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Throughout most of the year Willoughby's offers special, limited edition coffees we call Serious Select. We typically roast these coffees once a week on Tuesdays. During this holiday season we are presenting four of our very best selling Serious Select coffees in an attractive gift box along with your personal message should you choose to include one. We realize these coffees are more expensive than many of our ongoing offerings but this is due in part to their scarcity and to the prices we must pay to acquire them on behalf of our clientele.

Included in the sampler are four half pounds, each in foil packaging with one way valves. Each Serious Select sampler is roasted to order and shipped at the peak of freshness. We will roast these coffees on each Tuesday through December and ship the very same day.

We can supply your gift list of one or many.

• Panama Esmeralda Boquete Geisha - Each year for the past several years, Hacienda Esmeralda has held a private auction of their prized Geisha varietal, each Esmeralda Special lot coming from a specific plot of land on their farm. Altogether there is not much coffee, only about 20,000 pounds, which must fill a big demand from all corners of the world (this may sound like a lot but is only half of one shipping container). Competition for the coffee is fierce and prices go very high. By the time the coffee reaches roasters around the world it is not uncommon for it to sell for more than $100 per pound or $5 to $7 when sold by the cup. Fortunately, this year Esmeralda has released their "second coffee", the 100% Geisha Esmeralda Boquete. As in the wine world where the second wine of the very top chateaux are fabulous wines in their own right, still costly but a relative bargain. Lafite-Rothschild has its Lafite Rothschild Carruades de Lafite; Chateau Latour its Les Forts de Latour. These wines would be great in anyone's book, but they are withheld, often for a tiny detail, from being in the rarified top lot. The same holds true for Esmeralda Boquete Geisha. This is a wonderful coffee, exhibiting much of the same lovely jasmine, floral and lemony tones witnessed in the auction lots but at less than half the price.
  

• Jamaica Blue Mountain Clifton Mount Estate - This single plantation Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee is the first we have had in many years that we are pleased to offer. It has the signature smoky, nearly hickory flavor characteristic we remember from the pre-hurricane Gilbert era, and, its price is reasonable and certainly in line with its quality and reputation. This is the only Rainforest Alliance certified coffee produced in Jamaica. Grown from Typica varietal, fully washed processing done on site and 100% sun dried. Classic Jamaica Blue cup. Smooth, sweet and very clean. Full body, very well balanced, delicate. Signature, naturally smoky note with flavors of chocolate and honey. Floral, mildly acidic. Long, dry white wine finish.

• Guatemala El Injerto Pacamara - El Injerto is the pre-eminent farm in western Guatemala, in Huehuetenango; in fact, it is one of, if not "the" most famed coffee farm in the country. This is rough terrain and it takes about eight hours to travel here from Guatemala City, mostly because of difficult roads and steep, winding slopes. The farm grows a number of varietals, or seed types, but is best known for its Pacamara, a cross between the Pacas from El Salvador and the Maragogype, an oversized bean native to Guatemala. This hybrid has the size and power of the large bean with the delicacy of the Pacas, itself a branch of Bourbon. Elevations range from 4,800 to 6,500 feet. The Pandora de Concepcion parcel is located between 5,800 and 6,000 feet. This parcel is where previous awarded winning coffee lots came from. Coffee trees in this plot are 18 years old and they receive just enough sunlight for the cherry to develop all of its components, according to field technicians. We purchased directly through on a private online auction held by El Injerto for the first time this year. Very broad and earthy, clean, sweet with notes of vanilla. Dark fruit flavors like prune, plum, raisin; artichoke overtone. A huge cup with long, lingering finish.

• Costa Rica El Espino Yellow Honey Caturra - Costa Rica El Espino Yellow Honey Caturra is a very limited microlot that we acquired when touring the country in February. "Honey" coffee is a processing term. It is a mid-point somewhere between natural (dry method) processing where the entire cherry is dried then later milled, and, washed coffee (wet method) where both skin and mucillage is removed through an extensive washing sequence. With honey coffee, the skin is removed and some - or all - of the mucillage remains on the husks. As it dries, the mucillage imparts some fruit flavor to the beans inside their husks. The more mucillage that is left on the husk the more fruit penetration can be tasted. This particular Yellow Honey coffee was produced from Caturra variety at 1800 meters (nearly 6000 feet) in Costa Rica's West Valley. The producer, Gillio Francesca Ferraro grows this coffee in the Zarcero micro-region and production is extremely limited. Sweet, but mild fruit penetration. Nearly minty fragrance; trees are shaded by Eucalyptus which seem to impart some special aromatic character.

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