At F1010 Coffee Roasters we've always believed coffee is much more than a drink — it's an opportunity to connect ideas, people and, of course, art. A few weeks ago, we decided that the walls of our patio at the roasting lab needed to stop being silent and start telling a story.
It all started when @notsmile404, @eldocopio and @arte.y.michis reached out to us. We weren't looking for a mural, but their energy and their proposal to take over the lab felt like the perfect excuse to open the doors of our home.
Our premise was creative freedom: we wanted the patio to be their space. They brought their characters to sit at the table and share a cup with us, weaving in elements of the coffee world. We only put two pieces of the puzzle we were living through onto the table.
While the first sketches of the mural were being made, we attended the Q Grader certification. During one of the practice tables, they told us about a lot that's rarely found: a 720-hour fermentation. The story behind the bean is more than interesting; the producer originally planned only a 72-hour fermentation, but when heavy rains made drying impossible, he decided to take the risk and extend the process until the weather would let him work the bean, reaching a full month.
When we chose it for our catalog, we knew it was the ideal companion for the mural. We named it "Dart", inspired by the intensity of the poison dart frog's venom. That's why we suggested adding a small frog to the composition as a symbol of this coffee's potential. The second element we suggested was the moon, as a way to pay tribute to one of the most curious stories a producer has ever shared with us:
"We harvest this coffee's cherries exclusively during the full moon. We believe the sugars regroup and concentrate in this phase, which in the end gives us a cup with much more pronounced sweetness."
As roasters, we share the information just as it reached us; we can't validate it, but the story was too interesting not to include. In the end, specialty coffee is also about these stories that happen at origin.
The collaboration felt so organic that the bag label was born as a natural consequence. The sensory profile was so distinct that adding color and art felt natural, breaking from the aesthetic of our conventional editions. We also added, for the first time, a back label with the hidden frog and a link that points exactly to this space, where we share the sketches, the timelapse of the creation, and the full story behind this union. So everyone could take a piece of the experience home, we included three stickers, each with a character from the artists and a nod to the coffee world.
The ending couldn't have been any other way: an informal gathering. No protocols, just friends and colleagues from the coffee trade sharing the patio, watching the final strokes and tasting, for the first time, those 720 hours of fermentation. In the end, this collaboration isn't about a product, but about how a message from three artists ended up becoming a cup of coffee that, literally, shines under the moon.
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V60 recipe proposal |
Cold Brew Concentrate recipe proposal |
Timings and pours:
Finish extraction between 3:00–3:30, depending on how the water descends through the coffee bed. |
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Credits
Luis Arevalo @notsmile404
Angel Lopez @eldocopio
Gloria N @arte.y.michis
Photography by @andreadealbaphotograpy
V60 recipe by @albrewjandro
Cold Brew recipe by @alexis___akim