The 2016-2017 harvest marked a turning point for Xalum -- if you haven't followed the story, read up on the history on last years report.

For the last four years coffee from Xalum was being wet milled at another farm. This isn't unusual -- a wet mill is a significant expense, so many coffee producers work with someone else who was a mill with extra capacity to process their coffee.

This year Christian & family built their own wet mill after many years of planning. By being able to mill their own coffee, they are able to have better control over quality. We always believed in Christian's potential to produce very high quality coffee, and taking control of the processing of cherry and drying helped further fulfill that potential.

Having control of the milling process also makes it possible to do further lot separation. This year we have a small lot we're calling Xalum Sweet Collection. One of the most interesting parts of Xalum is Christian’s work on mapping cherry sweetness; using a brix meter, he sampled cherries from around the whole farm measuring sugar content. One particular area of the farm stood out as having notably sweeter coffee cherry. This microlot represents a picking solely from this plot, located in the middle of the farm.