Essence

Roast Story: 

Essence is your go-to traditional espresso coffee with warm chocolatey notes that pair beautifully with milk or in a standalone shot. To achieve this roast profile, we extended the roast longer than a typical espresso roast profile to break down the organic structure of the bean to ensure a high extraction in any espresso machine. In other words, Essence is meant to be mixed with milk or syrups without masking the natural coffee flavors embedded in the roast. 

Essence came about because we wanted to have an approachable espresso roast that was in par with the general expectation of what espresso is. The funny thing about this roast is that we prefer it on drip or French press here at Alma over espresso. That’s why—if you may have noticed our coffee lineup has a slight preference towards lighter roast coffees—we feature Soulmate medium roast on espresso at our café over our own Essence espresso roast. We share this not to steer you away from using Essence on your at-home espresso machine, but rather to challenge yourself to brew it in different ways and see what you discover.

Origin Story: 

The coffee that makes up this roast comes from Finca Agua Fria, grown by Sergio Molina and his team. Named from the small village in which it comes from, Agua Fria originates from farmer Sergio Molina located in the San Sebastian, Lempira area of Honduras. Apart from this area having some of the most complex and high-altitude coffee in the country, what makes Agua Fria unique compared to our other offerings is Sergio Molina himself. Coffee farming is an extremely difficult career path and Sergio takes every day with constant positivity and humor. His optimistic personality is so infectious that it eventually led to a deep personal friendship with our farm director Marcial.

The village of Agua Fria where this coffee grows is truly isolated due to the lack of modern infrastructure and roads; In other words, Sergio has no viable way to transport his coffee after harvest, and this has led to Marcial and other members of the Finca T team making scheduled trips to Agua Fria to pick up his coffee. This journey to the coffee farms of Aqua Fria can take up to 8 hours in even the best conditions, but Sergio takes his love and care of coffee farming so seriously that he makes the journey well worth it!