About Us

The story behind Cafe Zumbador

The inspiration for the name Zumbador (meaning hummingbird in Spanish) comes from our admiration for these beautiful birds which frequent our healthy coffee farms. These mighty birds like our coffee fields and frequent them because they thrive in farms with the stringiest environmental policies in the world.

Despite their small size they have a fearless in character, much like Zumbador Coffee and its people We come from a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea (Puerto Rico) yet we believe the world is a big and beautiful place that we want to explore and share our island’s coffee with.

Hummingbirds should not fly yet against all odds they use their wings as oars to quickly move air in a unique motion up to 120 times per second. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that our Zumbador Coffee Project would need the unique strengths of our avian namesake to survive and seek to regain our place in the world, yet we persist, ready for takeoff all over the world.

What is rare and unique about our coffee

Terroir:

Our farms’ volcanic soils offer great drainage for the daily tropical downpours. Severely steep angles define the planted lands of the high mountains. While constant Easterly winds bring micronutrients to the farms from the Caribbean Sea.

Varietal:

Puerto Rico’s coffee production was isolated from the rest of the world for almost a century. That is why the dominant varieties remain the old Borbon and Typica Porto Rico. Isolation preserved the 18th century taste.

Taste:

This is no mild island coffee. At its peak roast level, Zumbador yields a great body, with chocolate undertones, great creaminess and naturally intense sweetness. Its aftertaste is memorably pleasant. Regarded by many in Italy as the best single origin espresso in the world.

Processing method:

We are fans of the wet method and using controlled fermentation for it yields the great body and creaminess. USDA oversees the environmental controls. Drying is done at low temperatures with indirect heat. Selection and cupping to SCAA Grade 1 micro lots.

Roasting Recomendation

We are immensely grateful to you for taking the time to study the influence of roast color and taste in each origin.

In the case of Zumbador it is very important. Coffee cuppers and consumers tell us that the coffee is most flavorful when roasted to to what the Italians call “carmelita” roast. The word “Carmelita” derived from the order of priests that carry the brown robes. In our terms it is a few seconds after the second crack. Oil is to show at the tip of the beans in a couple of days.

Our is a story of obstinate optimism in the face of challenges.

As 4th generation coffee producers, we are growing the Zumbador partnership at a time of economic crisis in Puerto Rico with massive migration to the rest of the Unites States. Our mission is to preserve coffee growing on our island for future generations. After Hurricane Maria destroyed most of the coffee farms in our region, we went back to planting, saved what was salvageable, and start producing again small but very good quality crops.