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Alejandro Castaneda, a former pilot, started Café MonteAgua. He imports beans from his family farms in Guatemala and roasts them in Lancaster and now offered a singular prolongation high-end coffee during Harry’s Savoy Grill and during Janssen’s Market.
Suchat Pederson/The News Journal
If we wish to make a ideal crater of coffee, coarsely grub a beans, make certain a H2O is somewhat next boiling and use a French press, says Alejandro Castañeda.
The Guatemala native, who has started a new Greenville-based coffee association called Café MonteAgua, knows a secrets to a good brew. He grew adult in a Antigua segment that some cruise a climax valuables for coffee beans in Central America.
It usually takes 4 mins to suffer a good crater of coffee done in a French press, says Castañeda. He believes the brewing device will coax out formidable flavors many improved than any coffee machine.
Castañeda grinds a beans many reduction fine than for drip coffee. He recommends using 2 tablespoons of coffee for each 10 ounces of water. Bring a kettle of water to a boil, and afterwards concede it to cold for about 30 seconds.
When the H2O temperature is only next 190 degrees, pour it over a coffee drift in a press, saturating them. Set a timer for 4 minutes. Replace a French press lid and wait patiently. Push a plunger down and pour.
“Ah, a ideal crater each time,” says Castañeda as he sips a crater of his coffee during a new French press demonstration during Harry’s Savoy Grill on Naamans Road. The Brandywine Hundred grill has been pairing Cafe MonteAqua’s other coffee, a mix famous as MonteFuego, with a desserts given January.
Since 2016, Castañeda has been introducing Delaware coffee drinkers to his singular production, high-end epicurean coffee made from bright red berries grown on Antigua family farms, some dating behind roughly 200 years.
Guatemala, about a same distance as Tennessee, ranks second in a universe in a volume of high-grade coffee it produces. (Colombia has a tip spot.) It also has a top commission of a stand personal as “high quality” by worldwide buyers. Coffeerearch.org describes Antigua coffee as carrying “a full and fluffy body, a abounding and sharp-witted aroma, and a excellent acidity.”
Castañeda’s Guatemalan coffee has taste profiles that operation from sharp and worldly to splendid and sophisticated. The sun-dried singular start beans are sourced from a isolated hollow some-more than 5,000 feet above sea turn that’s between 3 active volcanoes. The amiable meridian is subtropical year-round, a dirt is abounding in nutrients and a coffee plantations where a berries grow are cooled by breezes off a Pacific Ocean. Some of Castañeda’s coffees have abounding chocolate and caramel aromas along with hints of nutmeg and cherry.
Dave Banks, executive cook for Harry’s Hospitality Group, that runs Harry’s Savoy Grill, says one a reasons he added Castañeda’s French press coffee use to a menu of a Brandywine Hundred eatery was “we favourite a story behind a coffee.”
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French pulpy coffee during Harry’s Savoy Grill.
Suchat Pederson/The News Journal
“We were looking to supplement something additional that not everybody is doing,” he says. “Alejandro has a good proceed and he has a good product.”
Café MonteAgua comes in 3 opposite varieties: No. 12 Premium Roast, No. 14 Premium Roast, and No. 23 Premium Roast. Each has a possess season profile. And this is a oppulance brand, for sure. Bags of Café MonteAgua cost $24.99, while MonteFuego, a company’s 4 varieties of high-end coffee blends, are about $16.99 a pound.
“We’re targeting unequivocally epicurean food markets,” says Castañeda. He has showcased his coffee during a Pebble Beach (California) Food and Wine Fest; Whiskey, Watches and Cigars in Pittsburgh; and many recently, at the Philly Farm and Food Fest which showcases products from a MidAtlantic’s food and splash community.
In Delaware, Castañeda’s coffees are served not only during Harry’s Savoy Grill, though also at the Greenville Country Club. For a past 6 months, he has been selling bags at Janssen’s Market in Greenville and mostly offers tastes for business in a Kennett Pike store on weekends. Customers also shortly will be means to squeeze the coffee through the website, www.cafemonteagua.com
While a coffee business is comparatively new to Castañeda – his family is in a aviation business – he has prolonged been meddlesome in food. The fourth of 6 siblings, he began cooking during home with his grandmother. Castañeda studied during an American propagandize in Guatemala and after came to a U.S. to attend moody training school in Vero Beach, Florida.
Castañeda became an airline pilot, though he began study cookbooks and cooking during home since “if not, I’d be eating unequivocally bad quick food.” He began exploring a deeper interest in coffee after anticipating many of what he drank in a U.S. to be common and often means U.S. friends with Guatemalan coffees.
He returned home to Guatemala to assistance out a family business and opened several restaurants, that he eventually sold. After a genocide of his father dual years ago, his passion for coffee incited into a new craving “after doing a lot of homework.”
Castañeda has been visiting friends in Delaware for years and motionless to bottom his business in Greenville. His son also attends a University of Delaware. “I adore Delaware. we adore Wilmington. I’ve been entrance here for 26 years. we trust Delaware is a unequivocally well-kept secret.”
For a past year, he has been importing coffee beans from Guatemala and roasting them weekly during a site in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He says he couldn’t find a association closer to Greenville that met his specifications for ethereal roasting.
Castañeda says word of mouth about a business has been flourishing and he is vehement to continue pity “the ambience of unequivocally good coffee.”
Banks, executive cook during Harry’s Savoy Grill, says a MonteFuego coffee has left over good with grill customers. “Our business adore a milder coffees and this only fit right in with what we sell.”
Contact Patricia Talorico during (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico