The colonial town of Antigua Guatemala, center of the Antigua coffee growing region, with the Arch of Santa Catalina and Agua volcano.

There was a lot of soulful, old-fashioned coffee pleasure to be had among the 38 single-origin Guatemala coffees we tested for this month’s report, along with a few subtle sensory shocks and surprises. Given the waves of experimentation with processing methods pursued by Central American coffee producers over the last couple of years, I thought we might need to finesse our way through trade-offs between flamboyant fruit-forward anaerobic ferment experiments and classic washed coffee tradition. But only one explicit anaerobic-fermented sample showed up, and that one was rather subdued and unexceptional.

Does that mean the highest-rated among the remaining 37 Guatemalas we tested were predictable or boring? Not at all. Partly because the other great determinant of originality in coffee character, tree variety, is very much in play here. Among the ten top-rated, 91+ Guatemalas we tested, five were produced from trees of the celebrated Geisha variety, the cultivar that transformed specialty coffee history when its grandly structured, floral and cocoa-toned cup emerged in the Best of Panama green coffee competition in 2004. True, the five Geishas represented in this month’s cupping are not as intense and startlingly distinctive as were those early Panama Geishas. Nevertheless, these Guatemala Geishas were more than distinctive enough to infuse the classic balance of washed-process coffees with floral complexity and sweet, juicy brightness. This fusion is particularly clear in two top-rated coffees from familiar Taiwan roasters, the GK Coffee Guatemala El Injerto Malawi Geisha Washed (95) and the Kakalove Guatemala Washed Finca La Hermosa Gesha Peaberry (94). Both deliver classic pleasure with a distinct Geisha lift. (The El Injerto Malawi Geisha, by the way, is produced from seed of a strain of the Geisha variety that has long been grown in the East African country of Malawi, independent from the Panama-grown variety that has created such a stir elsewhere in the coffee world.)

El Injerto is a distinguished Huehuetenango-region farm that produced two of the coffees reviewed this month. Courtesy of Euphora Coffee.

Two Natural-Process Geishas

The impact of Geisha as a cup-transforming tree variety was bolstered almost from the beginning by processing experiments aimed at intensifying its already striking character. Two of the Geishas we review this month were processed by the natural method, the ancient, now updated practice of drying coffee in the whole fruit.

These two samples clearly reveal the contrasting directions taken by the contemporary natural-process cup. The Bonlife Guatemala Finca La Linea Gesha (93) embodies the now familiar style of natural: sweet, lushly fruit-toned, chocolate-inclined, a style often patronized by purists as “fruit bomb.” What this term misses is the fact that there are successful fruit bombs and less successful fruit bombs, and this month’s Bonlife Finca La Linea, in our view, can be counted as a successful one. The fruit tones are ripe though not overripe, and the structure is plush and juicy but free of shadow taint.

Moving in the opposite direction, the Euphora Coffee El Injerto Legendary Geisha (94) is hardly recognizable as a natural: it could be a particularly lush washed-process coffee. Rather than plushly sweet, it is richly sweet-tart, with a deep, ringing acidity.

Lime and Herb

Finally, the Geisha character displays an unusual twisty, vaguely margarita-like edge in the washed-process Kafe Coffee Roastery Guatemala Antigua Bella Carmona Geisha (92). Here the Geisha flowers are freesia-like and herby, the citrus an unusual lime.

Now to Guatemala Coffees Not Named Geisha (or Gesha)

Specialty coffee traditionalists who associate the Guatemala cup with a deep, vibrantly low-toned character and chocolate- and nut-toned nuance will also find pleasure and support in the results of this cupping. The Handlebar Guatemala Bella Carmona (93) in particular forgoes the Geisha edge for more traditional tree varieties, netting an impressive version of a familiar style Guatemala cup at an affordable price. Produced from trees of the Bourbon and Caturra varieties, it is a spot-on classic Guatemala of the old school: vibrant but low-toned, chocolaty, with orange and floral complication.

Luis Pedro Zelaya of Finca Bella Carmona in Antigua, Guatemala. Courtesy of Handlebar Coffee.

For some years now the coffee producers and technicians of the world have been on the lookout for another under-the-radar variety bombshell like the Geisha, with some success (in Colombia Sidra and Chiroso; worldwide, plantings of Kenya’s SL-28), though based on our experience at Coffee Review none of these recently popularized varieties exhibit near the startlingly original character of the original Panama Geisha. Another direction in the new variety search has been exploration of the sensory potential of varieties with unusual bean size and shape. Two such coffees appeared and showed fairly well in this month’s cupping. The Marago-Pache (a large-beaned hybrid of the huge-beaned Maragogype and the Typica-related Pache) from Torque Coffees scored 91 for its delicate, subtly structured cup. A more radically different new variety is the Willoughby’s Guatemala El Socorro Laurina (91). Laurina is different in at least three ways: different bean shape (small and pointy), different tree shape (cone-shaped, resembling a cross between a coffee tree and a Christmas tree), and different in caffeine content: Laurina beans deliver about half as much caffeine as typical Arabica beans. Laurina is a mutant of Bourbon first found growing on Reunion Island (previously Isle of Bourbon), leading to its alternative name, Bourbon Pointu. In the cup we found it quietly distinctive, with savory-edged chocolate and deeply stated floral notes we associated with rose.

Hybrid Varieties, Subtle Processing, Fine Cup

For me perhaps the most original and noteworthy coffee in the cupping did not come from Geisha or any of the other rediscovered and fashionable varieties, but instead from disease-resistant hybrids that incorporate Robusta in their genetics. The Coffea Guatemala Chich’upao (93) was produced from trees of the Costa Rica 90, Parainema and Sarchimor varieties, all members of the taste-suspect Catimor family of cultivars. I can only assume that the refined processing method deployed by the producers, Café de Chichupac, a cooperative of small-holding producers in Rabinal, Guatemala, carried the day and the cup. The processing method involved sealing the whole coffee fruit in nylon bags for two days before it was depulped and dried with skin and pulp removed but fruit flesh intact, this last step making it technically a variation on red-honey processing.

Regardless of processing name, these villagers produced a splendid coffee in a classic Central America mode: gentle, deeply complex, and quite pure. It was achieved with the support and advice of Coffea Guatemala, a small roaster and café in the famous colonial town of Antigua, Guatemala.

Coffee and History

The other reason the Coffea Chich’upao is remarkable for me is its relationship to the social history of Guatemala, a country with a long and painful history of strife between an elite of mainly European heritage and a large population of indigenous people, mostly of Mayan ethnicity (an estimated 51 percent of the total Guatemalan population). Coffee production is, of course, one avenue through which development agencies and other progressive organizations (including businesses like Coffea Guatemala) attempt to give support and voice to indigenous villagers and small-holding producers.

Sebastian Chen of Café De Chichupac cooperative, producer of the Coffea Guatemala Chich’upao. Courtesy of Coffea Guatemala.

The municipality in which the Chich’upaq coffee was produced, Rabinal, carries particular importance in the history of indigenous people in Guatemala. Rabinal Achí is a Maya theatrical play written in the Kʼicheʼ language and performed annually in Rabinal. It is one of the few performance pieces surviving from before Spanish colonization. Rabinal, unfortunately, is also the site of the infamous murders from 1980 to around 1985 of at least 5,000 Maya villagers by the right-wing military government of Efrain Rios Montt during the 40-year-long Guatemalan Civil War.

Another attractive option for the socially conscious coffee buyer is the Wonderstate Organic Guatemala Tojquia (92), produced by farmer Porfirio Velasquez on his small farm of seven acres from standard tree varieties and fastidiously processed by the traditional washed method. Temperate fruits (cherry, pear) in particular weave through its classic cocoa-toned balance. This is the only certified organic-grown coffee among the ten reviewed this month, and Wonderstate has a long and distinguished record of support for environmental and social causes and issues.

Porfirio Velasquez, producer of Wonderstate Coffee’s Guatemala Tojquia, on his seven-acre Huehuetenango farm. Courtesy of Nick Brehany

Famous Farms, Renowned Growing Regions

Other coffees reviewed this month were produced by larger farms, most either in the valley surrounding the town of Antigua Guatemala or in the mountains of Huehuetenango Department near the border with Chiapas, Mexico. Finca Injerto, a third-generation farm in Huehuetenango, is among the most admired Central American coffee estates and the source of two of the three top-rated reviewed coffees: the GK Coffee Malawi Geisha Washed (95) and the svelte natural-processed Euphora Legendary Gesha (94). Finca Vista Hermosa, a third-generation Huehuetenango farm owned by the Edwin Martinez family, produced the unusual Marago-Pache variety from Torque Coffee (91).

Finca El Socorro, source of Willoughby’s very rare, low-caffeine Laurina variety (91), boasts a winning record in Cup of Excellence green coffee competitions as well as a line of coffees from rare tree varieties like the Laurina. Finca Bella Carmona is a green coffee brand associated with a group of Antigua farms that appears here twice, once with the 93-rated Handlebar Guatemala and again with the Kafe Coffee Roastery Bella Carmona Geisha (92). Finally, the Gesha Peaberry from Kakalove Cafe (94) was produced by the relatively new, medium-sized farm Finca La Hermosa in the Acatenango region near the famous volcano of the same name.

Timing and Turnout

The turnout of coffees this month was less robust than usual, possibly because our publication schedule forced us to run the report a bit too early and some of the finest, high-altitude Guatemalas may have not yet made it to the roasters. The timing also may have contributed to a modest fall-off in overall ratings, since it is possible that some of the lower-rated submissions not reviewed here were from last year’s crop.

Nevertheless, this month’s ten 91-plus coffees are varied and powerful expressions of the Guatemala coffee genius, reflecting both its great classic tradition as well as subtle enhancements of new tree varieties and processing innovations.

Managing Editor Kim Westerman and Associate Editor Jason Sarley contributed to this report.

The post Guatemala Coffees 2024: Classic with a Geisha Boost appeared first on Coffee Review.

Red Bourbon cherries growing on Gloria Rodriguez’s Finca Nejapa in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec growing region, El Salvador. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

For many North Americans, the classic coffees of Central America constitute the essential experience of fine coffee. Until relatively recently, wet-processed or washed coffees from traditional tree varieties produced by a string of Central American countries — Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama –  typically appeared near the top of specialty coffee menus. But that classic Central America cup has been under duress for decades, pressured by macro factors like coffee economics and climate change, as well as by changing trends in specialty coffee itself.

How is that classic Central America cup faring today? Will a coffee lover who has retained (or recently developed) a taste for the often bright, usually balanced, quietly nuanced Central America cup find satisfying examples on contemporary specialty roasters’ websites and café menus?

To try to answer that question we asked the specialty coffee community to send us their best classic Central America coffees. In this case, we defined classic by tree variety and processing method. We asked for coffees produced from traditional varieties of coffee long grown in Central America, and processed by the traditional washed method (fruit skins and flesh are removed from the beans immediately after picking and before drying), until recently the almost universal method of preparing fine coffee for export in Central America.

A Bitter Backstory

For an overview of what we tasted and the issues behind what we tasted, read on. But first the backstory of the classic Central America cup, a story filled with challenge and difficulty. The economic challenge probably started in 1989, when the United States and Brazil colluded to dissolve the International Coffee Agreement. That agreement stabilized coffee prices by assigning production quotas to most of the world’s coffee growing countries, including those in Central America. When the Agreement ended, perennial oversupplies of coffee triggered the devastating price fluctuations that have dominated the global coffee market ever since. Many Central American producers have simply given up on coffee, battered by relentlessly low prices only occasionally relieved by temporary price spikes.

Recall that the coffee plant is not native to Mesoamerica. It was brought by colonizers and was bred from such a tiny number of parent trees that Arabica coffee is now considered among the least genetically diverse crops on the planet. This genetic uniformity leaves it highly susceptible to disease and climate change. Nature is unkind to even our best-laid plans, so it’s no surprise that the clock eventually ran out on monocultured Arabica coffee trees in the form of a particularly destructive fungus.

Sweeping across Central America by 2012, an especially virulent strain of the coffee leaf rust disease left farmers in dire straits. Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras declared states of phytosanitary emergency. The losses in coffee harvest from Central America in the 2012–2013 season were estimated to be close to 2.7 million 60 kg bags, around $500 million in unrealized revenue. Ten years later, rust remains a daily reality in every corner of Central America.

Sorting coffee cherries at El Injerto Farm in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Courtesy of Equator Coffees.

Nevertheless, coffee survives throughout the isthmus, though it continues to struggle under escalating pressures of climate change, disease, the legacy of colonialism, extractivist capitalism, ill-advised political meddling, the forces of micro- and macro-economics, and the growing attrition of younger farmers and farm workers. Overall, coffee production and value adjusted for inflation have fallen consistently in Central America, year after year, for at least the last decade.

Specialty Coffee to the Rescue

Nevertheless, the new specialty coffee movement that developed in North America in the latter decades of the 20^th century did its best to differentiate and elevate the classic Central America cup in both prestige and value.

In the world’s commodity exchange marketplace, futures contracts for Arabica coffee are underpinned by a category of coffee beans known blandly as “washed milds.” These are coffees produced by 20 deliverable origins, including every country in Central America except Belize. It became immediately apparent to early specialty coffee pioneers that it was unfairly reductive to simply pile coffees from these diverse — if geographically proximate — origins into a single category like “high-grown milds.” Roasters scrambled to assemble their lineups of Central American beans by country and sometimes by region. These coffees, alongside other staples from Colombia, Ethiopia, Sumatra and Kenya, formed the centerpiece of nearly every specialty roaster’s menu by the turn of the last century.

There were some common threads in the ways specialty roasters spoke of coffees from Mesoamerica, but they were usually overshadowed by assumed differences. Guatemalan coffees were often characterized as deep, lush and lightly fruity. Nicaraguas were caramelly, nutty, and a hint citric, while Honduran entries were said to be similar but with greater depth and more chocolate flavor. The coffees of El Salvador were often characterized by their milk-chocolaty velvetiness and dried fruit flavors, while Costa Ricas always seemed to bring ripe red fruit like cherries and apples to the table. And Panama, reliably decadent, was often described in terms of dark chocolate tones and elegant floral notes. While these overly generic descriptions might still ring vaguely true, the average trend in much of the region over the past decades has been one of homogenization. It would be difficult for even the most seasoned professional to distinguish between a bulked regional blend from Honduras versus one from El Salvador.

The Reimagining of the Central America Cup

Despite the added value of specialty differentiation by region and origin, prices paid to producers for classic Central America washed coffees, even for some of the best and most admired, have remained low, often unsustainably so. Consequently, over the past decade the leading edge of the specialty coffee world, starting with the growers, but including importers, roasters, and consumer enthusiasts, has conspired to defeat the relentless devaluing of the classic Central America cup by changing that cup into something different, often radically different. Farmers have adopted new tree varieties and flashy, sometimes extravagant experiments with processing. The startlingly different-tasting Geisha (also spelled Gesha) variety was first recognized as something special in Panama, and coffees processed by now-trendy anaerobic fermentation methods saw their first debut on the world stage from Central American farmers. Every specialty coffee roaster in the world now seems to be clamoring for something different, unique, uncommon, and untraditional from Central America.

Regular readers of Coffee Review are doubtless aware of this trend, as our review pages are crowded with coffees striving for the different and unusual, often coffees produced from the Geisha variety and/or coffees with startling new cup profiles achieved through processing experimentation.

Celebrating Traditional Excellence

However, the simple truth is that excellent traditionally cultivated and processed coffees from Central America are still being produced, despite the odds stacked against them. The more than 80 classically produced Central America coffees we tested this month averaged an impressive rating of 88, nudging up toward 89, and the 10 we chose to review averaged 92 with a high of 94.

Plenty of screen time today is given to the uncommon, the unconventional, the unexpected. Without innovation, the coffee world would surely stagnate. Yet isn’t it remarkable when a few coffees using traditional means rise above the commodity sea of generic mass-produced mediocrity to stun us with their quiet elegance? We’ve chosen, for this report, to celebrate these quiet successes, to recognize the achievement of a distinction achieved through traditional practices meticulously pursued, from cultivation of familiar tree varieties through careful harvesting to attentive use of conventional washed processing techniques.

Characterizing the Classic

We could divide the 10 coffees reviewed here into a couple of very roughly defined sensory categories: those that express the genius of the Central American cup in its brighter, citrusy and floral pleasures and those that are more resonantly structured around a layering of savory depth and complexly expressed sweetness. Perhaps we could add a third category for those that lead with chocolate and nut. But all express a certain overall balance, and none add notes we don’t generally associate with coffee — no brandy-like alcohol whiffs from natural-processed beans, for example, or sweet tang and odd aromatic notes from anaerobic fermentation. And with regard to tree variety, none manage the sometimes over-the-top floral perfumes and general aromatic extravagance associated with the Geisha variety.

But there is considerable range and difference among the pleasures offered by these coffees. Reasons for these differences are difficult to even hypothesize, much less determine. Although, as always, we can take a look at both processing method and tree variety for hints.

Processing and the Classic Cup

The samples we solicited were all processed using a water-intensive technique in the “washed” coffee tradition. The coffee fruit is delivered to a centrally located wet mill as soon as possible after harvesting. Skins and pulp are removed, and the beans are fermented in open tanks using indigenous yeasts and bacteria to soften and loosen the remaining sticky fruit pulp. The beans are then washed, scrubbed, graded, and dried in the sun. All of these acts require considerable labor and care. And the details of these practices vary greatly among regions, farms and mills.

Although variations in the details of washed processing impact the final cup, sometimes dramatically, they are seldom documented. The final cup (as is always the case in specialty coffee) is where the proof lies. Buyers — exporters, roasters, then consumers — make decisions ultimately based on what they taste. Their decisions may also be conditioned by other important considerations like loyalty to growers, certifications, environmental practices, socioeconomic practices, etc.

All of that is why we write reviews in addition to assigning numerical ratings. We tell you a little about those who produced the coffee, but considerably more about how the coffee tastes to us in the cup. The numerical rating is just a starting point. The 10 coffees we review here all offer pleasing versions of the classic Central America cup, but the nuances of the pleasures differ and can’t be reduced to a simple number.

Tree Variety and the Classic Cup

Throughout Central America, the original source of tree genetics was two related but distinct cultivated varieties known as Typica and Bourbon, each of which was filtered through European colonization but ultimately trace their original sources back to trees selected from Yemen in the 17^th century. These cultivars, sometimes suggested as “legacy” or “heirloom” varieties, populated the growing regions of Central America almost exclusively until the mid-20^th century. Two of this month’s top-rated coffees were produced exclusively from trees of these original cultivars. Chromatic Coffee’s El Salvador La Lagunita (92), produced exclusively from trees of the red-fruited Bourbon variety, expresses a distinct chocolaty character, with roundly pungent fruit (we called it cantaloupe) and a fresh tobacco note. The Small Eyes Café Panama Mama Cata (92), from trees of the Typica variety, the most ancient of varieties carried by Europeans out of Yemen, is sweetly savory with suggestions of dried stone fruit and nut.

Checking for ripeness at Finca Nejapa in El Salvador. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

The Compact Varieties

Largely over the latter half of the 20^th century, nearly every country in Central America discovered its own version of a compact-growing, short-statured tree exhibiting what scientific circles might describe as phenotypic dwarfism: Pacas in El Salvador, Pache in Guatemala, Villalobos and Villa Sarchi in Costa Rica. The most popular, however, is Caturra, first selected in Brazil. Each of these compact varieties is a naturally occurring variant of Bourbon, selected and cultivated for their potential to be planted densely, increasing yield per hectare without compromising cup quality.

Green coffee in storage at La Asociación de Agricultores Tinecos – ADAT in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Courtesy of Wonderstate Coffee.

Four of the top-rated coffees we review here were produced from field blends consisting mainly of such short-statured, compact varieties, sometimes mixing in beans from their parent variety, Bourbon. Among them, Wonderstate Coffee’s Guatemala Tojquia (93) is a particularly clear example of a Central America cup in the classic tradition, with a structure we found both unassuming and confident, supporting familiar suggestions of sweet citrus, cocoa, and tart flowers. Bird Rock’s Guatemala Don Angel (92), also produced from a field blend of Bourbon and compact Bourbon-derived varieties, is similarly vibrant yet comfortable, brightly and sweetly juicy in structure, with tart fruit, sweet nut and a hint of spicy flowers.

The Speckled Ax Guatemala Valentón (91), produced from another blend of short-statured varieties, is friendly and accessible, chocolaty and floral.  Tico Coffee Roaster’s Costa Rica Finca San Luis (91) leans more toward sweet nut than chocolate, with a bright, invigorating acidity. The Tico sample was crafted by women-led teams on both the farming and the roasting side of the equation. The farm and mill are a family business in the storied Tarrazu region overseen by two sisters, Daniela and Tatiana Gutierrez, while the roast was done at Tico Coffee Roasters, a name that pays homage to owner Mariana Faerron’s own Costa Rican heritage (“Tico” is affectionate slang for a native of Costa Rica).

Only one top-rated sample, Flower Child’s beautiful roast of Roberto Figueroa’s Honduras green coffee (93), was produced exclusively from trees of a single short-statured variety, in this case, Pacas. It displays a thrilling version of its parent Bourbon’s tendency toward a fusion of savory depth and brightly sweet tendencies. Honduras is Central America’s coffee sector juggernaut, regularly ranking among the top five countries in Arabica production globally. The common perception is that Honduran cup quality suffers as a result of such bulk volume efforts, but Figueroa’s coffee is a sterling example of Honduras’s potential for quality.

Pacamara and the Classic Cup

Three of the coffees we review this month were produced from trees of Pacamara, a hybrid tree variety particularly associated with Central America. Pacamara’s long history in the region seemed to us to qualify it as a traditional variety. Pacamara is originally an El Salvador creation, released in the 1970s but worked on for more than 30 years prior at the genetic department of the Salvadoran Institute for Coffee Research (ISIC). Pacamara is now grown in many regions of Central America; this month, we review Pacamaras from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Pacamara is a cross of Pacas, the short-statured selection of Bourbon, and Maragogipe, a mammoth-beaned mutant of Typica. Pacamara retains the gigantic, showy beans of the Maragogipe while displaying a cup with a wide sensory range that often juxtaposes vibrant savory depth with light-footed floral notes. Pacamara is a challenging variety for producers since it is not stable from generation to generation and seedlings need to be edited for consistent appearance before planting. Nevertheless, it remains a favorite among some specialty producers in Central America and among many North American specialty roasters.

The wet-processing operation at El Injerto Farm in Guatemala. Courtesy of Equator Coffees.

The top-rated Equator Coffees Guatemala El Injerto Pacamara (94) was produced by the famous Guatemalan farm El Injerto, which has been producing top-caliber coffees for nearly its entire four-generation history. Finca El Injerto is a regular finalist in Guatemala’s annual Cup of Excellence green coffee competitions (with a staggering seven first-place finishes). Equator’s roast impressively displays the savory depth and intricately expressed sweet aromatics characteristic of this variety.

GK Coffee of Taiwan sent a Pacamara from El Salvador, the Finca Santa Elena El Corzo (92). Arguably more balanced and certainly quieter than the Equator El Injerto, it displays a crisp, chocolate-toned sweetness with orangy citrus and herb. Another Taiwan roaster, Sucré Beans, sent a Nicaragua Pacamara, the Jinotega Fincas Mierisch La Escondida (92), in which a characteristic Pacamara umami tendency contrasts with a delicate lemony citrus, both supported by a caramelly sweetness.

A Classic Future?

While there’s no current shortage of coffee in the world, nor of bulked beans grown in Central America, it can feel like a rarity to find coffees like those we tasted and rated for this report. The experience offers some hope of what may still be achieved if roasters, consumers, and producers can align on goals such as protecting the environment, fair wages for farm workers, and enjoyment of the simple pleasure of a coffee grown, harvested and processed in traditional ways with rigor and passion.

The post Celebrating Traditional Excellence: Classic Coffees from Central America appeared first on Coffee Review.

Coffee is spread out on a concrete patio to dry in Chiapas, Mexico. Photo by Kim Westerman.

While Mexico is somewhat under the radar when compared to more popular coffee origins, the country has been producing coffee since the late 18^th century, and given recent developments, may well be poised to become a model for coffee production in the 21^st century. In this month’s report, we review nine exceptional coffees from four different Mexican growing regions.

Coffee farmers everywhere face various barriers to success — some more than others — including climate change, pests and plant diseases, and prices for their annual crop too low to survive on. But narratives of resilience also abound, and if our findings in this report are any indication, Mexico may be a prime example of both increased quality and improved infrastructure achieved in the face of adversity, developments boding well for the future.

A Brief History of Mexican Coffee Production

Coffee is grown in 15 of Mexico’s 31 states, but the vast majority is grown in the south, in Chiapas (approximately 41 percent), which borders Guatemala and has excellent conditions for coffee production (higher growing elevations and a cooling marine influence from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans). The other main regions of production, in order of output, are Veracruz, Puebla and Oaxaca. Though coffee is only 141^st on the list of products most exported by Mexico, it was the 10^th largest exporter of coffee in the world in 2020, with the lion’s share of green coffee produced going to the United States (49.7% of total production).

The majority of coffee grown in Mexico is processed and sold via cooperatives, of which there are currently more than 600 throughout the country. This model is not unique, by any means, but it took hold in Mexico as a way for indigenous groups to maintain cultural identity and autonomy, and as a grassroots response to the lack of governmental intervention when crises arose. The Zapatista movement in Chiapas, in particular, maintains strong values around organic and other traditional coffee-farming practices, which is one of several factors that distinguish and differentiate Mexican coffee production from many other growing regions in Central and South America. And while there are certainly private coffee estates in Mexico, it’s notable that eight of the nine of the coffees we review this month are either from cooperatives (official or unofficial) or individually owned farms that have partnered with neighboring farmers in a collaborative way; only one is from a single farm. Though the Mexican government is more involved in the coffee industry, of late, than in earlier decades (more on that below), it seems fair to say that the coffee industry’s strong communal impulses have remained the bedrock of the country’s success.

Sustainability Certifications in Mexico

There are several options for producers in Mexico seeking third-party certifications for their coffees, along with the price premiums associated with these certifications. All certifications to some degree address ecological, social and economic issues in their standards, but emphasis differs by certification. Organic certification is most popular with Mexican producers. In most years Mexico is the second-highest producer of organic coffee in the world, just behind Peru. Three of the coffees we review this month are organic-certified. Fair Trade, with its particular emphasis on cooperative arrangements among small-holding producers, is also very important in Mexico; among the nine coffees reviewed this month, two are certified Fair Trade. Rainforest Alliance certification (now merged with Utz Certification under the Rainforest name) is historically structured to appeal to larger farms seeking data-driven, holistic validation of their sustainable practices, although its new standards include specific consideration of smallholders.

Talking with smallholding farmers in Chiapas about their work with Fair Trade USA. Photo by Kim Westerman.

None of these certifications is without controversy — about the standards themselves and in terms of what is ultimately best for people, the environment, and the coffee industry — but for the purposes of this report, suffice it to say that there are competing systems at play, complicated by the increasing influence of “direct trade,” a set of voluntary practices that can be very appealing for both farmers and green buyers. And there are additional steps roasters must take, with each certification, to be allowed to claim the certification on their roasted coffee, involving fees and documented practices that are not always completed. For example, a roaster may have purchased a coffee certified organic at origin but be unable to legally display that certification on the roasted coffee because the roastery is not also certified organic.

Government Involvement and Support

In 1973, the Mexican government established a national coffee organization, INMECAFE (Instituto Mexicano del Café) to provide financial and technical support to farmers, but it dissolved in 1989 with the termination of the export quota system maintained by the International Coffee Agreement, leaving coffee farmers to fend for themselves, as well as find their own sales channels. AMECAFE (Asociación Mexicana De La Cadena Productiva Del Café) is currently the most prominent coffee association, and it’s having some success in regaining the government’s attention in recent years.

Since 2015, Mexico coffee farmers have been hit hard by roya, or leaf rust, a devastating fungus that attacks the leaves of coffee plants, spreads easily and is very difficult to treat. This crisis has spurred SADER (Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development) to partner with AMECAFE, along with

the National Service of Health, Food Safety, and Food Quality (SENASICA), the Integrated Coffee Production Chain (Sistema Producto Café), and some private-sector companies to help by establishing plant nurseries, grafting and cloning, and providing training through the government-sponsored Sustainability and Welfare for Small Coffee Producers (SUBICAFE) program. A 2019 report by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service suggests that Mexico is continuing to rebound well from the leaf rust crisis.

Top-Scoring Coffees

As with all Coffee Review reports, our view of what is happening now in Mexico is limited by the submissions roasters send us, as well as what is available in the market during our cupping window. Because the coffee supply chain is very complex, green coffee arrivals in the U.S. purchased by importers and roasters are impossible to precisely time, so we usually miss some potentially excellent coffees for our reports. In this case, according to Vernaé Graham of Fair Trade USA, many of the Fair Trade-certified coffees from Chiapas have not yet arrived, though we did get our hands on a few.

Luckily, we still received a wide range of origins, certifications and processing methods among the 30 coffees we received for consideration. The top-scoring nine, which we review here, encompass four regions (Chiapas, Guerrero, Nayarit and Oaxaca) and four processing methods (washed, natural, honey and anaerobic).

Processing Innovations As Value-Added

As in many coffee-producing countries, Mexican farmers are starting to work with processing methods that fall outside the traditional washed method that has, for decades, defined export-grade coffees from Mexico. These alternative methods generate the kinds of cup profiles that are currently trendy in the ultra-specialty coffee world, and when successful, earn their producers higher-than-average prices.

The highest-scoring coffee overall, at 94, is Revel’s Finca Cerro Azul Aces Lot — processed anaerobically (fermented in the whole fruit in a hermetically sealed vessel) and produced by a single farm. It is richly aromatic and fruit-toned with ballast from deep chocolate and sweet floral notes, and an intentional sweet ferment. This is a style of cup we now see on a weekly basis from regions throughout the coffee world, as anaerobic processing variations proliferate, bringing their particular tendencies to the sensory potential of the bean. (Read more about that here.) And it’s clear evidence, along with the four other anaerobic-processed samples we received, that Mexico is climbing on the processing-experimentation bandwagon. Fourteen of the 30 submissions were natural or honey-processed, which leaves only 16 traditional washed coffees in the mix. This is not surprising given the global trends we’re seeing, but it is a rather rapid departure from the preponderance of washed Mexican coffees we’ve reviewed in the recent past.

Revel Coffee’s submission for the Mexico tasting report was a Finca Cerro Azul Aces Lot, produced in the Guererro State. Photo courtesy of Revel Coffee.

Revel’s Gary Theisen says, “I think this might only be about the fifth coffee in 15 years that I’ve brought in from Mexico. Most of the importers I have a relationship with tend to list coffees from Mexico that are more intended to serve as a base component for blends. Single-estate coffees that can stand on their own have historically proven to be a bit of a challenge to find. In the case of the Cerro Azul, it had so much quality and intrigue to the cup that I couldn’t pass it up as a quality exemplar from the region that I hope is a harbinger of ubiquitous standout Mexican offerings to come.”

We rated five coffees at 93, one a natural-processed coffee and one a honey. Fumi Coffee Company’s Chiapas Las Margaritas Pache Natural was produced under the direction of Byeong Soo Kim (AKA Teddy) of Finca Don Rafa, whose model is to work with neighboring farmers to help all improve and prosper together. Fumi’s roasted version of this coffee is rife with tropical fruit notes and sweetly herbaceous.

The one honey-processed coffee we review, roasted by Badbeard’s Microroastery in Portland, is a Chiapas Chimhucum “Semi-Washed.”Badbeard’s Justin Kagan has long seen Mexico as an under-appreciated origin. He was principal cellist of the Mexico Symphony from 1990-1998, back when it was difficult to get good coffee to drink as a resident of the country because, as he says, “The good stuff was all exported.” But he lived there long enough to find the good local coffee and roast it with friends, so he has always known the quality was there. Badbeard’s Chiapas, produced by an unofficial collective of smallholding farmers, is delicately sweet and subtly complex, with dried stone fruit, cocoa and citrus notes.

Community announcements posted on a mural commemorating the 1997 massacre in Acteal, Chiapas. Photo courtesy of Amavida Coffee.

Mostra Coffee’s Nyarita Canela (92) feels like a real discovery, given how few coffees we’ve seen from the Nayarit region in the past. Natural-processed, it’s crisply sweet and fruit-driven with notes of dried plum, hazelnut, cocoa powder and marjoram. Ryan Sullivan says, “We chose this coffee not only because we feel like it is an excellent coffee, but also to help support the community that it comes from. This has been an ongoing relationship for Mostra working with the TAMBOR Cooperative through San Cristobal. In 2012, coffee producers in the town of Huaynamota were in financial turmoil. Betrayed by a trusted colleague, the organization was left with crippling debt that was passed on to community members who had personally cosigned the loan. CAFESUMEX and San Cristobal worked with TAMBOR to negotiate their debt terms and begin the road to financial recovery. Seven years later, TAMBOR has financially recovered. Since 2015, TAMBOR has exported its crops debt free.” TAMBOR is one of many examples of the success of the cooperative model in Mexico.

Turning coffee to ensure even drying at Cafe Capitan in Chiapas, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Red Fox Coffee Merchants.

Classic Washed Coffees Remain Solid

Despite their numerical minority in terms of the total coffees we received for this report, four of the nine coffees we review this month are in the traditional washed style. All offer versions of the classic Mexico cup profile we readily recognize — and all are produced by cooperative groups the country is known for.

Amavida Coffee Roaster’s Maya Vinic (93), from the cooperative of the same name, displays notes of baking chocolate, almond butter, date, clove and magnolia, and is certified both organic and Fair Trade. Speckled Ax’s Capitan Maragoype (93) has savory underpinnings with notes of hop flowers, cinnamon and fresh-cut cedar supporting top notes of black cherry and dark chocolate. Amavida’s Jennifer Pawlik says, “Mexico coffee and the farming families are deeply rooted in our own origin story. Amavida has sourced coffee from Maya Vinic since our early days and has also supported coffee producing communities in the region through project work with On the Ground Global (OTG). In the past there was a lot of focus on access to clean water, which has now expanded to agronomy projects and collaborations with OTG and Cooperative Coffees (through their Impact Fund). We also work with an all-women’s cooperative in Chiapas, Mexico which in turn gives further support to project work with OTG in the region.”

Wonderstate Coffee’s Ozolotepec (93), also certified organic, is perhaps the most classic of the coffees we cupped — sweet, balanced, chocolaty and nut-toned — and was produced by members of the members of the UNECAFE Cooperative. Caleb Nicholes says, “We love Mexico as a coffee origin because of the older, traditional varieties such as Typica, Bourbon and Caturra grown in such wildly unique micro-climates. We love this Oaxaca Ozolotepec, in particular, as the region is so stunningly beautiful and the indigenous farmers there have such a rich and distinct cultural heritage. Producers from the UNECAFE cooperative tend to have quite small, organic farms, crafting some of the brightest and cleanest profiles in the entire state of Oaxaca.”

Pulping coffee directly into a fermentation tank at Cafe Capitan in Chiapas. Photo courtesy of Red Fox Coffee Merchants.

Camerin Roberts sent Lone Coffee’s La Cañada Oaxaca Organic (91), which we appreciated for its friendly accessibility, sweet nuttiness and gentle fruit and floral underpinnings. It was produced by members of the Union de Productores Las Flores. Roberts chose this coffee “because it has been part of the blend for our bar espresso for a while now, which is the base of our many popular espresso drinks. As a standalone, it’s fruity and not too acidic. It has a certain friendly complexity that our customers enjoy.”

And we also enjoyed the Fair Trade-certified, organic (FTO) coffee from Water Street Coffee (91) in Kalamazoo, Michigan, sourced from family-owned farms organized around the Grupo de Asesores de Producción Orgánica y Sustentables (GRAPOS), a farmers’ group operating in the municipalities of Unión Juárez, Cacahoatan, and Tapachula in the state of Chiapas. It’s a quietly complex cup with crisp apple and sweet herb notes with consistent undertones of almond brittle. Aaron Clay spoke of Water Street’s positive relationship with the Fair Trade USA organization: “The systems and support they offer make it easy to be a part of the Fair Trade movement — holding organizations to high standards by providing safe working conditions, sustainable livelihoods, and protecting the environment.”

Takeaways

Our foray into the Mexico coffee landscape, while just a slice of what’s happening on the ground, was quite heartening. Quality is high, processing experiments are widespread and successful, and the cooperative model that Mexico coffee production was founded on is holding strong. We hope the country continues to rebound from the leaf rust crisis, and we’re excited to see what becomes of the many new partnerships being formed — may they all succeed in helping farmers achieve stability and thrive.

The post Mexico Coffee: Processing Innovation, Cooperatives, and the Tradition of Collaboration appeared first on Coffee Review.

Mill devoted to smaller-lot specialty coffees at Ipanema Farms in the Sul de Minas growing region, Brazil. Courtesy of Ipanema Farms.

When I first opened a specialty café in Berkeley, California 40 years ago, a Brazil always appeared among the standard whole-bean coffee offerings in the 10 or so glass-fronted bins that held our whole-bean coffees. All of the popular and glamorous coffee origins of the time were there: Guatemala Antigua, Kenya AA, Costa Rica Tarrazu, Sumatra Mandheling, Colombia Supremo, and the new, game-changing Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. Brazil Santos, as we liked to call it (all of these origins had to sport at least one secondary qualifying name), was usually down at the end of the row, largely looked past when customers ordered a pound of Kenya or Guatemala.

But some customers did buy Brazils. I remember one particularly coffee-savvy young employee who skillfully worked our Gaggia two-group piston espresso machine, declaring, a little defensively, that Brazil was his favorite origin. He said he liked its low-key balance and its nut, spice and chocolate notes. He found the other more glamorous origins we carried too bright, too one-sided, too insistent.

But there were only a few like him back then, and today, it looks like there are even fewer. In fact, it appears, from this month’s low turnout of Brazil submissions from North American specialty roasters, that Brazil, by far the world’s largest producer of coffee, is one of the tiniest when it comes to upmarket specialty lists of American roasters.

We received only around 30 samples for this report, as opposed to the 60 or more we usually receive for surveys of other origins. But the real shock was the low turnout from North American roasters. Only seven American-roasted Brazil samples showed up! The other 24 were roasted by Asian companies, all based in Taiwan.

Don’t blame the coffees themselves. The 30 samples we tested averaged around 89 on the Coffee Review scale, an excellent showing. And we ran into no coffees at all displaying composty flavors or medicinal hints, for example, two failings of poorer quality coffees everywhere. These were mostly solid, drinkable coffees whose main failing was simplicity or a kind of aromatic laziness.

But if we move from the also-rans to the very best of this month’s Brazils, we encounter some very, very fine samples. Before discussing how and why they are exceptional, I need to back into a brief account of the history and character of the classic Brazil cup.

The Backbone of Specialty: Brazil Naturals

This cup is seldom bright or acidy — credit moderate-to-low growing elevations. It is usually produced from quite respected tree varieties, with pleasing balance and subtle fruit, but without the aromatic fireworks of Ethiopia-derived material like Geisha/Gesha, for example. It is natural-processed, meaning the coffee fruit is simply picked (often by machine) then spread to dry on patios.

The typical outcome is a coffee with pleasing mouthfeel, a structure usually round and low in acidity, with fruit leaning toward chocolate and nut rather than citrus and flowers.

Raking pulped-natural process coffee in the Cerrado Miniero region of Brazil. Courtesy of Kenneth Davids.

None of that sounds particularly exciting, does it? This relatively drab story and satisfying but low-drama cup are probably the reasons why so few roasters sent us Brazil samples. They don’t look for great Brazils, so, presumably, they don’t find them, and if they don’t find them, then their customers won’t, either. The roasters look for Brazils to fill out the middle of blends and harmonize more assertive coffees, not something to stand by itself making its own case. “I think U.S. roasters overlook Brazils far too easily when looking for something ‘unique’ and ‘exciting,’ something to ‘push the industry forward,’” says David Pittman of Peach Coffee Roasters.

Pushing (Or at Least Nudging) the Industry Forward

But some Brazil producers are aiming to “push the industry forward,” as it turns out. And some roasters have begun to take them up on it. Of the eight top-rated coffees that fill out this month’s reviews, five play subtle but decisive variations on Brazil natural processing that expand the style in ways both distinctive and delicious. Two others among the eight represent Brazil’s special gift to processing method, the pulped natural. Only one embodies the tradition of the classic Brazil natural, although it embodies it particularly well.

In the natural process, of course, the beans or seeds remain encased inside the entire fruit all the way from picking to drying. However, with five of the samples we tested for this report, the whole fruit was subject to an unorthodox fermentation step before being spread to dry.

Whole-Fruit Fermentation as Sensory Game-Changer

Fermentation, of course, has long been a key step in traditional wet-processing, where it is used to soften sticky fruit flesh so it can be more easily “washed” off the beans. But with this month’s unorthodox Brazils, fermentation was applied to the coffee in the whole fruit as a clear attempt to enhance final cup character and originality, rather than simply facilitate a mechanical process.

I’m thinking that a plausible name for this processing variation might be “enhanced natural.” Among other benefits, the fermentation step may slow down drying, thereby intensifying the development of fruit and sweetness and avoiding the too-rapid drying of the fruit that, in traditional natural Brazils, may turn fruit notes prune-like and promote a dry, woody cup.

The exact nature of the fermentation step varies in all five of these “enhanced naturals.” In the case of the top-rated Kakalove Café Fazenda Samambaia Natural Fermentation Arara (95), the fruit was fermented in (apparently open-topped) barrels for four days before the usual drying on raised beds. This ferment was a bit longer than in the case of some other samples we tested and seems to simultaneously encourage great sweetness and savory-edged depth, plus add an intrigue of grappa-like spirits.

The fermentation step also lasted around four days for the deeply sweet yet resonantly bright Euphora Coffee Ipanema Premier Cru Gold A49 Cherry (93), but in this case, the ferment was anaerobic (carried out in sealed, rather than open, tanks). So here, rather than a tickle of spirits produced by a light hint of alcohol-inducing aerobic fermentation, as in the Kakalove Samambaia, we experience a deep, sweet tanginess, brisk and bracingly bitter-edged. With the Spix’s Café Brazil Red Catuaí Double-Anaerobic (93), the ferment was also anaerobic, netting another deep yet delicately bright/tart coffee, saturated by a distinct dark chocolate with a cherry and floral edge.

The CafeTaster Mogiana Aparecid Farm (93) was apparently only lightly fermented before drying, netting a delicate yet deep profile: cocoa, blood orange, flowers.

An American “Enhanced Natural” Candidate and Two Pulped Naturals

Finally, the one American-roasted entry in what I am calling the enhanced natural category, Peach Coffee Roasters Sitio Ponte Fazenda Ponte (93), was also subject to only a short spell of controlled dry fermentation before being spread on the terraces. I found it a particularly satisfying cup, however, a Brazil natural driven by the caramel, apple and almond typical of the style, yet gently saturated with flowers, all supported by a particularly fragrant cedar.

Natural process coffee drying on a raised bed at Sitio Taquara farm, Campestre, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Pictured with Edimara Bernardes, the daughter of the producer. Courtesy of Demilson Batista Jr.

Two of the eight reviewed Brazils were not naturals at all, strictly speaking, but processed by the method Brazilians call pulped natural, a procedure that the rest of the world has come to know as honey-processing. Brazilians pioneered the method, although their rather technical name for it has stayed at home. In the Brazil version, only the skins are removed from the coffee fruit, and the beans, still covered in their sticky fruit flesh, are put out to dry directly on patios. They need to be raked rigorously at first, or the beans are likely to clump and mold. Done right, Brazil pulped naturals typically produce a sort of natural-lite cup; more delicate than most naturals, a bit brighter and lighter, more floral. The result can be a svelte, balanced Brail cup, clean and quietly layered, like the Willoughby’s Brazil Legender Sitio Taquara Natural (92). But the method also can encourage more distinctive profiles, like the Mostra Coffee Sitio Pedra Menina (93), here gently tart and fragrant with floral and herb nuance.

And a Last No-Frills Natural

Finally, we did have one straightforward Brazil-style natural among the eight top-rated samples — in other words, a coffee dried in the whole fruit straight through without any ferment step or processing variations. The simplicity of means seems reflected in the pleasing directness and grace of the Brazil Natural Veloso Estate from Taiwanese roaster Min Enjoy Café (93). “A quietly transcendent Brazil natural cup, harmonious and integrated,” co-cupper Kim Westerman writes.

Tree Variety and Brazil

Tree variety, along with processing method the other main driver of change and excitement in specialty coffee today, did not seem to figure prominently among the Brazils we surveyed. Brazil has tended to stick with tree varieties that are productive and respected for their cup character but not particularly celebrated for their distinctiveness. So, on one hand, no extravagant Geishas or other exotic Ethiopia escapees, but, on the other, no varieties heavily dumbed down with Robusta genes either. The variety most frequently appearing among this month’s samples is Catuaí, a cross between Caturra (the widely-grown, compact-growing selection of Bourbon) and Mondo Novo, itself a cross between Typica and Red Bourbon. My experience suggests Catuaí can be depended upon to produce a complete, lively, well-structured cup, though usually not a particularly distinctive one.

The Brazil “Aha” Moment

So, ok, Brazils may not rattle your saucers with shock and aromatic excitement, but they do have their supporters among those roasters who submitted this month. Several cited a specific “aha” Brazil moment, a Brazil coffee that challenged expectation. David Hsiao at Min Enjoy Café offers customers blind tastings, and when he included this month’s classic Brazil natural his customers were quite impressed. “Someone guessed it was Colombia, someone said Panama, someone guessed Costa Rica,” he reports. “When the hole card was revealed, every customer showed a surprised expression and said, ‘Is this really coffee from Brazil?’ They couldn’t believe it was so delicious!” Other roasters offered similar stories about specific coffees that challenged customers’ expectations about Brazil.

Warehouse of a coffee mill in Alfenas, Minas Gerais State, Brazil.

On the other hand, some roasters expressed appreciation for the very reliability of Brazils, for their familiarity and their capacity to satisfy a wide range of tastes. David Pittman of Peach Coffee Roasters sees Brazils as a “gateway to the non-specialty coffee drinker,” and adds that “this is the customer we at Peach are trying to reach.” Ryan Sullivan of Mostra Coffee describes the importance of Brazils in first establishing his roasting company in a geography new to specialty coffee, and how important Brazils have remained. “Brazil is always in the top five best-selling coffees and, as a single-origin, Brazil is our top-selling coffee over the course of the year. We would be a different company without Brazil to offer, and I don’t think our clientele would be too happy with us!”

Familiar Yet Fresh

Finally, the appeal for me of many of this month’s top-rated Brazils, particularly those I am calling “enhanced naturals,” is the way that they both support yet transcend our expectations. In drinking them, we may enjoy many of the satisfactions of a fine Brazil natural — the balance, the coherence, the fine mouthfeel, the rounded acidity and quietly complete range of aromatics (and yes, the cocoa and nut) — but along with that, we may find, owing to the care of the producer and thoughtful processing variation, a certain edge of originality, some twist or nuance capable of breaking through our work or reverie, reminding us that we are drinking a specific coffee, at a specific moment — and at that moment, something special, however transitory, is passing between us and the cup.

Special Thanks

To Caesar Tu, David Pittman, David Hsiao, May Wang, and Ryan Sullivan for contributing immeasurably to this report by sharing their attitudes and their customers’ attitudes toward Brazil coffees.

The post Brazil Naturals: Tradition and Innovation appeared first on Coffee Review.

Women taking a break while working in a coffee nursery on a Guatemalan farm. Courtesy of Kenneth Davids. 

While some people in the specialty coffee industry still refer to the “classic Central America cup,” effectively lumping together the diverse coffee-producing countries of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica, it is more the trend now to make increasingly fine distinctions among these origins in terms of varieties, processing, and cup profiles specific to each. Single-origin coffees are the primary driver of sales in the specialty market, and this month, we look at the coffees of Guatemala, something we haven’t done in report format since 2013.

When Coffee Review editor Kenneth Davids surveyed the landscape of Guatemala coffees more than 20 years ago, the themes that emerged were growing region, roast level, and the efforts of Anacafe, the Guatemalan Coffee Association founded in 1960, to frame the country as a worthy and distinct competitor in the specialty coffee arena after decades of civil war. In 1990, “Guatemalan Coffees” was launched as the branded name of an increasing specialty coffee output, and in 2018, coffee was recognized by the Guatemalan government as an “Intangible Heritage of the Nation” for its contribution to the national economy and its historical rootedness in the culture.

By the time we published our 2013 Guatemala report, producers were starting to experiment with planting different coffee varieties, but we didn’t see the processing experiments that were already well underway in nearby Costa Rica. Perhaps battles with leaf rust slowed down the experimental spirit, but it may just be that classic washed coffees represented the Guatemala name well enough to satisfy both producers and consumers.

How are things in 2021? In one sense, the story of coffee in Guatemala is like the story of specialty coffee across the globe: Coffee drinkers, importers and roasters are busy looking for the next great novelty. This impulse is part human nature, part the privilege of easy access to coffees from almost anywhere. For coffee producers at origin, scratching that itch by offering unusual varieties or experimental processing methods can result in higher premiums. But what was interesting about cupping the 52 coffees we received for this report is that traditional varieties and processing methods still seem to rule the Guatemala roost, at least if we judge in terms of ratings.

Planting seeds in a Guatemalan coffee nursery. Courtesy of Kenneth Davids.

Of the 52 coffees we received for consideration, 33 were washed-process, 15 were natural-processed, two were honey-processed, and two were processed anaerobically. The highest-scoring ten, which we review here at 92 to 96, are mainly traditional washed-process, with two naturals.

In terms of varieties of Arabica among the submissions, if we consider the traditional varieties grown in Guatemala to be Bourbon, Caturra, Catuaí, Typica, Maragogype, Pache and Pacamara, then the only outliers we review here are two Geishas, both washed. Since its rediscovery in 2004 the Geisha variety has been carried into every coffee growing region in the world, or so it seems, prized for its rich florality, focused fruit, and balanced structure. But it’s the traditional varieties that dominate this month’s reviews and ratings.

Two Standout Washed Geishas Roasted in Taiwan

GK Coffee’s Sierra Roja Geisha, which rated 96, is a Geisha in technicolor — focused and confident with exuberant florals throughout the cup — and it’s woman-farmed. Lorena Castillo Castellanos of Sierra Roja Farm, in the cloud forest of Sierra de las Minas, began farming her father’s shade-grown trees two years ago. Castellanos has a background in conservation and sustainability, values she brings to Sierra Roja as she experiments with new varieties and processing methods.

For GK roaster Gary Liao, Guatemala is the epitome of a classic producing region because the coffees it produces represent a range of sensory expression, which helps him perfect his own sensory training in identifying specific coffee varieties. Geishas from the highlands, he says, are unmistakable for their rich floral sweetness and high-toned acidity. (He likes this Sierra Roja as cold-brew, as well as filter coffee.)

Another Taiwanese roaster, woman-owned Green Stone Coffee, submitted a lovely washed Geisha that’s also from the high-altitude, Geisha-friendly Sierra de las Minas region. This coffee, which scored 93, is intensely fruit-driven with notes of passion fruit and spicy florals.

Of this coffee, Green Stone owner and educator Kelly Wang says she likes the bright, balanced acidity that high-grown Geishas can offer. She particularly admires fourth-generation farmer Teodoro Engelhardt’s vision to create a farm representing a self-sustainable ecosystem in the micro-climate of a tropical rainforest.

The Many Faces of Classic Washed Varieties

The heart of our own experience cupping through more than 50 Guatemala coffees from all over the country resided particularly in the success of classic varieties processed by the traditional washed method. What’s interesting is that the top six washed, non-Geisha samples we review here, ranging from 92-94 in score, were grown in four different regions: Huehuetenango (in the northwest highlands), Fraijanes (a south-central plateau), Lake Atitlan (in the southwest), and Lake Amatitlán (south of Antigua). And almost all of the traditional varieties are represented here; only Maragogype is missing.

Freshly released from the fermentation tank, coffee beans at a traditional Guatemalan mill are “washed” or cleaned of fruit residue in a channel of moving water. Courtesy of Kenneth Davids.

Of these classic coffees, San Diego’s Nostalgia Coffee Roasters’ Guatemala La Voz earned the top score at 94. Owner-roaster Taylor Fields says this coffee was originally selected for Nostalgia’s Memory Lane blend, but the team loved it so much that they decided to offer it as a single-origin selection. Comprised of Typica, Bourbon and Caturra, the cup profile displays both deep chocolate and high-toned citrus notes. Grown near the shores of famous Lake Atitlan, this coffee is produced by smallholding members of La Voz que Clama en el Desierto cooperative, whose production is highly regarded throughout the country for its clarity and brightness.

Iconic farm El Injerto is known for its early adoption of a policy of not supplementing its own production by buying coffee in parchment from other farms. This policy created what is essentially an “estate” coffee, much like an estate wine, with the Aguirre family controlling every step, from planting to milling and every other stage along the way. Women-owned Equator Coffee, based in San Rafael, California, sent us El Injerto’s washed Pacamara (93), a beautiful example of this inherently sweet savory variety, richly bittersweet (think hop flowers) and deeply chocolaty with a full, viscous body. El Injerto is located in what is perhaps Guatemala’s most famous growing region, Huehuetenango, on the slopes of the central mountain range, where soils are mostly clay and altitudes range from 3,000-6,000 feet, allowing for a broad range of expression.

Equator’s Director of Coffee Ted Stachura says, “The Aguirre family has a laser-focused approach to new varieties and processing methods. Once experimentation is complete, the resulting coffee they are able to produce is of the highest quality. If the results of their testing doesn’t show great potential, they do not bother offering those types. Pacamara has a proven track record on the farm and we are now purchasing a small quantity of this coffee every year.”

Another Huehuetenango coffee, a Pache grown in Santa Barbara, was submitted by States Coffee (93). Owner Keith Gehrke says of Guatemala coffees, in general: “I really fell in love with coffee from Guatemala back in 2007 when I met Edwin Martinez from Finca Vista Hermosa. His coffee was amazing, and he became a friend. That was also the first time I was a head roaster for a company. So, a very memorable and nostalgic experience for me now. Guatemala coffees have such a great balance in the cup, along with body and sweetness, so that if I had to choose only one origin to buy forever, I would probably pick Guatemala.” This Pache exemplifies Gehrke’s observation with its vibrantly sweet, subtly complex profile. Pache is a natural dwarf mutation of Typica, discovered in Guatemala in 1949.

Finally, Denver-based Novo Coffee Roasters submitted an El Mirador (93), also from Huehuetenango. This blend of Caturra, Catuai and Bourbon grown by smallholding farmers is crisply chocolaty with undertones of sweet herbs.

One entry from the Fraijanes Plateau, a region that began exporting in earnest to the U.S. only in the last two decades, comes from Kakalove Café in Chia-Yi, Taiwan. It’s thought that because much of the soil in this area is volcanic, coffees grown in Fraijanes exhibit distinctively balanced acidity, which is certainly true of this coffee, a Yellow Catuaí (93). Owner-roaster Caesar Tu says that Oscar Pimentel’s farm is mostly experimental microlots, but because of shipping delays related to Covid-19, his selection for importing to Taiwan was quite limited, so he felt lucky to find this sweet, vibrant, resonant cup, the epitome of a daily-drinker.

Charlotte, North Carolina’s Magnolia Coffee offers this Guatemala Finca San Gerardo. Courtesy of Magnolia Coffee.

Rounding out the best of the classic submissions is Charlotte, North Carolina-based Magnolia Coffee’s Finca San Gerardo Bourbon (92), a deep-toned floral and nutty cup grown in the Lake Amatitlán region of south-central Guatemala, just south of Guatemala City (and not to be confused with the larger Lake Atitlan). Owner Jay Gestwicki has been buying green coffee from this farm for a number of years. He says he was looking for “an exceptional everyday drinking coffee” with clear chocolate notes and lots of nuance, and this coffee fits the bill.

Two Compelling Natural-Processed Coffees

The number of natural-processed coffees we review at Coffee Review has steadily increased, year by year. In the context of Central America, Guatemala may be far less exuberant in experiment than Costa Rica, El Salvador and certainly Panama in terms of getting on the “funky train” of anaerobic processing, but naturals — coffees that have been dried in the whole fruit — appear to be coming on strong. Of the 15 natural-processed coffees we received for this report, two scored 92, which we review here: Taiwan-based Qin Mi Coffee’s Acatenango Pacamara Natural and Plat Coffee’s Finca Granada Natural.

The former represents yet another growing region, Acatenango, whose sandy soils are enriched by minerals from regular volcano eruptions nearby, perhaps encouraging coffees that display savory tones as well as sweet. Qin Mi’s Pacamara is cleanly fruity and richly bittersweet. The Plat Finca Granada is a Bourbon-Caturra blend from Huehuetenango with notes of pie cherry, lavender, and cocoa nib. Plat’s Raymond Cheung likes Guatemala naturals for the value they offer, while Qin Mi’s roaster “Hank” chose this particular natural from 40 Guatemalas he blind-cupped.

Qin Mi’s roaster “Hank” chose an Acatenango Pacamara natural from 40 Guatemala coffees he blind-cupped. Courtesy of Qin Mi Coffee.

Balance, Familiarity, Quality

The biggest takeaway from our cupping is that Guatemala is a go-to origin for balanced coffees of a style we recognize and love, whose quality is high across the board, and whose innovation is measured and largely successful.

The post Tradition, Diversity & Measured Innovation Elevate Guatemala Coffees appeared first on Coffee Review.

Red Rooster’s “Trust The Process” Colombia coffee was the top-rated coffee in this month’s report. Photo courtesy of Red Rooster Coffee Roaster.

Colombia could be approaching best-of-both-worlds status as coffee producer. On one hand, standard commodity Colombias continue rolling down to the ports and onward into “100% Colombian” supermarket cans and jars, whose quite decent contents put to shame the bland, woody, Robusta-laden contents of competing supermarket cans and jars.

At the same time, small lots of specialty Colombia coffees, surprising and exceptional, have surfaced over the last decade or so. Until recently, these specialty Colombias aimed for a superior version of the classic power and completeness associated with the best traditional Colombia coffees. In other words, they aspired to transcend the standard-issue Colombia cup by doing the same thing, only better.

But recently, increasing numbers of Colombias have appeared on specialty lists that represent the opposite of classic. These are often anything-goes, push-it-to-the-limit experiments with processing method of the kind that have erupted at the trendy high end of the coffee market over the past couple of years. In particular, they include sweetly fruit-toned coffees dried in the whole fruit (naturals), as well as coffees processed by a range of hybrid methods, including variations on the latest processing fad, anaerobic fermentation.

From a consumer point of view, the best of both worlds could be starting to look like a split coffee personality.

63 Single-Farm Colombias

We tested 63 single-farm Colombias for this month’s report. Close to half (45%) were conventionally washed or wet-processed in the Colombia tradition. About 30% were dried-in-the-fruit or natural-processed (in other words, not in the Colombia tradition). And almost 25% were subject to ingenious hybrid variations on anaerobic processing or carbonic maceration, definitely not in the Colombia tradition. Anaerobic, by the way, means that at some point during the process of fruit removal and drying the coffees are subject to fermentation in restricted oxygen conditions (sealed tanks, sealed bags, tanks filled with CO2). When the oxygen restriction is performed by sealing the coffee fruit in tanks filled with CO2 the process may be termed carbonic maceration, with maceration in this case used as a rough synonym for fermentation and carbonic referring to the CO2. All such deprivation of oxygen during fermentation aims to reduce the action of oxygen-loving yeasts that produce sweet alcohol fermentation while promoting the action of lactic-acid-producing bacteria that don’t need oxygen. These last are the sorts of bacteria that influence the taste of yogurt, kefir, sour beers and kimchee, among other foods and beverages.

Based on my own experience tasting these experiments, the best of them seem to combine cup characteristics I associate with the lush impact of yeast/alcohol fermentation as well as the tangy tart-sweetness of lactic fermentation. But either way, these hybrid anaerobic-ferment coffees offer the almost exact opposite of what we expect from standard washed-process coffees in the Colombia tradition: They propose the unexpected rather than the expected, the surprising rather than the predictably suave and balanced.

No Matter What the Process, Considerable Success

Regardless of processing variation, the 63 Colombia single-farm samples we tested for this month’s report were overall impressive. More than half scored 90 or higher, and a notable 17 scored 93 or better. Of those seventeen 93+ samples, we chose 12 to review this month.

Surprisingly, perhaps, these 12 report-topping coffees were split among processing methods almost precisely in the same percentages as the samples were for the cupping as a whole. Almost half (42%) were washed process, 25% were natural-processed, and 25% were variations on anaerobic methods. There was one honey-processed coffee, accounting for the 8% needed to reach 100%.

So, if there is any lesson to be learned here concerning processing method and high ratings at Coffee Review, it would seem to be that it’s not the processing method that attracts high ratings, but rather the care and knowledge the producer brings to executing those processing methods. Supported, of course, by importers, roasters and consumers willing to pay enough to justify that care and knowledge.

Scan the Ratings, but Read the Reviews

Another lesson is that consumers using Coffee Review to help with their buying decisions might want to purchase coffees based on reading the reviews as well as looking at the ratings.

Take the top three coffees in the report, all rated 95 or 96. One was a natural-processed coffee, the Red Rooster “Trust the Process” (96), one a conventional fully washed coffee, the Paradise Finca El Caucho (95), and one a hybrid anaerobic, the Kakalove Cafe Colombia 95). Not only the processing methods, but the particular coffee pleasures offered by these three exceptional coffees, are quite different. Of course, one could also argue that by buying any of them, the coffee lover wins, just in different ways.

Kakalove Cafe’s Natural Carbonic Maceration coffee, which earned 95 points, was grown at Finca La Colombia in Antioquia. Photo Courtesy of Kakalove Cafe.

Juan Valdez Contemplates Carbonic Maceration

With almost any other origin except Colombia, such a schitzy split in processing method and coffee personality might go unnoticed. But for the last 60 years, Colombia has been successfully selling the world on a uniform, relatively consistent coffee experience branded “100% Colombian.” The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia (FNC)’s decades-long, innovative marketing program built around that name and featuring the photogenic farmer Juan Valdez (played by a succession of actual coffee farmers over the years) remains a remarkable, award-winning success story in establishing brand recognition with North American consumers. At one point in the early 2000s, around 12.5% of all coffee sold in the U.S. was Colombian.

Meanwhile, at the producing end, the FNC relentlessly pursued its goal of turning all of its grower members into one unified coffee expression, as near as possible offering the same “100% Colombian” cup no matter where in Colombia the green coffee came from or which of its 513,000 farmer-members grew it.

Keep It Washed

So committed was Colombia to achieving a consistent nationwide coffee profile that, for decades, Colombian authorities only allowed coffees to be exported that pretty much fit the “100% Colombian” model: standard clean-profiled, wet-processed coffees that fulfilled certain grading expectations. The goal was to prevent lower-quality or off-tasting coffees from reaching the market and sullying the 100% Colombia brand. But these rules also discouraged export of quality coffees processed using alternative processing methods.

In 2015, Colombia authorities finally relaxed those regulations. The main driver apparently was a need to export somewhat lower-quality coffees to meet demand during a time when the rust epidemic and other factors severely reduced overall Colombia coffee production. But surely, an additional motivation must have been the desire of some producers and their importer and roaster allies to see Colombia join the growing movement to create new and exciting cup profiles through experimentation with processing.

At any rate, the change in Colombian export regulations five years ago opened the door to the rather striking contrast among this month’s 12 reviewed coffees, a contrast between what we might call the Similar-But-Better approach and the Different-But-Exciting approach to specialty differentiation.

The Similar-But-Better Successes

The top-rated among this month’s Similar-But-Better collection is the 95-point Paradise Colombia Finca El Caucho Pink Bourbon, with its natural sweetness, high-toned brightness, and intricate floral, honey and citrus notes. True, although its lovely honey-sweet yet citrusy structure may have been encouraged by a classic washed process, its juicy complexity probably can be attributed to a tree variety that local Colombian growers in the Huila region call Pink Bourbon.

Roberto Achicue of Finca El Caucho grew the Paradise Roasters Pink Bourbon we rated at 95 points. Photo courtesy of Paradise Roasters.

In terms of fact and science, there appear to be more questions than answers about Pink Bourbon and its origins and genetics. Both red-fruited and yellow-fruited Bourbons are widely grown in the coffee world, and local Colombian producers have made the logical assumption that their Pink Bourbon is a spontaneous cross between Red and Yellow. However, genetic fingerprinting suggests that the Huila version is more likely a variety not directly related to Bourbon. Nevertheless, one thing seems clear: Pink Bourbon as grown in the Huila region of Colombia can produce an impressive cup.

Regrettably, the 95-point Paradise Finca El Caucho Pink Bourbon is already sold out on the roaster’s website, but I think readers will not be stepping very far back with either the 93-rated Badbeard’s Special Project Colombia Pink Bourbon or the 93-rated JBC Aces La Juntas, also from trees of the Pink Bourbon. Both are washed process, and both are sweetly and gently tart and juicy in structure with a citrusy edge. The Badbeard version is more floral and the JBC more chocolaty and nut-toned. I confess that I brought the leftover Badbeard’s home and drank it with the greatest pleasure over two days running.

Two more 93-rated washed-process Colombias fill out this month’s Similar-But-Better contingent: the Greater Goods Bright Minds and the modcup Colombia Finca Potosi. Both are produced from a selection of standard Colombia varieties: Caturra, Colombia, Castillo. But both display considerable distinction, presumably owing to meticulous work at the farm and mill: spice and flower notes with a fine dry chocolate in the case of the Bright Minds; sweet lilac-like flowers and orangy citrus and caramel with the modcup Finca Potosi.

Finca Potosi, in Colombia’s Valle de Cauca, grew a special lot for modcup coffee, which earned 93 points. Photo courtesy of modcup coffee.

Three Impressive Naturals

It was only about 15 years ago that producers in Ethiopia and Central America began to seriously experiment with natural processing fine coffee. Until then, drying coffee in the whole fruit was a practice associated almost exclusively with poor-quality, mass-produced coffees. Peripheral fermentation during drying in the whole fruit tends to impart taste characteristics to the cup that can range from unpleasantly rotten, through seductively brandy-like, to gloriously sweet and complex. Specialty coffee producers all over the world are now learning how to control drying to produce coffees in the positive range of that spectrum, and based on this month’s samples, some Colombia producers are now well into that game.

This month’s top-rated coffee, the 96-point Red Rooster “Trust the Process” Full Natural appears to be a triumph of well-managed natural processing, given that the tree varieties that were subject to that processing are the usually plain-tasting, straightforward Caturra and Colombia. The Red Rooster natural is deeply resonant with sustained, shifting complexity, supported by a structure that reviewer Kim Westerman calls “lyrically sweet, mysteriously savory, invitingly tart.”

Like the Red Rooster, this month’s other two top-rated naturals, the Blues Brew Finca La Maria Geisha Natural (94) and the Plat Colombia Diofanor Ruiz (94) are what we might call clean naturals (or maybe sober naturals). Neither display much alcohol-related nuance, though both are quite distinctive in their processing-driven expression. The Blues Brew is deeply chocolaty, sweet-savory and pungent. The Plat is higher-toned, fruit-forward but tangy and tart, with some pleasant yogurty dairy suggestions.

The Latest Wrinkle: Anaerobic Fermented Naturals

With this month’s three samples involving variations on anaerobic ferment or carbonic maceration, we travel farthest from the classic Colombia cup. Nevertheless, these three coffees are not extreme examples of the anaerobic style. All seem to retain the familiar lushly sweet tendencies of yeast fermentation combined with only moderate influence of the tangy bacterial ferment associated with anaerobic or carbonic methods.

All three basically build on the natural method. The 95-rated Kakalove Colombia Antioquia Natural Carbonic Maceration Caturra was essentially kept in the whole fruit during extensive fermentation in sealed tanks injected with CO2 and afterwards dried in the whole fruit. The result is a jammy, sweet, chocolaty cup with intricate flavor nuance and savory depth: dessert-like but complex. The 94-rated Brioso Colombia Java El Edén is also essentially a natural coffee fermented in low-oxygen conditions and dried in the whole fruit, netting a profile both sweetly lush and tangily lactic, not to mention intricate and original in aromatics. The 93-rated Dory Colombia Finca El Paraiso reveals the most explicit anaerobic influence. It also was subject to the most complex procedure: first 24 hours in the whole fruit in sealed tanks, then pulped or skinned and put back in the tanks for another 36 hours of anaerobic/limited oxygen ferment. It is, frankly, a not-for-everyone success: savory-sweet and complexly herby and chocolaty — think sweet chocolate sauce with ginger and herbs.

Jason Yu of Dory Coffee Roasters, based in Taipei, Tawian, whose double-anaerobic coffee scored 93 points. Photo courtesy of Jason Yu.

And a Honey with Variations

It’s good to conclude with a classic cup, albeit one generated through still more processing experiment. Evie’s Café La Gallera Estate (94) is technically a honey-processed coffee, since it was dried encased in the fruit flesh after being pulped. But along the way to the drying tables, it was fermented twice, albeit briefly, once in the whole fruit and again after pulping. Apparently, however, neither of these ferment episodes involved limited oxygen or other anaerobic hijinks. You might call the Evie Café’s honey a discreet experiment producing a discreetly fine coffee, balanced but complete: softly bright with notes of raspberry, chocolate, flowers, nut.

A Quick Return to the Big Picture

Coming back to the best of both worlds theme I opened with, the Colombia coffee authorities have managed to turn the corner on the ravages of climate change and the great rust disease pandemic starting in 2009. Mainly driven by a successful program of planting disease-resistant coffee varieties, total Colombia coffee exports have climbed steadily over the past several years.

In the big picture, we have to hope that the 100% Colombia program will continue to roll on successfully, supported by higher and fairer prices for this sturdy, dependable, essential coffee type. The 100% Colombia program still provides North American consumers with the only solid budget coffee experience available in supermarket cans and instants while providing an essential livelihood for Colombia’s hundreds of thousands of smallholding producers.

Luis Samper, distinguished coffee writer, researcher and proponent of the Colombia industry, points out that the sorts of microlot coffees produced by processing innovations like those described here (natural, anaerobic, honey) remain the tiniest drop in the bucket in the big economic picture for Colombia coffee. Estimates he has seen puts exports of such alternative-processed Colombia coffees at around 15,000 70-kilo bags per year. Colombia’s total exports in 2020 came to around 10.7 million 70-kilo bags of Arabica coffee of various qualities.

But for Coffee Review and its readers, and hopefully for the producers passionately engaged in refining traditional processes or diving headlong into new alternatives, this tiny drop of specialty Colombias is a glistening jewel deep with creative possibility and daily pleasure.

Coffee Review would like to thank guest cupper Lily Logan, Operations Manager at Bay Area CoRoasters (CoRo), who made valuable contributions to this month’s reviews.

The post Colombia Coffee 2021: Best of Both Worlds or Identity Crisis? appeared first on Coffee Review.

Road leading to coffee farms in the highlands of western Honduras near Santa Barbara National Park.

For decades, the classic washed or wet-processed coffees of Central America and Mexico have constituted one of the world’s great go-to coffee types. Usually clean-tasting, usually sweetly-tart, with a shifting array of fruit notes – always stone fruit, typically some citrus and flowers, always notes ranging from nut and caramel to full-on dark chocolate depending on the coffee and roast. And most likely some aromatic wood, from the sweet-pungent odor of fresh-cut cedar to scorchy pine in darker roasts. The details might differ by farm or origin — Panama was particularly known for clean, soft versions of the type, Costa Rica for equally clean but brighter, more forceful versions, Guatemala for more depth and intrigue, not always so clean, perhaps, but with unexpected sensory surprises arising from less predictable coffee varieties and local variations in processing methods. El Salvador: owing to the widespread cultivation of the classic Bourbon variety and lower growing elevations, lightly stated but slightly more melodic and complex variations on the type than, say, Costa Rica.

Washing channel at a wet mill in Antigua, Guatemala.

These types not only appeared regularly on the menus of specialty coffee roasters as single origins, but contributed to blends as one of the three pillars of standard “all-Arabica” blends of the period — Colombia for body and intensity, Brazil for softening nut and chocolate (and cost savings), and the Central for light-footed vivacity and a lyrical lift.

I expect that among some coffee drinkers, the classic Central profile remains the archetypal taste of coffee. Both the cup similarities among Central America coffee types and their relatively subtle differences arose from the same sources. Similar because of similar processing methods (fruit removal by ferment and washing before drying the beans) and similar tree varieties (all derived ultimately from a few trees brought from Yemen to the rest of the world in the early 18th century). Their differences? Variations in details of processing and differences among those closely related tree varieties: sturdy, straightforward Caturra in Costa Rica, more complex and variable Bourbon in El Salvador, for example. Plus, there was consensus all along the supply chain — from growers to coffee mills to exporters to importers and roasters — about how each of these regional variations on the Central America cup should taste, and all of the actors in the supply chain supported these variations on a theme through their choices.

The Different Overtakes the Classic

Those who have followed the high end of the specialty coffee market over the last decade know roughly what happened to change all that. Above all, a new enthusiasm for the different and striking among specialty roasters and their customers: We want Ethiopias because they are more intensely floral and fruit-toned than those regular old Centrals. We want dried-in-the-fruit or natural processed coffees because they are big, fruity and often alcohol-toned. We want honey-processed coffees because they taste different and “anaerobic” coffees fermented in oxygen-depriving tanks and bags because they taste even more different.

This trend toward cup differentiation has been abetted by accidents of history: by the rediscovery of the extraordinary Geisha variety growing in Panama in 2004, for example. True Panama Geishas made a classic Central America cup produced from trees of the familiar varieties grown in Central America like Typica, Caturra, or even Bourbon taste a little like a coffee version of Budweiser or an art-opening white wine. Then, add all of the new processing wrinkles — naturals, honeys, etc. — to the already strikingly different-tasting Geisha, and you have a range of coffee expressions almost calculated to make the classic Central America washed cup seem, well, forgettable.

Abetted by Rust and Low Prices

All of this change was intensified by a succession of disastrous developments at origin in Central America and Mexico: First, the coffee leaf rust epidemic starting in 2012, which drastically reduced production while outright destroying entire coffee farms and districts. On the back of the rust came a catastrophic decrease in price paid for — yes, that same benchmark clean Central washed coffee type, a type that has added life and animation to premium blends for decades. In 2020, farmers are likely to be paid around $1 to $1.50 per pound for such clean, standard coffees, an outrageous price, given that in 1997 (based on statistics published by the International Coffee Organization) they were paid an average of $1.89 per pound for that same coffee type. If we figure in an inflation rate of 3% per year, they should be paid somewhere around $3.60 per pound for this meticulously prepared coffee type rather than the insulting pittance they are getting for it now.

If You Can’t Beat’Em, Join’Em

For those Central America growers committed to continuing to produce coffee rather than switching to fruit or macadamia nuts, the path forward probably looks clear enough: Depart from the orthodox. Start producing coffees that taste different from the washed Central norm. Experiment with new processing methods and tree varieties. Leave high-end commodity coffee behind and plunge into the new specialty coffee world.

As example, take the results of the latest Cup of Excellence (COE) green coffee competition in Costa Rica, once a bastion of the clean, bright, familiar Central America washed cup. Of 26 prize-winning coffees in the 2020 COE competition, only five were washed-process. The others were honey-processed (10), reduced oxygen fermentation/anaerobic-processed (seven) and natural-processed (four). Of the 26 winners, 10 were from trees of the Geisha variety and eight from trees of SL-28 or other varieties first developed in Kenya. That means that only 10 of 26 were produced from the more familiar coffee varieties long grown in Costa Rica.

Finally, this Month’s Theme

Why go into this history? Partly because we hope readers may find it interesting, even important, but also because it introduces, finally, the theme of this month’s tasting report: What is happening today with the familiar, once- and maybe still-beloved classic washed Central America cup?

What options are there for the coffee lover who may be put off by natural-processed coffees that taste like brandied cherries or Ethiopias that taste like perfume, or anaerobic-processed coffees that taste like almost anything, including strawberry yogurt or sweet mushrooms or fresh perspiration?

Hey, where’s my coffee? My real coffee, that tastes like coffee used to?

62 Shots at the Classic

Well, that classic cup is still around, though you may need to look for it among all the natural-processed, honey-processed, whatever-processed variations.

Women from Mayan Village Coffee in Chiapas, Mexico, producers of Mr. Espresso’s 92-point Mexico Mayan Village Women’s Lot. Photo courtesy of Mr. Espresso.

We cupped 62 coffees for this month’s report, all washed-process from tree varieties not named Geisha, meaning that these samples were as close as we could get through description alone to the familiar classic washed cup of Central America and Mexico. Of the  62 samples we tested, four were from Mexico, six each from El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua, 10 from Honduras, and an impressive 24 from Guatemala.

Fifteen of the 62 attracted ratings of 92 or higher. One sample, the El Salvador Santa Elena Pacamara, topped the ratings at 94. Six more excellent samples came in at 93 (three Guatemala, two Honduras and one El Salvador), and eight more at 92 (three Guatemala, two Honduras, and one each from El Salvador, Costa Rica and Mexico).

Women sorting coffee cherry in Antigua, Guatemala.

The fact that we received the highest number of classic washed samples from Guatemala and Honduras should be no surprise for industry insiders since, for different historical reasons, these two origins tend to be more traditional than other Central American industries, with a bit less emphasis on experiment and change. Guatemala, in particular, has been inclined to stick with respected old-fashioned tree varieties (Bourbon, Caturra) and traditional washed processing methods, one of the reasons presumably that we received 24 qualifying samples from Guatemala and six of them did particularly well at 92 to 93. Honduras has generally remained loyal to traditional processing methods, but those methods are largely applied to disease-resistant hybrid varieties not known for their distinctive cup character. Nevertheless, we reviewed two outstanding Honduras samples at 93 and two more at 92.

However, Costa Rica and Panama have pretty much gone all-out for experiment and change, largely leaving the traditional washed cup behind. We did receive six qualifying samples from Panama, one of which nosed up toward 92, but the focus of the Panama industry today appears to be alternative processing methods and, above all, Geisha, Geisha and Geisha. In Costa Rica, owing mainly to environmental regulations that make traditional washed processing too expensive for small producers, processing variations are the rule, regardless of variety. Costa Rica, in particular, has led the recent innovations in honey processing (removing the skins from the beans but drying them inside all or most of the fruit flesh). The success of the six El Salvador samples (one each at 94, 93 and 92) is most likely founded on El Salvador producers’ continued loyalty to distinguished tree varieties: Bourbon, Pacamara, and, increasingly, varieties introduced from Kenya.

Half-Full, Half-Empty

For the hypothetical lover of the classic Central America cup, these results suggest a glass either half-full or half-empty.

From the half-empty perspective, those samples we did not review, those that came in in the middle ranges of 88 through 90, say, were satisfactory enough, solid coffees, but lagged mainly because they didn’t have enough aromatic complication, or weren’t juicy and lively enough in acidity and structure. They were poised but too plain. Rather than expressing a transcendent balance that comes from a surprising surfeit of the familiar, they just came across as, well, familiar.

But from the half-full point of view, there were plenty of balanced, bright, vivacious cups among those we reviewed, many with deepening savory underpinnings, all subtly different but reassuring familiar in their broad coffee expression.

Fredy Morales of Finca Rosma in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango Department. Courtesy of Corvus Coffee.

Glance through the reviews and you will see an expansive range of sensory excitement, from the tropical orchid and tamarind lean of the Corvus Guatemala El Plan Rosma (93) to the savory chocolate and spice of Kaldi’s Guatemala Carlos Rivas (93) to the deep-toned, pineapple-centered fruit of the Atom Guatemala Bella Carmona (93). In structure, there are more commonalities than differences, but pleasing ones. Often a tendency toward the classically bright and juicy is juxtaposed against a savory depth, frequently complicated by spice or aromatic wood (GK El Salvador Santa Elena Pacamara, 94). With other samples, a brightly juicy structure flat-out drives the cup from the get-go (Triple Coffee Olvin Valle Honduras, 93; Bird Rock El Salvador Las Mercedes La Avila, 93).

These are all variations on the great classic cup of Mexico south to Panama, a cup that gives us comforting familiarity with quiet, though limitless variation. May it endure.

The post The Fate of a Classic: Washed Central America Coffees appeared first on Coffee Review.

To great degree, we succeeded. We managed to source recently arrived samples from many of El Salvador’s finest, most celebrated farms and suppliers. Not all of them, but a good cross-section. Nevertheless, we still were a bit disappointed, even by the new crop samples.

Still in Crisis

El Salvador suffered terribly from the devastating epidemic of coffee leaf rust disease that struck much of Latin America starting in 2012. Overall coffee production in El Salvador fell by an extraordinary 60 percent from 2012 to 2014. The destructive impact on coffee, and on the people who grow it, was incalculable. El Salvador especially suffered because it was, for many years, one of the darlings of high-end coffee, with large plantings of the distinctive varieties Bourbon and Pacamara, both celebrated for their exceptional cup profiles — but both, unfortunately, also susceptible to leaf rust disease and, consequently, very hard hit by the 2012 epidemic. By contrast, in neighboring Honduras, most fields had been planted with disease-resistant interspecific hybrids chosen more for their resistance to disease than for their distinctive cup character. During the two years that El Salvador’s vulnerable production plummeted, coffee production in Honduras increased (although that increase has recently leveled off).

Coffee leaf rust in El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

But total production in El Salvador has been recovering, and we felt that 2019 would be a good year to check in again on El Salvador coffees and hopefully celebrate signs of recovery of this exceptional origin. But perhaps our timing was premature here, too. We did receive nearly 25 samples of the sweet-savory, big-beaned Pacamara variety, one of El Salvador’s coffee treasures, and nearly 10 samples from trees of the great heirloom Bourbon variety that once produced up to 80% of El Salvador’s coffee. But, in general, most of the samples even from these exceptional varieties rated in the 87 to 89 range: solid, pleasing coffees but either a bit short in energy and excitement on one hand, or persuasive balance and elegance on the other.

Fruit of the Pacamara variety of Arabica, Finca Las Mercedes, El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

We have only sketchy reports of bad weather disrupting the flowering and fruiting cycle this crop year. But the record is clear for previous years: first the rust epidemic, then erratic weather patterns almost certainly related to global warming. Rains sometimes come early, which makes the trees flower, but then the rains stop and things dry up. Between climate change and the ongoing threat of the rust disease, yields have plummeted even on the best-managed farms. The latest blow is all-time-low benchmark prices for standard-quality Arabica coffee. According to a 2018 USDA report on the El Salvador coffee sector, the country has lost an estimated 40,000 coffee jobs since the onset of the rust epidemic, contributing to crime, social unrest, and the wave of migration north. The Migration Policy Institute reports that nearly 20% of El Salvador’s population now lives in the United States.

Coffee growing on the hillside at Finca Himalaya in El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

A friend of mine, who operates a small El Salvador farm, summarizes the situation: “The challenges that [El Salvador] growers face are related to change in climate and to drops in market prices that offer negative revenue stream to many growers. Climate change means that the level of quality once associated with a particular elevation may change. Hence more fertilizer and silicon needed to maintain quality. Climate change also means that fungus, plants, and animals malevolent to agricultural crops have increasingly better purchase at elevations once at least somewhat daunting to them. Negative revenue streams mean abandoned farms. Abandoned farms create unmitigated breeding grounds for these adversaries, often adjacent to or surrounding active cafetals. To make matters worse, as more and more agricultural workers are displaced, rural crime levels rise noticeably, in both frequency and in the level of violence.”

The Distinctive Exceptions

Despite all of these daunting challenges, some exceptional coffees came our way, distinguished both by their quality as well as their originality. Seven of those coffees, rated from 91 to 94, are reviewed here.

The Plat Coffee El Salvador, top-rated at 94, is a poised and complete example of wet-processed Bourbon character, sweetly lavish in fruit and floral aromatics, yet crisp with nut and dry chocolate — a throwback, perhaps, to great wet-processed El Salvador Bourbons of years past. The 93-rated PT’s Coffee La Avila SL28 El Salvador is also a wet-processed coffee, but from trees of the Bourbon-related SL28 variety famous for its contribution to the great coffee tradition of Kenya. Here the nut-toned, sweet-savory character leads into the cup, but just behind and around it a deep, layered complexity emerges, gently zesty and vivid.

The Bourbon variety of Arabica. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

The pattern of a savory-leaning, nut-toned character balanced and lifted by fruit or floral sweetness was characteristic also of the remaining five coffees reviewed here. In the case of the wet-processed JBC Talquezar El Salvador (92), the contrast was both deeply resonant and delicate. With the natural- or dry-processed samples like the Willoughby’s Finca Kilimanjaro (92) and the Duluth José Flores Pacamara Natural (91), the nut-toned tendency was a bit more bitter than in the wet-processed samples, but the balancing fruit was also sweeter and more explicit. The Deeper Roots Mario Aguilar El Salvador (a wet-processed Pacamara, 91) displayed a nicely balanced bittersweet nut (we called it candied walnut) with a pronounced dark chocolate helped along by a slight touch of roast influence. Finally, the Dinwei Café Finca San Antonio El Salvador (92) is a honey-processed coffee produced from trees of the celebrated Geisha variety, newly introduced to El Salvador. It displayed a mild but gently original version of the cocoa-and-flowers Geisha genius.

The Uncertain March of the Naturals

Of the 54 coffees we tested, almost half were natural-processed (dried in the whole fruit), and another 25% were honey-processed (skin removed, but dried in all or part of the fruit flesh or pulp). This is a complete turnaround in processing method for El Salvador. Until just a few years ago, the standard processing method for fine coffee in El Salvador, as well as in most parts of the world, was the washed or wet method, in which the skin and sweet fruit pulp is immediately stripped from the seeds or beans before they are dried, preventing the fruit pulp from fermenting or going musty during drying, potentially tainting the cup. If everything is done right during wet processing, the result is usually a relatively bright, vivacious cup, with clean fruit notes and distinct florals.

Honey-processed drying at Finca Las Mercedes, El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

Starting with the success of Starbucks’ Sherkina Sundried Sidamo in 2005, the specialty community began to discover the possibilities and pleasures offered by drying the coffee in the entire fruit: the natural or dry method. When it works, the natural process adds a fruity, juicy, often alcohol-tinged sweetness to the cup that has seduced a generation of roasters and coffee drinkers, including me. When it doesn’t work, however, which can happen because of the long period of drying inside the fruit in often less than ideal conditions, the fruit either over-ferments, producing a range of notes from vaguely rotten to mulchy, or stays relatively clean-tasting but dries out and encourages a nut- or wood-dominated cup.

A Lot of Naturals, Not a Whole Lot of Fruit

Twenty-four of the fifty-four coffees we tested for this report were natural-processed, and of those 24, none quite fit the cleanly lush yet balanced, opulently fruit-forward style of natural many consumers look for, and that we tend to give high ratings to on Coffee Review. True, two naturals we review here, the Willoughby’s Finca Kilimanjaro and the Duluth José Flores Natural, did show some quietly vibrant natural fruit. Some of the other naturals we tested were fruit-forward yet disturbingly uneven. But the main issue with most of the naturals we tested was a nut-toned, woody simplicity.

Aida Battle and Gabriela Flores of Finca Kilimanjaro. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

Perhaps the weather did not cooperate during drying, or the best naturals didn’t make it to roasters in time for our report. Some of the better-known El Salvador farms are established masters of the natural method, but possibly the great majority of El Salvador producers are just learning about the challenges of the newly fashionable natural method. Certainly there are profound advantages to the producer with the natural method: no need to clean fermentation and wash water fouled during processing, less fussy equipment to maintain, and the implicit promise to the buyer that the coffee is different or exciting — not the same-old Central America washed cup. If producers find that they are not getting enough money to cover cost of production for standard wet-processed coffees, why not roll the dice and go for specialty prices by offering something different?

Washed Coffees Dominate at the Top

Nevertheless, the traditional washed samples we tested impressed us more overall than the natural or honey samples. Of the samples we rated 90 or higher, 60% were wet-processed, 30% were natural-processed and 10% were honey-processed. Whereas for the cupping as a whole, 35% of the tested samples were wet-processed, 44% were natural and 26% honey.

Refining Naturals

What has to happen now, it seems to me, is that industry professionals need to begin to more mindfully distinguish between successful naturals and less successful naturals, more successful experiments and less successful experiments, and develop criteria that can be translated into practical protocols for achieving sensory success when preparing such alternative-method coffees at the farm or mill. These protocols appear to exist already at the individual farm level in Central America, but perhaps the word needs to be gotten out more widely. Certainly, coffees like many of the naturals we tested these past few weeks, dominated by bittersweetness with minimal compensating fruit or chocolate, will not charm consumers for very long.

But the best of this year’s El Salvadors were quite good, and much of the 2019 crop is just arriving at roasters. Most likely, more soaring wet-processed Bourbons and rich, resonant, fruit-nuanced natural Pacamaras will surface at specialty roasters this summer and fall. Look for them.

And stick with El Salvador generally, just as U.S. coffee roasters appear to be doing. Support those legislators who want us to deal forcefully with global warming, and who might be willing to back efforts to invest more in agriculture and development in Central America to keep people at home rather than to spend enormous sums to build a wall at the border to keep them out once they are displaced and suffering.

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Kona Coffee, Then and Now

Kona coffee is grown on the west side of the Big Island in the Kona District, where it was first planted in the 1820s. There are not many people in the U.S. who drink coffee who haven’t heard of Kona; in fact, the name is virtually synonymous with Hawaiian coffee. And until California fairly recently got into the coffee-producing business, Hawaiian coffee was the only coffee grown in the 50 U.S. states.

Further, Hawai’i is both a producer and consumer of specialty coffee. In many parts of the world where coffee is grown, the highest-quality coffees are exported (because they command a higher price than they would fetch in the local market) and locals drink lower-quality, often commodity-grade coffees. Not so in Hawai’i, where the local market consumes (and pays the same premiums for) locally grown Arabica coffee. The most widely planted coffee variety here is Guatemala Typica, known on the islands as Kona Typica.

If you’ve seen a bag of 100% Kona coffee anywhere, you likely will have noticed how much more expensive it is than mainstream coffees from most other origins. Lee Paterson, co-owner of Hula Daddy in Holualoa (in the Kona District of the Big Island), explains that labor costs are a chief reason for this price differential. “In Kona, we pay $200-$300 a day for farm work, while a farmer in Guatemala pays $3-$6 a day for the same work,” says Paterson. When you factor in the exorbitant cost of living in Hawai’i, it’s easy to see why 100% Kona coffee retails for upwards of $30 for 12 ounces.

Complicating matters for consumers, and a perennial trap for tourists to the islands, is a 1991 law, still in effect, that allows roasters to label as “Kona Blend” bags that contain as little as 10% of coffee actually grown in the Kona District.

But coffee is grown on all the Hawaiian Islands. And although the Big Island produces the vast majority of the islands’ coffee, the Kona District itself has, in recent years — perhaps because of marketing that glosses over important distinctions among the district’s 600-plus farms — taken a back seat in the upmarket specialty world to the smaller-volume Big Island growing regions Ka’u and Puna.

Some of Hawai’i’s best coffees still come from the Kona District, no doubt, but when we asked roasters to submit samples of Hawai’i-grown coffees for this report, we received a broad array of impressive coffees not only from Kona, but also from Ka’u and Puna, as well as the islands of Maui and Kaua’i. Even more interesting is that, of the 10 top-scoring coffees we review for this report, only one, the Big Island Coffee Roasters Kona Peaberry, could be considered a “classic” Kona in the historical sense: a cleanly expressed washed-process Kona Typica. What best characterizes these 10 top-rated Hawai’i coffees is experimentation, whether with regard to variety or processing, or both.

Roaster Heather Brisson-Lutz and farmer Gerry Ross at Kupa’a Farms. Courtesy of Origin Coffee Roasters.

From a local-rum-barrel-aged Puna Caturra to a Ka’u-grown coffee fermented with wine yeast, a washed-process Kenya-style SL28, and a honey-processed Ka’u Typica, the 10 coffees we review here signal the direction many Hawaiian coffee farmers are taking in the 21st century: careful, creative experimentation, thoughtful choices about varietals best suited for each microclimate, and an openness to exploring what Hawai’i coffee can be, without preconceptions. We even review a coffee, Greenwell’s Mamo, that represents a new hybrid variety developed exclusively in Hawai’i that is making its debut on the world coffee stage after two decades of research and testing.

Baby Mamo trees in the nursery at Greenwell Estates. Courtesy of Tom Greenwell.

Nine of the 10 coffees here are from the Big Island and, of those, four are from the Kona District; four are from Ka’u; one is from Puna; and one is from the island of Maui. One was submitted by a roaster in Taiwan, and another by a New Orleans, Louisiana roaster whose mission is to elevate specialty Turkish coffee. Three were roasted by the producers who grew the coffees. (Producer/roasters are common on the Big Island, especially in Kona, but less common in the smaller Big Island growing regions.)

Hawai’i Coffees in a Global Context

Importantly, Hawai’i as a coffee-growing region is not bridled by the world commodity market (C-market) that sets the price of commodity-grade green coffee. The floating C-market price is determined by the mechanics of worldwide supply and demand for commodity Arabica coffee, but it affects producers of specialty coffee, as well, because it is a benchmark for price negotiation. The C-market has been under intense scrutiny recently because average production costs for coffee producers now unequivocally exceed the C-market price, a tragic discrepancy for small farmers who can only compensate by working harder and harder for less and less money.

But the prestige of the Kona name and the relative scarcity of Kona coffee create a separate market for Kona, in part freeing producers from the influence of the C-contract and giving them a great deal of autonomy, both in terms of pricing and product.

Kelleigh Stewart, co-owner of Big Island Coffee Roasters, says, “We’re removed from the C- market, so the feedback loop between producer and consumer here is short and direct. Our producers and industry professionals are often educated and have the resources to test variables. In Hawai’i, producers can test a new processing style, have it taste-tested by their end buyers, then set their own green/roasted prices based on the additional work involved. As producer/roasters, we have a wide breadth of responsibility, but we also have great creative freedom to explore.”

Paradise Roasters co-owner Miguel Meza adds, “Many Hawai’i producers travel to consuming markets and are familiar with things people in other parts of the world may be trying. Also like anywhere else in the world, producing coffee in Hawai’i for the general market is often not a profitable venture. So growers look to differentiate their product to be able to sell it at more profitable prices.”

Paterson says, “Everything is an option for the third wave,” and that, “When we created Kona Sweet [a natural-processed, sun-dried coffee] in 2008, we were advised not to do it because it wouldn’t be perceived as traditional enough,” he continues. We can report that we have tasted many iterations of that coffee here at Coffee Review and can say that the Hula Daddy rendition is one of the consistently cleanest naturals available, resonant with bright fruit, with none of the funk that often haunts natural coffees. It’s not a stretch to say that Hula Daddy has helped carve a path for broader acceptance of the natural process in specialty coffee, in general.

Karen Paterson picking coffee at Hula Daddy in Kona. Courtesy of Lee Paterson.

Paterson ticks off a list of the types of experimentation he sees routinely on the Big Island: “In Hawai’i, we have farmers using carbonic maceration, alternative fermentation liquids like Pepsi and sea water, and commercial yeasts. Many of the ideas for coffee-processing are coming from the wine industry.”

Origin Coffee’s founder Heather Brisson-Lutz, a mainland roaster who set up shop on Maui’s west side in 2018, works with both Hawai’i coffees and coffees from other world origins. She is seeing experimentation on Maui, as well, reporting that, “Olinda Farms has had great success with their controlled yeast inoculation during fermentation. It is challenging on Maui for smaller producers to take on natural- or honey-processing, due to our naturally rainy climate even in the ‘dry season.'” She works with Gerry Ross and Janet Simpson at Kupa’a Farms, upcountry in Kula, where she suggested they try a double-fermentation method widely used in Kenya (fermenting twice and washing twice in clean water). “Flash forward a month, and on my next visit to Kupa’a Gerry showed me the drying beds with Red Catuai, Yellow Catuai and Orange Bourbon separated in batches of single- and double-fermentation,” Brisson-Lutz says. She adds that, ” In general, I think producers see the value added by experimentation, whether it be in processing methods, fermentation or hybrids. They are creating a unique cup profile that attracts specialty coffee roasters and consumers.”

Joan Obra of Rusty’s Hawaiian, who moved back to Pahala (in the Ka’u growing region of the Big Island) to help her mom, Lorie Obra, run the family farm after her father died, says her mother asks one question when she approaches coffee processing: What does this coffee want to be? Joan says, “The answer depends on the variety, where it’s grown, the weather conditions for that year, processing type, and length of drying. Yeast is a fun new variable to add to those factors — and it falls in line with Lorie’s previous experiments. She has replaced the water in wet fermentation with seawater, pineapple juice, chili water, wine, soda, and other ingredients.” She says, “In short, we’re driven by curiosity. There’s an excitement around the cupping table when we taste the results of a new experiment for the first time.”

Four Standout Konas

Equator Coffee, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, sent us a gorgeous Kona coffee from Monarch Farms, owned by Greg and Susy Stille. It is experimental not by virtue of its processing (traditional washed) but by its variety, Gesha or Geisha. Long a darling of the elite specialty market, Gesha is being planted widely beyond Ethiopia (its origin) and Panama (where it was popularized), and this Gesha (which we rated 94) is floral and sweetly herbaceous with notes of aromatic orchid, spearmint and fine musk. Equator’s Director of Coffee, Ted Stachura, says, “There remains a mystique around Hawai’i coffees, in general, and Kona coffees, in particular. So many people from the U.S. mainland vacation on the islands and take away a positive feeling about the coffee as a result of their experience. Limited availability and high cost of production create an air of exclusivity, and you can’t get more exclusive than this award-winning Gesha lot.”

Greg and Susy Stille, co-owners of Monarch Farm in Kona, accepting an award from the Hawai’i Coffee Association. Courtesy of Abby Stille.

The most “classic” coffee here is perhaps a Kona Peaberry from Big Island Coffee Roasters, a conventionally wet-processed Kona Typica. It is also a peaberry, a kind of bean that results when the coffee fruit develops only a single, oval bean rather than the usual pair of flat-sided beans. This one, which we rated at 93, is rich-toned, with notes of black cherry, magnolia and a hint of thyme.

Hula Daddy submitted its Kona-grown version of the famous Kenya SL28 variety, Laura’s Reserve (93), a juicy-sweet cup with leading notes of red fruit and spice-toned sweet florals, backed up by buttery toffee.

Coming in at 90 is a true innovation, Greenwell Farms’ Mamo, a hybrid of the Maragogipe variety, famed for its huge beans, and the tiny-beaned Mokka, celebrated for its unique cup character. Mamo was developed over the course of 20 years by Dr. Chifumi Nagai of Hawai’i Agriculture Research Center (HARC); Hawai’i Coffee Growers Association (HCGA), under the direction of Kimo Falconer; and Tom Greenwell and his team at Greenwell Farms. The cup for this sample is sweetly savory, spice-toned and framed by rich aromatic wood notes. In regard to bean size, the Maragogipe parent appears to have prevailed here, as the beans are quite large.

The first flowering of Mamo trees at Greenwell Estates. Courtesy of Tom Greenwell.

A Wild and Wacky Ka’u and the New Classic Ka’u Naturals

One of the most interesting coffees to land on our cupping table is Paradise Roasters’ Ka’u Champagne Natural, harvested by Meza himself from various farms in Ka’u, then fermented in the whole fruit using two different strains of wine yeasts, and dried in the whole fruit. Meza observed that, throughout the fermentation in water, there were a lot of bubbles as a result of the yeasts producing carbon dioxide. He says, “When tasting the cherries during fermentation, I noticed that they have a sparkling, effervescent sensation, and later in the fermentation when most of the sugar has been consumed, the fruit is bright and crisp like a dry sparkling wine.” We rated it at 94, finding it to be juicy, brightly fruit-toned and spicily floral, with notes of wild strawberry, honey, dried gardenia, pistachio butter and pink peppercorn.

Miguel Meza’s experimental fermentation process at work on the Paradise Ka’u Champagne Natural. Courtesy of Miguel Meza.

Rusty’s Hawaiian coffees at the beach. Courtesy of Joan Obra.

Three Ka’u coffees, two produced by Rusty’s Hawaiian and one produced by Rusty’s sister company, Isla Custom Coffees, impressed us with their cleanly bright fruit-forwardness and elegant balance. Rusty’s own Honey Typica scored 92, as did Three Chairs Typica Natural (produced by Rusty’s), roasted in New Orleans by a native of Turkey, Turgay YILDIZLI, whose primary focus is on elevating Turkish-style coffee within the specialty market. And Nine Point Coffee in Taiwan sent in a Ka’u Natural we rated at 93, sourced by Isla Custom Coffees from various Ka’u farms.

Nine Point Coffee Roasters in Taipei. Courtesy of Yu-Lin Chiu.

One could argue that the development over the last decade of high-quality Ka’u coffees that land somewhere on the natural-process spectrum, led by Lorie Obra and the Rusty’s team, argues for Ka’u as Hawai’i’s ground zero for these consistently graceful, cleanly fruit-expressive coffee styles.

A Maui and a Puna

Origin Roasters’ Orange Bourbon from Maui’s Kupa’a Farms (93) is notable for its crisply sweet-tart cup with pretty notes of peach, honeysuckle, cinnamon and cocoa nib, as well as for its backstory (see earlier in this report), in which local roaster Brisson-Lutz collaborated with the farmer to elevate and distinguish the cup profile.

Big Island Coffee Roasters sent us a Puna Caturra aged for two days in local Kuleana rum barrels as part of a series of barrel experiments with different coffees and vessels to explore, Stewart says, the influence on flavor, acidity and mouthfeel. I might add aroma to that list, as, right out of the gate, this coffee perfumed our cupping room with Concord grape and ginger blossom, along with some kind of barrel-treated alcohol we blind-identified as aged grappa. Surprisingly, the coffee itself is not overwhelmed by the barrel conditioning; it was brief enough that the coffee character is accentuated by the barrel, rather than dominated by it. We rated this coffee at 93.

Big Island Coffee Roasters’ Puna coffee going into local rum barrels for aging. Courtesy of McKenzie Wildey.

By now quite apparent, the theme of this Hawai’i coffee report is experimentation, which has been encouraged by the islands’ unusual position in the global marketplace and by an infrastructure conducive to innovation. Stewart says, “To me, it feels like we’ve jumped from being a decade behind the specialty coffee movement to the forefront, just within the last five years.” We here at Coffee Review look forward to see how this exciting region continues to evolve.

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Although this month’s survey did turn up several very impressive coffees in that traditional mode, consider the following signs of change and experimentation in this region. Tree variety: Submissions for this year’s report included six Geishas, an expensive and distinctive variety of Arabica just beginning to be widely grown outside Panama (its most famous producer) and Ethiopia (its ancestral home), plus several samples produced from the newish Sidra variety (a hybrid of Typica and Bourbon). Or take processing method: 16 of the 48 coffees we tested for this month’s report were processed by the dried-in-the-whole-fruit or natural method, rather than the traditional washed method once completely dominant in the region.

David Pittman, of Peach Coffee Roasters in Atlanta, Georgia, updating his roast log. Courtesy of Peach Coffee.

For drinkers of specialty coffee, this experimentation seems to be paying off. Two of the Geishas (one wet-processed, one natural) and one Sidra (natural-processed) rose to the top of this month’s scorecard, as did two naturals produced from traditional tree varieties. These coffees joined several superb coffees of the classic style to fill out the 11 coffees we review here, rated 93 to 91. And although this ratings range is narrow, the breadth of nuance in aroma, structure, body and flavor runs the whole sensory gamut.

The Fair-Trade/Organic Conundrum

Peru, in particular, has long been a go-to origin for organic and fair trade-certified coffees. For our 2013 report, more than 60% of the Andes coffees we tested were certified organic, and almost 50% were fair trade-certified. By comparison, for this month’s report only eight (about 17%) of the 48 coffees submitted were labeled fair trade and/or organic (FTO). Perhaps such certifications are less meaningful now to consumers than they were in previous years, or roasters no longer feel that offering certified organic and/or fair trade coffees is worth the effort and money involved. Keep in mind that, even if U.S. or Canadian roasters buy organic-certified green coffee, they cannot print “organic” on the label and use an organic seal unless their roasting facilities are also certified for handling organic coffees, a demanding and time-consuming process. Similarly, exhibiting a fair trade seal on a coffee requires a licensing partnership, which also involves money, time and oversight. (See our report on fair trade-certified coffees.)

Probably for these reasons roasters may buy a coffee certified fair trade/organic but may choose not to take the steps necessary to legally display the certification seal. Apparently, this was the case with more than 10 of the submissions we spot-checked among the 48 samples we received. In other words, even though a bag was not labeled as FTO, a quick search online of the importer’s site indicated that the green coffee was certified at origin. So, the farmer is still getting a certification premium at the farm level, but roasters are choosing not to take advantage of this ethical appeal in their marketing.

The Direct Trade Alternative

Several roasters I spoke with for this report speculated, off-the-record, that farmers now need to differentiate their coffees more by way of intrinsic cup quality and distinction than by certification. So, in some cases, the value added by certification has given way to the more personalized appeal of direct trade, a set of practices that are not formalized, but are increasing in popularity as a new way for farmers to add value to their coffees: roasters, often dealing directly with producers, pay more for small lots of very distinctive-tasting coffees. Farmers often can earn more for a direct trade coffee with distinctive cup character created in collaboration with a roaster than they can through producing a possibly less-distinctive certified coffee. Of course, the value-added in direct trade is fluid and negotiable (as is the premium paid for organic certification). Only fair trade stipulates a formula-determined minimum price.

Miguel Meza, of Paradise Coffee Roasters, with Guillermo Ortiz, owner of Finca Victoria, in the Pichincha Province of North-central Ecuador.  Courtesy of Miguel Meza.

We spoke with Melissa Wilson and Parker Townley of Fair Trade USA (whose global seal reads Fair Trade Certified) to try to understand some of the nuances of this complex situation. Townley points out that the fair trade premium paid to producers, which is a significant $.20 per pound, enables coffee communities to undertake important social projects involving such necessities as cancer screenings, nutrition initiatives, education, and food security. He says, “It also positions them to deal with crises like rust, by being able to direct the premium to renovation, without waiting for governments or international development agencies to get some help; or the coffee price crisis, by being able to pay part of the premium in cash and supplement farmer incomes. The premium also enables farmers to grow in capacity by investing in things like cupping labs, dry mills, and staff training.”

Wilson adds that, while many farms are organic by default — because farmers don’t have access to affordable agrochemicals — the Peruvian government (along with other countries like Mexico) — has supported large-scale organic certification to add value, and the combined fair trade/organic premium on these coffees is $.30 a pound. And she says, “Fair Trade is a base supporting a lot of different initiatives that help farming communities. It does not pretend to be a magic wand to solve all problems, but it gives producers a very important range of motion, and sets the stage for efforts to be built upon.”

The roasting room at Peach Coffee in Atlanta, Georgia. Courtesy of Peach Coffee.

David Pittman of Peach Coffee Roasters in Atlanta, Georgia, whose Natural Utcubamba we rated 91, says that, for better or worse, his customers don’t have FTO on their radar. “Currently, we are the only specialty coffee shop within a five-mile radius,” he says. “We are in the introductory phase of specialty coffee with our customers. For the most part, we have about 15-20 seconds to explain what sets our coffee apart from commodity. To try to explain FTO might be a bridge too far for us, right now.” He bought the wildly unusual natural-processed Utcubamba simply because he loved how it tasted. We read notes of caramelized banana, hibiscus, cedar, pipe tobacco and rum cordial — not a coffee you’d pin as a Peru in a blind-cupping. Even though this coffee isn’t labeled fair trade, its purchase supports farmers on the ground by way of the fair trade premium.

Similarly, Nathan Westwick of Wild Goose Coffee Roasters in Redlands, California submitted a lovely Peru Chirinois San Ignacio (92) that is certified organic at origin, but since the roastery isn’t also certified, he isn’t able to promote the coffee as such. Ideally, the consumer ought to know about the certification, too, but at least the farmers are being rewarded for producing coffees in ways that Wilson says are “better for the farmer and for the planet.”

Wild Goose’s Peru Chirinois. Courtesy of Wild Goose Coffee Roasters.

The Sensory Experience, From Classic to Experimental

Of the 11 coffees we review here, some were sensory rides as wild as the Peach Coffee Utcubamba. Bird Rock’s Finca Tasta Peru (93), a natural-processed Red Caturra, offered up blood orange zest, dried raspberry, ginger blossom, cocoa powder and sandalwood — again, not your classic Peru cup, which is typically balanced, soft in structure and understated in aromatics. Of this coffee, Maritza Suarez-Taylor of Bird Rock says, “[Farmer] Edith Meza started to experiment with honey and natural-process coffees in 2014, and after tasting a lot of samples, we offered the first coffees from this process in 2016 (at PT’s Coffee, a brand also owned by Suarez-Taylor and her husband, Jeff). Every year, Edith and her brother Ivan ask for our feedback on what they can do to improve the green coffee, which is a challenge for them due the lack of infrastructure and knowledge in coffee processing that deviates from the traditional washed process. For this coffee, we asked her to separate out the Red Caturra. Each year we continue to see improvements in quality and consistency.”

Sean Tung of Sucré Beans in Taipei.

Other experimental coffees we review include three produced from the Geisha variety: Taiwan-based Sucré Beans Bolivia Yungas Caranavi Alasitas Geisha Natural (93), whose spice-toned, delicately fruity profile wooed us; a second natural Geisha from the Caranavi region of Bolivia by Plat Coffee in Hong Kong (91), with a more reserved, cocoa-toned presentation; and a washed Blues Brew Geisha Pasco Oxapampa Peru (92), also roasted in Taiwan, alive with resonant floral and deep candied nut tones.

Blues Chen of Blues Brew in Taipei.

In the classic wet-processed camp, Minnesota’s Paradise Roasters Ecuador Pichincha Typica (93), a version of which made our list of the Top 30 Coffees of the Year in 2018, leads the way with its richly sweet-savory notes of cocoa nib, mango, lemon verbena and freesia. Kansas-based PT’s Coffee’s washed-process Sidra (the Typica-Bourbon hybrid) landed at 93 for its rich-toned, engaging complexity, more like a “classic” cup in Technicolor.

A Cajamarca Peru from Greater Goods Roasting in Austin, Texas and an Ecuador Finca La Papaya (92) from Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea in Branford, Connecticut, both conventionally wet-processed, each earned 93 points for their straight-ahead flying of the classic flag. The former is deeply rich and sweetly savory, while the latter is crisply tart, more citrus-driven.

The Ecuador Los Eucaliptos from Kickapoo Coffee (93) in Driftless, Wisconsin reads a bit like a clean but idiosyncratic natural-processed coffee with its notes of very ripe plum and root beer, but it turned out to be a washed coffee whose roast profile also showed off its pretty fruit and sweet herbaceousness.

The Current State of Andes Coffees

Many farmers in this region are recovering from one of the worst outbreaks in history of the devastating coffee fungus known as leaf rust. Several roasters I spoke with suggested anecdotally that the need for re-planting is one explanation for the experiments with varieties such as Geisha and Sidra, as these coffees command higher prices than Typica and Caturra. Experimental processing methods, on the other hand, are almost certainly driven by market demand for distinctive-tasting coffees. There is a growing desire, especially in Asia, the U.S. and Canadian markets, for the unusual, often fruit-driven character of natural-processed coffees. Sean Tung, of Sucré Beans in Taipei, says he thinks processing experiments are also going global by way of producers sharing information across continents.

Shihpan (James) Chuang, of Taipei-based importer Pebble Coffee, cautions that, with the pursuit of naturals in producing regions that don’t have traditions of this processing method, the proposition can be especially risky. But he agrees that producers can ask more for these coffees, given their potentially unique profiles and the additional labor and time required to produce them.

Amy Broderick, a trader with Olam Specialty Coffee, puts an even finer point on it: “The possibility of inconsistent results is higher than with washed coffees, and over-fermentation is common. The process can be piloted, but then once the farmer nails it in small batches and moves on to larger quantities it’s possible they run into factors they can’t control (too high temperatures, too much rain, etc.), and if something small turns into something big in the cup quality, they’ve risked it all for nothing.

“Beyond that,” Broderick continues, “not every farm can take on the risk of experimentation. With a market that fluctuates the way we’ve been seeing, just having the capital to invest in innovating products is often not an option, especially knowing that some of those experiments will not yield perfect results in the short term. It could take a few harvests to really pinpoint the perfect cup for that region and variety. If farmers don’t have partners on the ground who can cue them in to the information and feedback they need, then the risk could be considered too high.”

In fact, over-fermentation was the most common issue with the natural-processed coffees we cupped that did not score high enough to be included in this report.

While it’s impossible to know how the experimentation going on in this region will ultimately play out, our cupping of 48 coffees from Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, with their exhilarating mix of profiles both classic and unorthodox, appears to bode well for the future.

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