Jesus Galeas's "Valeria" Natural Pacamara is a coffee that deserves to be framed and put on a wall in a museum. For the fourth year in a row, it’s a squeaky clean and exquisitely uniform rendition of the Pacamara variety, and lest we get too far without making one OTHER thing abundantly clear: it smells and tastes incredible too. Grown on a 5 hectare plot of land that is reserved for more experimental production, it is named after his young daughter Valeria, and is dedicated to raising money for her education.

Pacaramara is a large and finicky variety that is as notoriously difficult to produce as it is beloved to consume, especially by the coffilluminati of the specialty world. And while we try not to get too tangled up in all that fray, we’ve learned to embrace renditions produced by Jesus "Chungo" Galeas, by now a household name among everybody in the TCU. Distinctly delightful, this coffee reinforces Chungo’s reputation for making magic happen, from farming to fermenting.

A naturally processed Pacamara SEEMS like a risk for the producer and  SOUNDS like a potential gimmick for the roaster, but in Jesus's hands, neither assumption rings true. He is truly a master of his domain, and we are yet to taste a single expression of variety or process that doesn't evoke at least a little bit of that aforementioned wizardry. With this one, it's magic out the wazoo — explosively aromatic, fruit-candy sweet, twinkly on the tongue, colorful as a painter's palette as they view a late summer sundown.