory director, utilizing rigorous fermentation controls to achieve a profile that is impossible to replicate by accident.

Roasted by DAK Coffee Roasters in Amsterdam, this coffee represents the fearless forefront of modern European preparation. It is distinctively light, unapologetically complex, and ruthlessly clean.

For our inaugural entry, a merely excellent coffee was not enough. We required a statement.

We found it in this extraordinary Peterson Geisha from Franceschi Coffee in Panama, roasted with precision by Un.Common of Amsterdam.

A coffee of perfect synthesis.

It represented the pinnacle of genetic potential, the elegant, floral Geisha varietal. elevated by the absolute cutting edge of scientific process.

It is the definitive proof of our mission: to bring you the most significant coffees in the world.