Finca La Loma in Costa Rica’s Tarrazu growing region. Courtesy of David’s Nose.

At the experimental tip of the specialty coffee world, the excitement never stops. The latest processing twist from Colombian and Central American coffee growers involves putting natural fruit, herbs or spices into the fermentation tank with the coffee during processing. The fermentation tanks are usually sealed, making this fermentation anaerobic as well. Readers of our March 2023 report know that anaerobic fermentation tends to create tangy sweet (sometimes very tangy sweet) profiles with surprising flavor notes. The most extreme anaerobics can be excessively sweet with artificial-tasting, cologne-like flower and candyish notes. But we also learned with that March report that not all coffees processed this way go over the edge into cologne/candy territory. Many are extraordinary profiles that may offend purists, but are balanced and complete, profiles that read as coffee, yet exceptional and original coffee.

In this latest report, we tiptoe on into the next, more controversial processing frontier: anaerobic-fermented coffee that also has had fruit or spice added to the sealed tanks during fermentation. In some cases, the fruit may be familiar to North Americans. Various red fruits, including strawberries, were deployed in Korean roaster Prism Coffee Works’ El Vergel Rojo Fruit Infused, reviewed here at 93. With other samples, the fruit was less familiar, as with the 94-rated Colombia Santa Monica Castillo Honey Lulo from Virginia-based roaster Red Rooster, in which tart little fruits Colombians call lulo were added to the tank.

Names assigned to fruit-added processing methods vary — fruit infused, co-fermented, fruit macerated, additive fermented — possibly a symptom of the controversy that has developed around the practice in the specialty coffee world. That controversy also may have contributed to the relatively few samples we received for this report: 26 samples from 15 roasters (six U.S.), as opposed to the 90 samples from 90 roasters that filled our lab when we sent out a call for the straightforward anaerobic coffees (no additives) for our March 2023 report.

Nothing Like the Old Flavored Coffees

Before getting into the controversy part of the story, however, one important point needs to be made: These coffees do not resemble the old, once-popular artificially flavored coffees. Here, nothing intrudes on the character of the coffee as explicitly as did those artificial flavors with their cloying pop-culture nature and metallic finish. In fact, I found it difficult to identify the specific fruit added to the tank, even if I knew the name and was generally familiar with the taste of the fruit. I would get fruit, yes, but nail the specific identity of that fruit? Close to impossible.

Co-fermenting coffee cherries with raspberries at Finca Campo Hermoso in Colombia. Courtesy of Jared Hales, Hacea Coffee Source.

Recall that the fruit is added as an integral part of fermentation, a complex chemical process the details of which remain relatively unstudied. In other words, these coffees are not the result of a simple additive process. They don’t take already processed coffee and add already processed fruit to it. The fresh fruit and fresh coffee react together to create a unique chemical event. Certainly, this explains the complexity of the fruit sensations that emerged in surprising and unpredictable ways in these coffees.

And the Controversy …

Nevertheless, producers who add fruit to the tank are being accused of cheating on the implicit rules of fine coffee. The Cup of Excellence (COE), for example, which manages a series of highly respected juried green coffee competitions, prohibits addition of fruits, spices or other nontraditional ingredients to coffees entered in their competitions. The World Barista Championships include a regulation with a similar broad intent.

How many roasters share this position? It’s hard to say, but the relatively lukewarm response to this report could suggest that many roasters are not yet all in with this latest processing innovation. On the other hand, they may simply be approaching it with caution and deliberation.

Enthusiasm and Reservations

True, some roasters seem sold. Caleb Walker of Montana’s RamsHead Coffee Roasters, whose Colombia Campo Hermosa Co-Fermented Honey (93) showed a particularly intense, juicy brightness, reports, “Personally, I am really enjoying fruit-infused coffees. The unique process of fruit infusion brings out a brightness that is difficult to find in a standalone natural. The fruit infusions seem to add another dimensional layer of flavor to the cup profile.”

Virginia’s Red Rooster Coffee Roaster submitted Colombia Santa Monica Castillo Honey Lulo, a coffee co-fermented with lulu fruit. Courtesy of Tony Greatorex.

More typical, however, was ambivalence. “More often than not, I am not a fan of these coffees — I find them to taste and smell artificial … and sometimes they are just downright bad. Unique, sure, but also unpleasant,” writes Haden Polseno-Hensley, co-owner and co-founder of Red Rooster Coffee. But Red Rooster definitely makes exceptions for the best of these coffees, including this month’s Colombia Santa Monica Castillo Honey Lulo, a strikingly original coffee comprehensively summed up by co-cupper Kim Westerman as delicately fruity, tartly floral, richly musky and enigmatically savory.

And although Youngjun Cho of Korea’s Prism Coffee Works complains that “many [fruit fermentations] have a strong artificial flavor and do not taste like coffee,” he found a persuasive exception in his 93-rated El Vergel Rojo Fruit Infused, which showed a striking juxtaposition of sweetness and umami in the structure, supporting flowers and berry on the sweet side and salted caramel on the umami. “These are great ‘fun’ coffees for beginners,” he concludes.

Starter Coffees?

The appeal of these coffees for coffee beginners and jaded regulars was a common theme running through roaster comments. Ted Stachura of California-based Equator Coffee, whose Colombia Las Flores Mint Macerated (93) was one of my personal favorites, with its herbs, flowers and deep but tactful sweetness, writes, “I see these co-fermented coffees as an avenue to excite the palates of even the most casual coffee drinkers. While it may be difficult for the average coffee consumer to detect subtle flavor nuances in traditionally processed coffees, there is no mistaking the flavors in the fruit-/spice-infused coffees we have recently been introduced to. My hope is that these creatively fermented coffees can be a gateway for weary coffee drinkers to start thinking about our favorite beverage in new ways.”

The Anaerobic Impact

What struck me most about the sensory character of these infused coffees, however, was how important the impact of anaerobic processing was to their originality, more important perhaps than the added fruit or spice. With the best of these coffees, the fruit infusion encouraged attractive and intriguing aroma/flavor complications, certainly, but the underlying structural originality of most of these profiles seemed ultimately driven by their tangy lactic-acid structure, the result of anaerobic fermentation. The fruit mainly contributed additional aromatic complication and originality.

For example, Gary Liao of Taiwan’s GK Coffee submitted a coffee that was co-fermented with fruit but not anaerobically fermented. Passionfruit was simply combined with the freshly pulped coffee in a conventional open-top fermentation tank during traditional wet processing of the Colombia Finca Monteblanco Purple Caturra Passionfruit Washed (92). The result is a smooth, intriguing coffee, but not as original or striking as most of the other co-fermented coffees. It impresses with a quite satisfying but rather classic profile driven by tart fruit and almond notes.

The Latest Producer-Driven Innovation

This practice of adding fresh fruit or herbs to the fermentation tank is, of course, just the latest in a string of product innovations pioneered at the farming end of the coffee supply chain, rather than at the consuming end. Until around 2004, the innovations in coffee that got consumers involved and excited all originated in the consuming context: selling whole bean coffee out of bins, for example; roasting all coffees dark; the complex innovations of espresso cuisine; and the infamous artificially flavored coffees mentioned earlier. In all of these cases, good, consistent-quality coffee was simply the raw material for changes wrought by city-centered roasters and cafes, most in North America and Europe.

Things started changing around 2004, when producers began selling high-quality natural, or dry-processed coffee rather than the usual clean wet-processed types, kicking off a whole sequence of innovations in processing designed to excite consumers and satisfy our apparent need for novelty: natural processing, honey processing, various versions of anaerobic fermentation, and now fruit infusion. At the same time innovations in variety, led by the revelation of Geisha/Gesha in 2004, similarly shifted the locus of innovation from consuming to producing context.

A Plus for Producers?

The fact that this latest coffee style was pioneered by coffee farmers or producers has been taken as a continued indication of the new importance of producers and producing countries as centers for change and innovation in coffee. This is true, and for those of us who, for various reasons, political and aesthetic, tend to pull for producers and the Global South, a happy development. What may be arguable is whether co-fermentation is, in the big picture, a positive development for a wide range of producers. It certainly highlights producers as artists and innovators and helps focus consumers on their contributions and importance.

But, as more than one submitting roaster pointed out, what exalts the creativity of some well-positioned producers with good connections may not help less-fortunate producers stuck at the end of a bad road. Achieving good results with earlier innovations, like natural and honey processing, requires knowledge and care from the farmer, but not quite the meticulous control demanded by anaerobic processes.

Euphora Coffee’s May Wang points out: “Adding fruit during coffee cherry fermentation can have an impact, but it requires extensive research and experiments to determine how it affects the flavor characteristics of coffee. The fruit fermentation method necessitates careful control of all controllable variables for producers, which may result in increased labor costs. In the world of fermentation, microorganisms and sugar molecules must interact in a very specific way to achieve a thorough transformation of the content. Failure to monitor external variables such as temperature and oxygen levels could lead to the production of poor-tasting coffee beans.”

Polseno-Hensley of Red Rooster adds: “I believe processes like [co-fermentation] are based on producers feeling that they are forced to innovate, largely due to the fact that growing exotic and delicate high-elevation varietals is getting more challenging because of climate change. Small producers are turning to the idea of additives in processing to enhance the fruit and acidity of heartier disease-resistant varieties that would not normally fetch such high prices.”

Also, we in North America often carry around a mental picture of “coffee producer” as a fellow in a white shirt and sombrero from Central or South America, whereas coffee producers range from isolated villagers high in the mountains of Papua New Guinea to all-women co-ops in northern Sumatra to industrialized Brazilian farms. Whether the wider community of coffee producers gradually buys into these new possibilities will determine their long-term impact on the coffee world.

A Last Note

Those outside the specialty coffee tradition probably don’t grasp how ambivalent many of us feel with respect to co-fermented coffees. We support creativity and excitement, but for many of us, the notion of altering the basic taste profile of coffee, sometimes rather radically, by combining coffee with other non-coffee stuff is disturbing, even when accomplished with the subtlety displayed by this month’s coffees. The stubbornness with which the rules committees of the two leading coffee competitions (COE and WBC) resist allowing co-fermented coffees to compete in their events suggests, I think, the persistence of this fundamental unease. Are we considering the excellence of coffee production from tree to bean as a coherent act of tradition and passion, or are we are we simply celebrating cute tricks at the end of that process?

Difficult to say, of course. Probably best to enjoy the rich vein of ambivalence running through roaster comments this month and, above all, experience the answers proposed by the nine excellent co-fermented coffees we review here.

Thanks to the roasters who greatly enriched this report by sharing their ideas and experience regarding anaerobic coffees: Youngjun Cho, prism coffee works, Korea; David of David’s Nose Coffee, Taiwan;Tony Greatorex, Red Rooster Coffee, USA; Gary Liao, GK Coffee, Taiwan; Haden Polseno-Hensley, Red Rooster Coffee, USA; Ted Stachura, Equator Coffee, USA; Caleb Walker, RamsHead Coffee, USA; May Wang, Euphora Coffee, Taiwan; Van Wang, Riika Café, Taiwan.

The post Fruit- and Spice-Fermented Coffees: The Cup and the Controversy appeared first on Coffee Review.

Edwin Noreña checks on his Double Carbonic Galaxy Hops Geisha at Finca Campo Hermoso in Colombia. Courtesy of Barrington Coffee Roasting Co.

Of all of the innovations challenging traditional expectations in specialty coffee today, the use of anaerobic (limited oxygen) fermentation to alter and intensify the character of the cup is perhaps the most striking. Anaerobic-fermented coffees that explicitly and successfully express this method tend to be intense and almost shockingly floral and fruit-toned, with the flowers often boosted by a candyish sweetness and surprising spice and herb notes.

Many in the specialty coffee world love them for their sheer difference from ordinary coffees, for the audacity of their soaring flowers and seduction of their sweetness. A few find their profiles too over-the-top, their floral notes perhaps less like fresh bouquets and more like eau-de-cologne, their fruit more Juicy Fruit gum than fresh fruit. Many in the coffee world look at anaerobic-fermented coffees as the latest step forward in freeing specialty coffee from the predictability of its commodity past and thrusting it into a future of exciting new coffee experiences unlike any that have come before. Others look at these new, processing-driven coffee styles as another step in the erosion of the reliable practices that have created and maintain the great coffee types they love, the classic Kenyas and washed Ethiopias, subtle washed Perus and earthy wet-hulled Sumatras.

The best way for readers to take a position on all of that is to try a couple of the coffees we review this month. We cupped through 90 coffees described by their roasters as having been subject to anaerobic fermentation (for a little more on what that means technically, see the section Complex Events at the Mill farther along in this report). These 90 anaerobic samples averaged a score of 89, with a high of 95 and a low of 79. In choosing 10 coffees to review, we focused on samples that most clearly and pleasingly expressed the full-on floral, fruit and spice genius of the style.

Sketching the Anaerobic Style

What is that style? Most universally, all genuinely anaerobically processed coffees share the same pervasive aromatic tendency. If you’ve opened one bag you’ll know it. If you open two bags, you’ll probably never forget it. This aromatic complex is apparently created during the limited-oxygen fermentation undergone by all anaerobic coffees. It is a scent related to the aromas of certain other mainly bacterially fermented foods and beverages, like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha. In terms of basic tastes, it is a version of sour-sweetness. At Coffee Review, we have settled on tangy-sweet rather than sour-sweet as an appropriate generic descriptor for this sensation as it displays in coffee.

Anaerobically fermented whole coffee cherries at Colombia’s Finca El Placer. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

One striking feature of this aromatic tendency is that you experience it immediately, as soon as you open a bag of anaerobically fermented coffee. Yet, once you brew that coffee, it is much less dominating. In the cup, tendencies we noted earlier come into play. If it is a successful anaerobic, free of faults such as vinegar-like over-fermentation or mulchy vegetable notes, you will likely experience intense sweetness. This sweetness will usually be complicated by a tangy, lactic version of acidity and sometimes balanced by a savory depth related to spice and nut. What you will most likely also experience is a sometimes coherent, sometimes jumbled assortment of intense and often idiosyncratic flavor notes. For example, it is not at all unusual to have candyish notes like bubblegum waft up next to baking spice suggestions like cardamom. Floral notes are sometimes so screamingly intense that they seem to express the very abstract nature of flowers.

Coffee Review and Anaerobics

We had many discussions at Coffee Review about how we should approach reporting on this increasingly popular coffee style. We wanted to respect its originality, yet avoid celebrating it purely because of that originality. We wanted to find an appropriate structure for evaluating the success of specific examples of the anaerobic style, as we did some years ago for natural-processed coffees when they first surged in popularity.

Ultimately, I took responsibility for the final ratings, working with descriptions and draft ratings from my two Q-grader colleagues, Jason Sarley and Kim Westerman. My approach was to value versions of the style that are balanced and relatively coherent, versions in which the floral and fruit notes are contexted into something generally recognizable as coffee, and in which sweetness comes across as natural rather than candyish or cloying. In other words, coffees that are exciting and different, but still taste like coffee and not like a conglomerate of cologne and sugar.

The Roaster Context: Pursuit of Balance

Sebastian Ramirez, of Finca El Placer in Colombia, checking on drying anaerobic fruit. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

Judging from my correspondence with the 10 roasters whose coffees are reviewed here, I have plenty of support in valuing balance in anaerobics, balance usually meaning that the impact of the processing method enhances or intensifies, but does not completely dominate the coffee.

“I am most drawn to gently applied anaerobic methods that achieve surprising and elusive profiles.” Barth Anderson, Barrington Coffee Roasting Company (Galaxy Gesha Quindio Colombia, 95).

“Good anaerobics enhance and intensify the cup with clean sweet flavors … Bad or less good anaerobics seem overly processed or fake or imitation.” Mike Perry, Klatch Coffee (Colombia Monteblanco Rodrigo Sanchez Carbonic Maceration, 94).

“Definitely just because a coffee is anaerobic does not mean that it’s good. I personally love clean, fruity anaerobic-processed coffees, [but] I don’t like it when coffees take on more ferment flavors than coffee flavors.” Oliver Stormshak, Olympia Coffee (Ethiopia Gatta Anaerobic, 94).

The Origin Perspective

This innovative processing method was applied to coffee from some of the most prestigious of tree varieties — Geisha, Pink Bourbon — as well as more common, less distinctive-tasting varieties. Eight of the 10 coffees reviewed online were produced in southern and central Colombia; one was grown in Ethiopia and one in Hawaii. Although anaerobics are popping up everywhere, the method is probably currently most popular in Colombia, Ethiopia and Panama, where it appears to have originated. The preponderance of southern Colombia in this month’s reviews is partly related to season: The months following the beginning of the year are when the new crop from southern Colombia arrives in the Northern Hemisphere. However, it also appears that some Colombian producers are pursuing the anaerobic method with particular rigor and attention to detail. See the summaries of processing methods in the Notes paragraphs of the reviews for just a hint of the complexity of the anaerobic practices pursued by the producers of some of this month’s top-rated coffees.

The Consumer Angle

What do coffee consumers think about these unconventional, often flamboyant coffees?

All of the roasters whose coffees we reviewed this month agreed that anaerobics are popular with their consumers — in some cases, very popular. Gary Liao of Taiwan roaster GK Coffee (Colombia Finca El Paraiso Rose Tea, 94) points out that anaerobics make it easier for customers to identify flavor profiles because aromatic notes are more intense and idiosyncratic. “Most customers find it hard to get ‘floral’ or ‘citrus,’” he writes, “but with anaerobics they find flavors like ‘wine,’ ‘cinnamon’ or ‘pineapple.’ They tend to buy coffees in which they can notice the flavors.”

Jairo Arcila of Finca Santa Monica in Colombia. Courtesy of Royal Flamingo Coffee.

Roasters also praised anaerobics for their capacity to surprise customers and shock them into realizing that not all coffees taste the same. “Anaerobic coffees are definitely a conversation starter,” notes Bryan Brzozowski, roaster and co-founder of Royal Flamingo Coffee (Colombia Jairo Arcila Peach Maceration, 93). Adam Paronto, owner/founder of Reprise Coffee Roasters (Colombia Cauca Granja Paraiso Pink Bourbon, 94), adds: “We’ve found this process to be a major catalyst for coffee education. Most of our customer base is unfamiliar with coffee processing and a vast majority is unaware that … coffee is a fermented beverage. When they see a word like ‘anaerobic’ on our menu, it paves the way for a great conversation, opening the door to understanding other coffee processing methods.”

Nevertheless, some roasters hinted at consumer ambivalence. “Anaerobic coffees can be polarizing. Some customers love them, while some prefer more traditional coffees,” PERC Coffee Roasters‘ Director of Operations Taylor Kimball (Colombia Gesha Spirits Semi-Washed Anaerobic, 93) observes. Mike Perry and Heather Perry of Klatch Coffee add: “The great thing about coffees with this type of profile is everyone who tastes it can say, ‘Wow, that is different.’ And while some may love the difference, drinking a whole pot of it may be a little intense.”

The way anaerobic practices encourage and reward the creativity of the producer is also a virtue particularly valued by roasters. Hiver van Geenhoven, founder and director of coffee at Chromatic Coffee (Colombia Purple Fruit Anaerobic, 93) points out: “Customers may be interested in origin stories, but they also love dessert and signature beverages that play with ingredients. Now, [with anaerobics] instead of just crafting fun and creative signature beverages in our cafés, that stage can be shared with a producer who has a direct hand in the manipulation of flavor.”

Complex Events at the Mill

There are many variations on how anaerobic fermentation is performed, but all involve fermenting coffee in a sealed environment with no to very limited access to oxygen. Contact with oxygen encourages yeast fermentation and the production of alcohol. On the other hand, shutting the coffee inside sealed vessels (usually plastic or metal tanks) encourages oxygen-free bacterial fermentation of the general kind that contributes to the production of sweet-tangy fermented foods and beverages like yogurt, kimchi, sour beers and kombucha. What happens during anaerobic fermentations is quite complex chemically, however, and a variety of yeasts and lactic-acid bacteria play a role, presumably accounting for the fusion of great sweetness and yogurt-like tang characteristic of these coffees.

In some cases, the act of limiting a coffee’s access to atmosphere and oxygen during fermentation is as simple as sealing the fermenting coffee inside bags for a relatively short time. But more often it involves complex, lengthy procedures involving closed tanks and control of pressure and temperature. If CO2 is injected into the tanks to accelerate the purging of air and oxygen, the process and coffee may be called “carbonic maceration,” a term brought over, along with many of the specific practices involved, from the wine world.

Coffee may be anaerobically fermented and dried as whole fruit (making it an “anaerobic natural”) or fermented in the fruit, then skinned and dried in the fruit flesh only (“anaerobic honey”) or fermented and dried after both skin and fruit flesh have been removed (“anaerobic washed”). Or, there may be two fermentations, one involving the whole fruit, and a second of the same beans with skins removed. Temperature and pressure inside the tanks are usually carefully monitored.

Miguel Meza of Paradise Roasters processes a JN Farms Bourbon himself, using a malolactic honey anaerobic fermentation method. Courtesy of Miguel Meza.

Pressure may be one key to the originality of the anaerobic cup profile. Pressure caused by buildup of CO2 inside the sealed fermentation tanks could help produce the sometimes astonishing display of fruit and floral notes in the final anaerobic cup by encouraging migration of fruit and floral compounds into the bean.

Many producers further complicate both the process and the final cup by adding material to the fermentation tanks, particularly cultured yeasts of the kind used in beer and wine production. With the report-topping 95-rated Barrington Galaxy Gesha Quindio Colombia, a batch of famously aromatic Galaxy hops was applied to the coffee at one point in the complex series of processing procedures. More controversially, natural fruit or spices may be shut into the tanks with the fermenting coffee. In the 93-rated Royal Flamingo Colombia Jairo Arcila Peach Maceration, natural peach pulp was added to the tank during fermentation, and pieces of peach were scattered among the drying beans.

Youngjun Cho, of Prism Coffee Works, brews coffee at his shop in Seoul.

“Flavored Coffee?”

In our report coming in November of this year, we plan to look specifically into the anaerobics segment of specialty production that adds natural fruit or spices to the fermentation tank. Youngjun Cho of Prism Coffee Works in Korea (Colombia Osmanthus Bouquet Granja Paraiso 92 Colombia, 94), reports that anaerobic-fermented coffees generally are being criticized in Korean specialty coffee circles on the basis that they are “flavored coffee.” Cho argues that anaerobic coffees like his and most of the other coffees reviewed in this report are legitimate, non-flavored specialty coffees because they achieve their distinction through using only “environmental controls such as yeast, bacteria and temperature.” But he feels that those that add fruit or spices to the tank make up a different, more controversial category he calls “infused” coffee. Tune in to our November 2023 report “Fruit- and Spice-Fermented Coffees: The Cup and the Controversy,” for more on this contentious issue.

Anaerobics and Terroir

Anaerobic processing appears to be here to stay. And, in many respects, it is unprecedented in its potential impact on the specialty coffee world. Natural or whole-fruit processing may have seemed like a revolution when it was first applied to high-end coffees that until then had been processed only through traditional washed methods. But natural-processed coffees have a history as long as coffee itself, far longer than washed coffees. Honey processing is also a rather straightforward development, well within technologies and understandings already established in coffee practice.

But the technological and chemical mediations involved in anaerobics, even at the modest scale they are deployed now, seem a more radical departure from any of these earlier practices. Anaerobic methods bring to coffee technical interventions that originate in wine and in some cases beer, and invite the producer to create often radical profiles based on personal innovation rather than community expression of coffee tradition as conveyed in the term terroir.

Aerial view of Finca Monteblanco in Colombia’s Huila Department. Courtesy of Klatch Coffee.

Terroir in wine and many other products is most accurately understood not simply as geography, but also as associated plant varieties and preparation methods as defined by tradition and often regulation. Great legacy types in coffee are products of a linked series of collaborative practices performed by the supply chain and determined by market expectations and tradition. Kenya coffee, a well-defined legacy type, is not only grown in a relatively limited geography, but it’s also produced from trees of certain tree varieties and processed using similar technologies and methods. Apply radical anaerobic processing to a coffee from the traditional growing regions of central Kenya, even one produced from traditional Kenya varieties like SL28 or SL34, and it will no longer express the Kenya “terroir.” It will simply be an anaerobic coffee from Kenya.

Miguel Meza of Paradise Roasters (Ka‘ū JN Farms Malolactic Honey, 95), a relentless innovator in respect to processing methods, suggests that anaerobic processing is best applied to coffees that are themselves not particularly distinctive. He says: “Generally we find mouthfeel and aroma to be intensified in anaerobic fermentations, and very beneficial to the quality of lower altitude coffees, as well as helpful in adding complexity to less distinctive varieties. But with anaerobic natural processing, the flavors of the process can be very dominant and the differentiation between varieties muted, so I don’t favor this method for expensive, limited production of rarer varieties that may have their distinctive qualities largely masked by the processing.”

Headed in the Opposite Direction from Wine?

Curiously, just at an historic moment when some in the wine world are reacting against “manipulated” wines by returning to simpler, less chemically or technologically mediated processes under the organic or low-intervention banners, we in coffee appear to be headed in the opposite direction with the latest anaerobics.

It may be that the coffee world will manage to assimilate and understand anaerobic methods as it apparently has with natural processing methods. I recall that even as few as five years ago we ran into many natural-processed coffees that were either over-fermented, giving them a slightly rotten edge, or, at the other extreme, dried too quickly and consequently too woody or nutty, bordering on lifeless.

At least at Coffee Review, we run into very few such failed naturals today. We more often sample naturals that are fruit-forward but clean, poised and complete. Perhaps innovators in aerobic processing will find their way to an analogous refinement that will offer the coffee world the “balanced” anaerobic profiles that many of this month’s correspondents say they are looking for. What will be the character of that balance?

I expect we’ll know it when we taste it.

Thanks to the roasters who greatly enriched this report by sharing their ideas and experience regarding anaerobic coffees: Beth Brzozowski, Bryan Brzozowski, Youngjun Cho, Gary and Kai Liao, Taylor Kimball, Miguel Meza, Adam Paronto, Heather Perry, Mike Perry, Oliver Stormshak, and Hiver van Geenhoven.

The post Fresh Fruit or “Juicy Fruit”? Tasting 90 Anaerobic-Processed Coffees appeared first on Coffee Review.

Anaerobically processed coffee cherries drying in the whole fruit at Elida Estate in Panama. Courtesy of Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea.

In early April, some rather odd-smelling packages began arriving at the Coffee Review lab. Describing the collective aromas that wafted from them is difficult. And describing those aromas continued to be difficult once we started actually tasting the coffees inside the packages. Certainly, there was lots of fruit and chocolate. And fragrant cut cedar, and sweet flowers. But along with these more familiar coffee aromas came some that we do not usually associate with coffee. Maybe soft cheeses, like the mild goat cheese one eats in salads. Or, occasionally, more pungent cheeses like feta or blue cheese. Sometimes kefir, that gentle, tangy-creamy liquid version of yogurt. Sometimes fresh earth, tobacco or mushrooms. And occasionally, notes that we may not associate with food at all. Musk, for example, the deep, pungent, often perspiration-like aromas used as base notes in perfumes, originally derived from secretions of the male musk deer.

These packages contained coffees that were processed using techniques the coffee world has come to call “anaerobic.” Very broadly, this term means that at some point the coffees were subject to fermentation while shut inside sealed bags or tanks with limited access to oxygen.

Most of us are familiar with the sensory character of coffees that have been fermented with access to oxygen. We recognize the sweet, fruit-forward notes produced by oxygen-loving, alcohol-generating yeasts, particularly as we enjoy them in fine dried-in-the-fruit, natural-processed coffees: berries, chocolate, lush flowers, suggestions of wine or spirits.

On the other hand, when fruit is largely deprived of oxygen during fermentation, as happened with this month’s coffees, yeasts are suppressed and various bacteria become more active in fermentation. Rather than the fruit or alcohol-related notes produced by yeasts, these bacteria tend to generate the tangy lactic acid notes we find in yogurt and cheeses, in some sour beers, and in fermented vegetable preparations like sauerkraut or kimchee.

Description Difficult, Pleasure High

Fortunately, we did not have any sauerkraut- or kimchee-nuanced samples among the 43 coffees we tested for this report. Nevertheless, we did struggle a bit in describing and evaluating these anaerobic samples. Many of them almost violently violated the familiar rules defining taints and defects that for years have enabled us to comfortably evaluate classic washed coffees. We found that we needed to examine these coffees from a fresh perspective, starting from the great traditions of fine coffee but not stopping there. We avoided asking ourselves, “is this a fine coffee in the way we already understand coffee?” Rather, we asked ourselves: “Is this an exciting and inherently pleasing variation on the sensory possibilities of coffee?” In particular, we looked for ways that the subtle-to-striking sensory intrigue that anaerobic fermentation brings to the cup expanded on more familiar coffee pleasures.

Coffee cherries processed by carbonic maceration at Finca Villa Loyola in Colombia’s Nariño growing region. Courtesy of PT’s Coffee.

And although we often puzzled about how to understand and characterize these coffees, overall we ended up liking a lot of them. Of the 43 samples we cupped, a very impressive 19 (44%) came off the table at 93 or higher. We’ve chosen 12 of those 19 to review here. All five samples that rated 94 or higher are included. From the additional 14 that rated 93, we selected seven to review based on a range of method, origin and profile.

Anaerobic Definitions

Again, what makes the coffees we tested “anaerobic” by current coffee terminology is that, soon after picking, they were shut inside sealed tanks or bags, protected from access to oxygen-bearing air. The CO2 produced by the fermenting fruit builds up inside the bag or tank, further limiting access to oxygen. Valves allow surplus CO2 to escape while preventing air from entering. The coffee remains sealed this way, largely oxygen-deprived, for anywhere from around one day to six days, after which it is dried. (Predictably, the longer in the bags or tanks, the more pronounced the anaerobic impact.)

Coffees processed by the ASD (anaerobic slow dry) method drying on raised beds in Panama. Courtesy of Geisha Coffee Roasters.

If the seeds or beans remain enveloped by fruit throughout fermenting and drying, the coffee becomes an anaerobic natural. If the drying is deliberately slowed down to 60 or more days the coffee may be further labeled an anaerobic slow-dry (ASD) natural. Finally, if the tanks in which the fruit is fermented are injected with additional CO2 to further cut off the fermenting beans’ access to oxygen, the method may be called carbonic maceration (carbonic refers to the use of CO2; maceration is a rough synonym for fermentation).

So: sealed in bags and dried in the whole fruit for a normal period, anaerobic natural. The same but with deliberately prolonged drying, ASD natural. CO2 injected into the ferment tanks: carbonic maceration natural.

However, we face yet one more layer of terminology. The preceding methods all involve keeping the coffee beans encased in the fruit all the way from fermentation through drying, making them anaerobic variations on the natural method. Other coffees we tested for this report were anaerobic washed coffees: The skin and fruit flesh were removed from the beans immediately after an initial anaerobic fermentation, but before they were dried. These samples understandably tended to be a bit leaner in body but brighter in structure than the anaerobic naturals, yet still quite uniquely composed. Still other samples had only the skins removed after fermentation and were dried with the fruit flesh or mucilage still adhering to them, making them anaerobic honey-processed coffees.

Lots of Surprises, No Neat Distinctions

Returning to the broad picture, a lot goes on inside those sealed tanks or bags during the time the coffee fruit is sequestered in them. Wilford Lamastus of Panama’s Elida Estate, who more than anyone else popularized the slow-dry version of the anaerobic method, points out that during fermentation inside the tank, “There is a significant amount of concentrated liquid from the coffee fruit. This leach is full of the flavors of the variety, the terroir where the plants are located, of natural yeasts, natural microorganisms, natural bacterias …”

Father and son: Wilford Lamastus and Wilford Lamastus, Jr. of Panama’s Elida Estate. Courtesy of Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea.

Note that Lamastus mentions both bacterias and yeasts. From this exercise, I think I can observe with confidence that the neat conceptual separation between fruit-forward coffees subject to yeast fermentation and those subject to tangy bacteria-lactic fermentation is seldom clear-cut in the actual context of the cup. Almost all of the 43 coffees we tested showed clear anaerobically driven characteristics ranging from full-on tangy lactic acid notes to subtle lactic innuendos, but these unorthodox tendencies always overlaid more familiar coffee styles and satisfactions. In naturals, the lush fruit-forward tendencies we associate with alcohol ferment were fused with lactic influences. And in coffees processed with a washed step before drying, the predictably brighter acidity and subtler fruit was deepened by various pungent, tangy-lactic inclinations.

Drying coffee on raised beds at the Ana Sora Washing Station in Ethiopia. Courtesy of Paradise Roasters.

What virtually all of the samples seemed to present is greater-than-usual intensity of sensation, an inclination toward fuller mouthfeel, and often increased sweetness. Roasters who responded to our questions about anaerobically processed coffees often used the term “intensity” when describing them. Most of these correspondents found the intensity valuable, though many cautioned that, given how powerfully anaerobic processing impacts the cup, the method should be applied with tact. A good number apparently would agree with Barry Levine’s (of Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea) observation that “Too much intensity can mask a coffee’s inherent qualities like a dark roast would, although in a completely different way.”

Different in Different Ways

Certainly, one of the most striking overall characteristics of all of this month’s anaerobic coffees is how they express their differences with often disconcerting variety and originality. Here are the 12 samples we review this month very briefly characterized in terms of the singularly successful way each embodies some of the diverse possibilities of the anaerobic approach.

Corvus Coffee Roasters La Estrella Carbonic Geisha Reserve (Colombia; 95). Here the great floral Geisha variety was fermented in sealed, pressurized CO2 and dried in the whole fruit. The result: bright yet lushly layered, complex — overlaid with a very subtle funky intrigue.

Coffee Please Ethiopia Guji Wush Wush Anaerobic Natural (95). Anaerobic natural processing applied to the Ethiopian Wush Wush variety and its classic southern Ethiopia style. Delicate, silky, intricate, with a bonus yogurty, lactic tang.

Paradise Roasters Ethiopia Guji Wush Wush (95). Another Wush Wush prepared with anaerobic natural processing: silky, juicy, extravagantly floral, here with a savory edge deepening the lactic inclination.

Bird Rock Coffee Roasters Tres Dragones Colombia (94). Not an anaerobic natural, as we learned after testing, but a hybrid natural — the whole fruit was subject to fermentation in a covered but not sealed vessel before drying. Consequently, it’s the only sample in this month’s report with a distinct alcohol edge. We called it rum barrel. Add to that mango, chocolate and musk.

Willoughby’s Panama Elida Estate Catuaí Natural ASD (94). Six days sealed in bags and 60 days on the drying patio nets lots of chocolate, massive mouthfeel and deep, lactic-tart acidity with a gently pungent dairy note we called fresh goat cheese.

Geisha Coffee Roaster Elida Natural ASD (Panama; 93). See above. The cheese note struck us as a little sharper here, but pleasingly so, the chocolate just as big, the flowers deep and sweet. And check out the price.

De Clieu Ethiopia Guji Natural Anaerobic Wush Wush G1 (93). Another anaerobic natural Wush Wush from Ethiopia, but this one leans toward the cedary, musky and savory, though with an abundance of crisp chocolate and sweet flowers as well.

Fumi Coffee Peru Yanesha Geisha Double-Anaerobic (93). Two stages of anaerobic ferment before the last of the fruit residue is washed off and the beans are dried makes this a particularly complex version of the anaerobic washed style. Cleanly expressed complexity with the anaerobic contribution resonantly present rather than explicit. Produced from the great Geisha variety as grown in Peru.

Ilustre Specialty Coffee Pink Bourbon Natural Anaerobic Colombia (93). An anaerobic natural that achieves a very light-footed and tropical feel (lychee, jasmine, sandalwood), probably due in part to the typical juicy sweetness of the local Colombia Pink Bourbon variety, in part perhaps to a particularly discreet application of the anaerobic natural protocol. This Ilustre sample is particularly noteworthy for us because it appears to be the first ever sample Coffee Review has reviewed from a Mexico-based roaster.

Nine Point Coffee Ethiopia Oromia Anaerobic Natural (93). Not a dark roast, more a dark-medium, but the pungently sweet, faintly smoky character imparted by the roast nicely complements the Ethiopia fruit (turned raisiny here) and spicy flowers.

PT’s Coffee Roasting Villa Loyola Carbonic Maceration Colombia (93). The plain, straightforward hybrid Colombia variety gets a gentle anaerobic natural boost here, developing quiet chocolate, citrus and flowers, with only a soft hint of fruity funk.

Steady State Roasting Castillo El Paraiso Colombia (93). A classic, powerful Colombia high-grown coffee, washed but with an anaerobic ferment phase added early on that perhaps is what pushes the fruit in a tart, pungent tropical direction: for us, passionfruit and mango.

As producers continue to experiment with the details of anaerobic fermentation, we will undoubtedly see still more variations on the method and still more names for those variations. Open your mind, freshen your palate, and get out your notebook.

And Thanks To

Those roaster contributors whose generous and perceptive comments enriched our understanding of anaerobic processes and this month’s coffees: Rudy Altamirano of Ilustre Specialty Coffee; Yu-lin Chiu of Nine Point Coffee; Phil Goodlaxson of Corvus Coffee Roasters; Patrick Lamastus of Geisha Coffee Roaster; Barry Levine of Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea; Mike Mazulo of PT’s Coffee Roasting Co.; Miguel Meza of Paradise Roasters; Elliot Reinecke of Steady State Roasting; and Maritza Taylor of Bird Rock Coffee Roasters.

The post Fun With Ferment: Anaerobically Processed Coffees 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.

Perhaps you could say that some of the coffees we review this month invite a similar approach to evaluation. If we look at them only using criteria we applied to coffees 10 years ago, we might find many of them rather flawed. Good body and mouthfeel, yes. Usually sweet, but often sour too: think plain yogurt or sour beer. And the aroma and flavor they display is often familiar in detail yet still wildly original in totality — tropical fruits, sweet herbs and spices, and on one occasion a very distinct, dominating collection of notes suggesting the fusion of cocoa, cinnamon and sugar that gives Mexican hot chocolate its distinction. We also had a sample that tasted a lot like gingerbread, and another remarkably like pumpkin pudding (neither is reviewed here).

The New World of Anything-Goes Processing

Rodrigo Sanchez, producer of the Old Soul Co. Colombia Monteblanco Gesha Cold Fermentation. Courtesy of Old Soul Coffee Co.

Fermentation is a tricky term with lots of technical caveats, but in the beverage world, it is usually broadly defined as the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts or other microorganisms. In traditional processing of coffee by the wet or washed method, the freshly skinned or pulped fruit is put into tanks to ferment, powered by whatever yeasts and bacteria are present in the immediate environment. The goal in such traditional ferment is simply to break down and soften the sweet, sticky fruit flesh so it later can be easily washed off the beans before they are dried. Any influence on the taste of the final coffee by the ferment step was disregarded, to the point that many leading technical experts in coffee argued that the fermentation step in wet-processing is a labor-intensive tradition with no discernible impact on taste and that it should be replaced by scrubbing the sticky flesh off the beans by machines called mechanical demucilagers (as is now the practice in many places in the world).

Colläge Coffee’s Joe Funte at his Pennsylvania roastery.

The Beauty of Alcohol Ferment: The New Naturals

Meanwhile, the specialty side of the coffee world was busy heading in the other direction: It discovered the potential beauty of coffees that add a little sweet, alcohol-tending ferment to the cup through the bean being dried in the entire fruit, with the sweet fruit flesh sealed around the bean by the skin. These are the “new naturals,” carefully refined small-batch variations on the ancient practice of drying coffee in the whole fruit. These juicy, fruit-bomb coffees have erupted in popularity at the top end of the specialty market over the past few years. (See our 2010 report, Brandy and Surprises: The New Naturals.) In this case, fermentation, particularly of sugars or carbohydrates by yeasts that occurs while the fruit is drying, produces a lush sweetness, often with a hint of alcohol created by the work of the yeasts, resulting in wine-like, or brandy-like, or any number of other alcohol-associated notes. If, however, through any number of careless practices, the wrong microorganisms become involved in these processes and the fruit molds or rots, we encounter instead the unpleasant-to-repulsive notes common with cheap natural-processed coffees the world over.

The Key Wrinkle: Reduced Oxygen Fermentation

Which gets us back to this month’s experimental coffees. The details of these new experiments vary, but two constants run through them all: First, they are all complex and labor-intensive, and second, at some point the coffee is subject to fermentation with reduced oxygen (loosely called anaerobic fermentation), which encourages the formation of lactic acids (dominant in fermented foods like yogurt, kimchee, sauerkraut, sourdough bread) rather than alcohol (created by oxygen-loving yeasts and dominant in alcoholic beverages). The effort is to partly suppress the action of yeasts in the ferment, which tend to create fruity, alcohol notes, while encouraging, through reducing the availability of oxygen, the action of bacteria that create sweet-tart lactic acids.

How and Why?

Why? Apparently to create new taste profiles in coffee, to explore coffee as an art, and to create a differentiated coffee that will attract more attention and higher prices from specialty roasters. See below for our take on the success of these efforts.

How? Usually by sealing the coffee (sometimes in the whole fruit) inside tanks in which the air and its oxygen is gradually replaced by carbon dioxide, or simply by sealing it in impermeable sacks or bags. Most of the successful experiments we review here involved sealing in tanks.

Manzanita Roasting Company’s Costa Rica Anaerobic wearing the bronze medal it won at the 2019 Golden Bean North America competition. Courtesy of Manzanita Roasting.

More Detail on the How

For example, the Costa Rica Anaerobic process roasted by Colläge Coffee (93), Manzanita Coffee (93) and Black & White Coffee Roasters (93) were all produced by the same farmer from particularly ripe fruit with high sugar content. The skins were removed and the beans, still enveloped in their sugary flesh or mucilage, were sealed inside tanks, where they fermented with limited oxygen, promoting lowered yeast activity but intensified activity of lactic acid-promoting bacteria. The result, in the case of two of the samples, was complex and engaging notes we associated with chocolate, perhaps raw chocolate, plus cinnamon and an exciting array of other spices. In the Colläge sample, this flavor complex struck us as a dead ringer for the cakes used to produce Mexican chocolate that combine chocolate, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. With the Manzanita sample, a similar engaging range of chocolate and sweet spice notes displayed. The Black & White sample showed a complex we read as a combination of dried apricot and honey, but it, like the other two samples, displayed the same pleasing complexity and sweet-savory depth. (By the way, we did not compare notes while, or even after, we tested these three coffees. We tested the samples separately on different days and generated the reviews separately. Reassuringly, the ratings came out the same and the descriptors overlapped closely in two cases.)

Jason Yu of Dory Coffee at his roaster. Courtesy of Dory Coffee.

With two other samples using lactic acid-promoting ferment, the Dory Coffee Ethiopia Anaerobic (93) and the Lucky Café Colombia Finca El Paraiso Double Anaerobic Geisha (92), the fermentation was carried out in two phases: First, the entire fruit was subjected to fermentation in a sealed container for approximately two days, then it was removed and the skins removed from beans, after which they were placed back in the sealed tanks inside their fruit flesh or mucilage for about another three days before drying. The Dory coffee showed the distinct sweet-spice tendency of the other anaerobic/lactic acid experiments but with a bit less intensity and more balance. The Lucky Café Colombia started with a green coffee from the always aromatically exciting Geisha variety of Arabica, and perhaps owing to the impact of this dynamic variety, or perhaps more to the details of the processing, it displayed a particularly wild and wide range of tastes and aromas, including musk and yogurt, notes that made sporadic appearances in other of this month’s coffees, though less prominently than here.

Apparently, the Small Eyes Café Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Adorsi (92) was sealed inside limited oxygen tanks in whole bean rather than after skin removal, making it an “anaerobic natural,” to use current nomenclature. The lactic acid influence here can be felt in the sweet yet bracingly brisk structure, as well as perfumy, musky aromatics complicated by a sort of strawberry yogurt suggestion.

The Champion of Shock and Surprise

Certainly the most startling and extreme profile among the seven experimental process coffees reviewed for this report is the top-rated Willoughby’s Panama Perci Geisha (96) generated by the relentlessly innovating Panama producer Ninety Plus Gesha Estates. Ninety Plus is quite reticent (okay, secretive) about the details of its processing experiments, but this sample projects with a particular, even disturbing intensity certain of the tendencies cited for the other experimental samples described here. Along with an explosion of pleasingly familiar aromatics (tropical fruit, dark chocolate) come a whole shelf of herb and spice, a yogurt-like lactic-acid twist to the structure, and deep, musky suggestions.

The Tricky Question of Terminology

The innovating edge of the coffee industry appears to have settled on the term “anaerobic fermentation” for the processes I’ve been describing. An alternative name proposed by others is “lactic acid fermentation,” referring to the goal of intensifying fermentation by bacteria that produce lactic acids associated with yogurts and fermented vegetable foods. Those of a technical turn of mind have objected to the term anaerobic because the tanks and bags involved do not eliminate oxygen from the process, only reduce it. In fact, they raise issues about the accuracy of the term “fermentation” to start with as it applies to coffee processing.

Tom Chuang of Small Eyes Cafe at his Taiwan-built Yang-Chia Bella Mini 500 roasting machine. Courtesy of Small Eyes Cafe.

But the language used to describe processing methods in coffee has never been distinguished by its technical rigor. “Natural,” the most widely used term for coffees dried in the whole fruit, is a case in point. For years, I tried to refer to these coffees by the explicit language “dried in the fruit,” but no one took me up on it. After all, “natural” is one word, and it’s a cool word with positive associations; furthermore, it’s an infinitely superior word to “unwashed,” the old industry term for coffees dried in the whole fruit. So if it turns out that the coffee world goes for “anaerobic,” so be it.

Out-of-Competition Standouts

Finally, we celebrate three additional fine coffees supplementing the anaerobic/lactic-acid-processed coffees focused on so far. All three of these coffees benefited from creative variations in the fermentation step, with original and engaging results, though none pushed the envelope quite as forcefully as the seven we review as part of this report.

The Old Soul Colombia Monteblanco Gesha Cold Fermentation (93)  embodied a particularly interesting processing variation. Here the fruit, picked at its peak sweetness, was initially fermented in the whole fruit for three days in refrigerated tanks, aiming to complicate and deepen the sensory character of the coffee by slowing down the chemical changes associated with the early stages of processing. In this case, the result seemed to emphasize the deeply sweet yet brisk, complexly savory side of the Gesha profile.

The fine Coffeebar Sidama Naia Bombe Dry Ferment (93) added no water to the fermentation tank and applied other refinements to the drying stage to encourage a particularly spicy floral character and a tart yet juicy structure. Finally, the 94 Fresh Coffee Costa Rica Brunca Finca Vista Passion Honey (93) employed refinements to the drying stage of the honey process (beans are dried with the skins removed but the fruit flesh still enveloping them) to promote a very delicate, chocolaty alcohol ferment balanced by zesty lime.

More on the Way

Clearly, we will be seeing more producers pushing the envelope in regard to processing methods, particularly through the creative use of fermentation during the interval between picking and drying. The results of the more radical of these experiments will likely continue to impress lovers of change and excitement while helping us all better understand our favorite beverage and its expressive potential.

The post Anaerobic Fermentation and Other Palate-Bending Processing Experiments appeared first on Coffee Review.

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.

The post Hawai’i: A New Wave of Coffee Innovation appeared first on Coffee Review.

Kenneth Davids, editor-in-chief of Coffee Review, evaluating an espresso. Courtesy of Kim Westerman.

Nevertheless, almost all of the 90 coffee drinkers who attended my tasting preferred the one sample that had been dried inside the fruit by the “natural” method. True, this particular coffee had other things going for it—distinguished tree variety, high growing elevation—but so did the other samples we tasted. It appears that the overwhelming majority liked this specific coffee mainly because the act of drying the beans inside the fruit had turned the cup lush, fruity and chocolaty. Drying inside the fruit also tends to fatten mouthfeel and reduce the perceived acidity or tartness of fruit notes, both additional positives for many coffee drinkers.

Floy Andrews, of Bay Area Co-Roasters, evaluating an espresso. Courtesy of Liza Lee.

Not all dried-in-the-fruit coffee tastes good in this particular way, of course. Rather than lush, the fruit notes can taste vaguely rotten, like something recently fished out of the compost. Rather than leaning toward chocolate, the fruit can taste rough, heavy and musty. Other dried-in-the-fruit coffees may emerge nicely from the drying process in an altogether different way: more crisply cocoa-toned than lushly chocolaty. In short, drying coffee in the whole fruit is tricky and hard to control. It can produce everything from a lush, fruity dream to compost in a cup, with lots of possibilities between.

The Natural-Processed Edge in Espresso

But it also happens that attributes like fruit, chocolate, fatter mouthfeel and lower acidity are all particularly appropriate qualifications for coffee when brewed as espresso. So, when Coffee Review tested 35 natural-processed espressos, we harbored rather high expectations.

The three tasters for this report included me, Coffee Review managing editor and Licensed Q-grader Kim Westerman, and Floy Andrews, also a Licensed Q-grader and co-founder of CoRo (Bay Area CoRoasters), a collaborative roasting and educational community space. We conducted the tasting over three days at CoRo and at the Coffee Review lab. Shots were impeccably pulled by master barista Rich Lee, co-founder of Spro Coffee Lab in San Francisco, with expert backup help from Jason Sarley, Coffee Review’s associate editor and in-house barista.

Rich Lee, of SPRO Coffee Lab in San Francisco, the barista for Coffee Review’s tasting of natural-process espressos. Courtesy of Kim Westerman.

We sourced 61 natural-processed single-origin espressos from 46 North American and East Asian roasters. Given the length of time it takes to rigorously test espressos (the grinder needs to be cleaned, precisely recalibrated and several test shots pulled for each sample before the final shots are produced), we were not able to test all of the 61 natural-processed espressos we received. Our principles of elimination were simple. If a roaster sent multiple samples (several did), we tested only one. If a roaster did not send the minimum full pound of beans we requested, enough to calibrate the grinder as well as pull the shots, we did not test that sample.

The Natural Scorecard

Did these natural-processed espressos deliver? Did they offer the fruity and chocolaty, crisply cocoa-toned, or otherwise distinguished espresso experience we were hoping for?

Anny Ruth Pimentel, of Finca Loma La Gloria in El Salvador, and her team. Courtesy of Old Soul Coffee Co.

A very impressive number did. Of the 35 natural-processed espressos we tested, nine scored 93 to 95, while ten more scored 91 to 92. All nine of the 93-through 95-rated espressos are reviewed here. Because five of those top-rated nine samples were Ethiopia coffees, we decided to introduce more Latin America origins into our final report by adding reviews for two of the 92-rated coffees, the Old Soul El Salvador Loma La Gloria Natural and the Argyle Coffee Costa Rica Tirra Natural, as well as for the highest rated Brazil, the nut- and spice-toned, 91-rated Auto Coffee Brazil Fazenda Sertãozinho. Brazil natural-process coffees are widely used in espresso blends worldwide, so we wanted to include at least one coffee from that origin in this month’s reviews.

Natural Quality and Character

What can we say about these natural-processed espressos and, perhaps by extension, about fine natural-processed espressos from contemporary specialty roasters in general? Are they likely to please from a consumer perspective?

Coffee Quality: Reassuring. Despite the tricky nature of drying coffee in the fruit, fundamental coffee quality overall was quite reassuring. Only two of the 35 espressos we tested hinted at green coffee faults of the kind often associated with natural-processed coffees. Many were fruity, but none were over-the-top fermenty. It appears that a consumer buying a natural-processed espresso from a top roaster is likely to buy quality as well as distinction.

Coffee Character: Flamboyant. The best of these espressos were rather broadly stated in their appeal. They typically offered the excitement of complexly layered fruit and chocolate, frequently complicated by floral top notes, and often supported by backgrounded cedary aromatic wood and savory spice. Those who associate espresso with the suave, understated character of Illy Caffè, for example, may be surprised by the assertively original, even flamboyant profiles of many of the espressos reviewed here.

A Natural-Processed Espresso Lexicon

Here is a very general vocabulary describing some of the sensory tendencies among the natural-processed espressos we reviewed.

Chocolate and More Chocolate. Descriptors for chocolate appear, often prominently, in 11 of our 12 reviews. Dark chocolate (most often), chocolate fudge, baker’s chocolate, and in one review, roasted cacao nib, the term we use for a crisp, nut-like chocolate. Probably the most explicit chocolate notes surfaced in the two splendid naturals from Costa Rica branded by their producer as “Perla Negra”: the deeply expressed, darkish-medium-roasted, 95-rated Durango Coffee Perla Negra (co-taster Floy Andrews called the lavish chocolate and fruit in this one “milk chocolate and blueberry pie”) and the similarly complex but much lighter-roasted, brighter 94-rated Magnolia Coffee Perla Negra. These coffees brought a clean, controlled, elegantly chocolate-and-fruit-toned natural character to the classic high-grown profile we associate with Costa Rica and the Caturra variety of Arabica. The 93-rated Kickapoo Coffee Ethiopia Gede Natural displayed a dramatic chocolate character as well, expressed with particular delicacy and grace (co-taster Floy Andrews again: “super balanced” and “a coffee for lovers.”)

“Perla Negra” coffee drying at Finca Las Lajas farm in Costa Rica. Courtesy of Magnolia Coffee.

Fruit. Descriptors for fruit varied greatly from espresso to espresso, but fruit was prominent in all, with a particular emphasis on berries and stone fruit, and less on the citrus notes often associated with wet-processed or washed coffees.

Flowers, Musk and Herb. The five espressos reviewed this month produced from natural-processed Ethiopia coffees were predictably more varied and unexpected in their aromatic character than the six produced from Latin America origins, doubtless owing to the influence of Ethiopia’s largely traditional, genetically varied, often locally indigenous tree varieties. Floral notes were common among the Ethiopias, leaning (probably owing to the influence of the natural processing) toward the sweet and heavyish or the musky. Both of the 95-rated Taiwanese espressos, the Small Eyes Café Gesha Village Lot #25 (produced from the celebrated and still pricy Gesha variety of Arabica) and the Taokas Banko Gotiti showed, amid an exhilarating range of aromas and flavor, the sweet, pungent, rather carnal notes associated with musk. In the case of the Taokas Banko Gotiti, we decided to associate this note with the odor of cannabis flower, which for us has a musky though still fresh aroma, more pungently floral than animal. The Kakalove Café Natural Sidamo Twakok (94) offered a lesson in the pleasures of brisk, crisp coffee character: lavender, dried strawberry, pungent sandalwood, unsweetened chocolate.

Brightness, Acidity. The sweet-tart, often citrusy sensation coffee professionals call acidity (we tend to call it brightness), can be a polarizing sensation in espresso. A coffee that is zesty and refreshing when brewed as drip or French press may come across as sharp and biting when brewed as espresso. Natural processing generally tends to round brightness or acidity, hence the widespread use of natural-processed coffees, particularly Brazils, in espresso blends.

Skillfully conducted medium to medium-dark roasts also can reduce acidy brightness. Interestingly, the three top-rated samples reviewed this month on an average were a bit darker roasted than is usual for coffees that attract high ratings at Coffee Review.

Pulling espresso shots at CoRo (Bay Area Co-Roasters) in Berkeley, CA. Courtesy of Kim Westerman.

Perhaps the brightest sample we review this month is the medium-roasted, 94-rated Dragonfly Yemen, a coffee that should please espresso drinkers who enjoy a complexly stated high-toned fruit in their straight shot or cappuccino. The 94-rated Revel Coffee Ethiospro Blend, a slyly-named blend of all natural-processed coffees from Ethiopia, displayed a rather bright profile as well, although the brightness came enveloped in an intricately original matrix of floral and spearmint notes. Finally, to fill out the bright-side candidates, the 92-rated Old Soul El Salvador Loma La Gloria Natural showed a classic sweet-tart character, with a crisply dry almond and cocoa nuance that bloomed and sweetened elegantly in cappuccino-scaled milk.

Fruit Ferment. If the sugars in the fruit begin to ferment during the drying phase of natural-processing, the result can range from pleasing notes suggesting wine or spirits to sensations that can read as composty or outright foul if the ferment gets completely out of hand. Two of the samples reviewed this month showed a slight, and, for us, pleasing shimmer of sweet ferment. In the PT’s Coffee Granja La Esperanza Tres Dragones Natural (93), an unusual natural coffee from Colombia, we associated this note with brandy; in the Argyle Coffee Costa Rica Tirra Natural (92) we could have associated it with a range of spirits notes, but decided on the scent of aged grappa. The important takeaway is that, in both cases, we found the spirits-like hints pleasingly supported and nuanced the general ripe-fruit character of the coffees.

Thanks to …

The team for Coffee Review’s natural-processed espresso tasting event: Kim Westerman, Kenneth Davids, Jason Sarley, Floy Andrews, Rich Lee. Courtesy of James Parrish.

Co-taster Floy Andrews for her skilled participation in our testing process and spirited contributions to our review language. In her pre-coffee life Floy was a successful attorney. She now combines her extensive business management experience with well-honed sensory skills and a passion for coffee as co-founder and leader of Bay Area CoRoasters (CoRo), the vibrant and growing collaborative community center in Berkeley, California for roasting, packaging and sourcing fine specialty coffee.

CoRo for providing the ideal tools and setting for this tasting.

Rich Lee, the prodigiously experienced barista and dynamic co-founder of SPRO Coffee Lab in San Francisco, for pulling most of the shots for our testing. SPRO co-founders Rich and Liza Lee are mounting an innovative, free-spirited barista competition for the San Francisco coffee community and consumers called Creatures of Habit on Saturday, September 22nd, 2018.

The post Natural-Process Espressos: Fruit and Chocolate Exalted appeared first on Coffee Review.

But where there is a problem there also may be an opportunity. This is 2017, after all, a time of disruption and innovation in every field, including coffee.

What if you deliberately exposed those vulnerable, open-pored green beans to other odors, odors our culture generally considers appealing rather than offensive? Natural aromas, such as the residual odors in wine or whiskey casks, for example? Or roasted cacao? Or flowers — coffee flowers in particular?

All of the above possibilities figure in this month’s report. We tested 17 coffees that were shut inside empty whiskey barrels for anywhere from six to 24 weeks before roasting (10 of them inside bourbon barrels, two inside rye whiskey barrels, one inside a Scotch whisky barrel, and four inside unspecified whiskey barrels, probably bourbon). We also tested five coffees that had been shut inside wine barrels and two inside rum barrels, plus one stored with fermented and roasted cacao and another infused with dried coffee flowers. We also tested two Indonesia coffees that were conventionally aged, in this case simply stored in burlap bags inside clean, ventilated warehouses in Singapore for three years.

From Casking to Monsooning

The general scope for this report was coffee deliberately exposed to a variety of flavor-altering but natural processes while still in its unroasted, green state. We hoped to source samples not only reflecting the relatively new and fashionable practice of conditioning green coffees inside wine or spirits casks, but also samples of coffees treated by traditional practices like aging and monsooning (the practice of exposing coffees to moist monsoon winds in special warehouses for three to four months on the southeastern coast of India).

As it turned out, we did not manage to source any monsooned coffees, but one of the two conventionally aged coffees we tested, the Equator Aged Sumatra Ulos Batak Peaberry (94), shared honors as one of the two highest-rated coffees in this month’s report. Coffees typically turn rather flat and woody after three years in special aging warehouses, saved perhaps by some musty notes that suggest spice or tobacco. But this particular aged Sumatra, apparently a spectacular coffee to begin with in the new, refined Sumatra wet-hulled style, appeared to maintain its twisty, sweet-savory-zesty character brilliantly, while accruing depth and resonance from the aging.

Good Stuff In, Good Stuff Out

Note that in the case of this Sumatra, the process applied to the green beans after curing did not turn an ordinary coffee brilliant; rather, it gave an already brilliant coffee further nuance and differentiation. This leads to a more general observation. It appeared to us that, regardless of what was done to a coffee, the better and more distinctive the coffee was when it went into the cask or conditioning process, the better and more distinctive it was when it came out. Generally, strong-charactered single-origin coffees fared better in casks than did the blends, anonymous Arabicas or quiet Brazils that many roasters appear to have started with.

For example, I suspect that the Modern Times Bourbon Barrel-Aged Kenya Baragu, at 94 the highest-rated cask-conditioned coffee we tested, was already a big, complex coffee when it went into the bourbon barrel for 65 days of conditioning. Certainly the whiskey notes, however pronounced, did not completely overwhelm the coffee, and, presumably worked on by the fruit notes in the coffee, read more as, say, wine or brandy than an American whiskey. On the other hand, how much the final complexly fruit-toned and lavender-scented profile owed to the impact of the whiskey-conditioning and how much to a big, crisply fruit- and floral-toned Kenya to start with is difficult to even guess at. There was simply a lot of intense sensory excitement, and all of it, in our judgment, pleasurable. We found we had to put aside some of our linguistic and ideological coffee-related preconceptions, face an invigorating sensory experience with open mind and palate, and say, well, I think this is good. How good? Long, meandering discussions and repeated tastings later, we went for 94 points good.

Wine Casks or Whiskey Casks?

Another possible (very tentative) generalization arising from our tasting might be that wine-casking is less aggressive and risky than whiskey-casking. This month’s third-highest-rated sample, the Water Avenue Pinot Noir Aged El Salvador (93) showed a subtler impact from the casking than did any of the whiskey-casked coffees. The profile appeared to reflect both the dry fruit tendencies of a likely Bourbon-variety coffee from El Salvador as well as the oak and wine-related tones that might be plausibly associated with the casking. Here one might say that there was something close to a coherent dialogue or balancing between the impact of cask and coffee.

Water Avenue Coffee ages an El Salvador honey-processed coffee in a Pinot Noir barrel. Courtesy of Water Avenue Coffee.

Whiskey-Casked Exceptions

It appears that conditioning in whiskey rather than wine casks risks overwhelming green coffees that do not start with enough character to push back and force a collaboration with the whiskey in some complex or exciting way. Most of the bourbon-casked samples were heavily dominated by the whiskey. Some rather pleasantly so, others less pleasantly so. But either way the whiskey influence seems to have exerted at least some numbing impact on the contribution of the often-anonymous green coffees. Particularly in darker roasted samples, the combination of dark roasting and whiskey-casking netted a forceful but heavy, inexpressive cup.

There were exceptions, however. With the Revel Barrel Proof Coffee (92), the alcohol contribution dominated, but owing to a lightish-medium roast and perhaps to a more nimble-footed contribution from the whiskey (the conditioning was carried out in a rye rather than a bourbon barrel) this sample remained sweet, nuanced and lively. The alcohol element struck us as more grappa-like than whiskey-like, again, perhaps owing to a felicitous collaboration with the fruit notes in the coffee (a blend of Brazil, Kenya and Guatemala). We still could have dissed this sample for lacking certain clearly readable coffee characteristics (the acidity, for example, was virtually impossible to describe in coffee terms), but the animated alcohol-toned fruit, buoyant mouthfeel and delicate nuance persuaded us to support it with a 92.

The Reprise Barrel-Aged Coffee (92) represented a distinguished Nicaragua coffee conditioned in a Jamaica rum barrel that had seen previous service as a Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey barrel. Possibly the most balanced and subtle of the samples conditioned in spirits casks, the cup showed a very lively, delicate acidity, and the alcohol contribution was relatively integrated, with the coffee turning the rum contribution pleasingly Cabernet- or brandy-like.

Other Experiments

We also tested a handful of samples representing other approaches to aroma- or alcohol-conditioning.

The Big Island Coffee Roasters’ Puna Theobroma Coffee (92) was scented with wild-harvested roasted cacao nibs. You can find the interesting backstory for this coffee, told by grower/roaster Kelleigh Stewart, here. The chocolate influence promoted a powerful yet delicately elegant cocoa-and-flowers character animating a pleasantly brisk, bittersweet structure.

The process from cacao pod to bean and coffee cherry to cup. Photo by Kelleigh Stewart.

All of the high-rated casked coffees we reviewed were conditioned in barrels that were dry at the point they were charged with coffee. In other words, there was no direct contact between beans and liquid; aroma did it all. We did test two samples, however, that were first infused with spirits before being put into casks for further conditioning. The exposure was even more direct with a new product from a prominent California winery, a tactfully darker-roasted coffee that was immersed in wine after roasting rather than before. None of these three samples was quite successful enough to break 90 in our view, though all suggested promise in regard to their basic processes.

Will I Like These Coffees?

We obviously felt that all of our top-rated samples were worth trying, though in different ways and for different reasons. Those coffees with a pronounced spirits influence, like the Revel Barrel Proof, may be particularly polarizing. Gary Theisen, the roaster and casker for the Revel coffee, wrote, “Since the flavor of the barrel is so strong on the coffee, I had thought to blend it with another coffee to tone it down. But the people I tested it on … either … loved the flavor notes the barrel imparted or … didn’t. So I figured straight-up would be the way to go.”

A common theme in roaster communications on some of these coffees, both private and public, is that they are best enjoyed brewed when using methods, like French press or even espresso, that maximize weight and general intensity, and also that they are best enjoyed late in the day, with an afternoon pastry or an after-dinner dessert. Perhaps. I suppose the emphasis on afternoon or evening may, in part, reflect the discomfort some of us feel in consuming alcoholic beverages in the morning — although, of course, none of the cask-conditioned coffees contains any alcohol whatsoever. Furthermore, as I am aware whenever I attend weekend brunches, there are many among us who have never been much impressed by this no-alcohol-in-the-morning business.

If I’m a Roaster, Should I Consider Experimenting with Cask-Conditioning?

It seems clear that those roasters with whom I communicated carried out their casking experiments for the relatively disinterested reasons that still drive the leading edge of specialty coffee: a fundamental sense of adventure and a curiosity about the beverage and its potential. The devotion of specialty roasters to their craft was nowhere more apparent than among those roasters who regularly pulled samples from their casks and cupped them, trying to figure out the optimal moment to stop the casking. Or those who reported their detailed experiments with getting the roast profile right for these coffees, given their often shifting and shifty moisture contents.
All of that care and experiment requires time and work, however, and it may also be worth noting that the first roaster I know of to experiment with cask conditioning, Ceremony Coffee Roasters, whose Mexico Santa Teresa BCS 02: Cabernet Franc Barrel we reviewed in 2013 at a rating of 95, no longer offers barrel-conditioned coffees, apparently because they have turned out to be a distraction from Ceremony’s main business.
I hope that does not turn out to be the case with those adventurous roasters who sent us top-rated casked samples for this month’s report. Perhaps the spirit of open-ended innovation that seems to be driving this first wave of experiment with casking will gradually transform into that other, less dramatic, more lasting impulse animating the best side of specialty coffee: a passion for precise and consistent achievement.

The post Aged, Casked and Cured: Innovations in Green Coffee Conditioning appeared first on Coffee Review.

But you can’t win them all, and the Central American invention of the term “honey” for dried-in-the-fruit-pulp coffees appears to have prevailed everywhere else in the world outside of Brazil. You can see both the victory of that term as well as the attraction of the process itself in the worldwide range of origins represented among the 21 honey coffees we tested for this month’s report: seven Costa Ricas (four reviewed here), five El Salvadors (two reviewed here), two Brazils (one reviewed here), and one each from a far-flung assortment of origins: Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Sumatra, Rwanda (the PT’s Coko Rwanda Honey appears here at 93), Thailand (the Paradise Java Thailand Semi-Washed is here at 91) and Honduras (the Red Rooster Honduras Finca Las Flores appears at 91).

The Honey Evolution

The relative dominance of Costa Rica honeys both in number of submissions and number reviewed should come as no surprise. Although the process was pioneered in Brazil, the term honey and the application of the process to small, refined lots of coffee was popularized in Costa Rica, part of the Costa Rican “micromill revolution” in which farmers took advantage of the newer compact mechanical wet-processing machines to begin processing their own coffees rather than selling their coffee fruit to large mills.

Honey-processed coffees drying in raised beds

The availability of mechanical wet-processing machines, which squeeze or scrub the fruit flesh or mucilage off the beans using only a very small amount of water, made even further refinements of the honey process possible. Today you will find “black honey,” “red honey,” “yellow honey,” and “white honey” coffees. In the black honey and red honey processes, the beans are dried with all or nearly all of the fruit pulp adhering to the beans. The difference between the two processes, black and red, depends on how quickly or how slowly the beans are dried: black honey is apparently dried slower than red. In the case of yellow honey, the mechanical demucilaging machines are adjusted to remove somewhere between 20% to 50% of the mucilage or fruit flesh before drying (no explicitly described examples of yellow honey are reviewed here), whereas with white honey almost all of the fruit flesh is removed, leaving only a thin coating on the beans, perhaps 10%. So, if we follow a hypothetical model of how processing influences cup character, we might expect white honey coffees to cup the brightest and most transparent; in other words, most like a conventional washed or wet-processed coffee, whereas we might expect the black honey and red honey (in which all or almost all of the fruit flesh is left on the bean) to cup closest to a fully dried-in-the-fruit coffee: fruitier perhaps, with more chocolate and aromatic wood.

Cup vs. Hypothesis

Our results only in part supported these hypothetical expectations. Certainly the 93-rated Equator Costa Rica El Aguacate White Honey was among the cleanest and brightest of the ten coffees reviewed, whereas two of the three red honey samples we reviewed, the Magnolia Costa Rica Esnider Rodriguez (91) and the Manzanita El Salvador Loma La Loria (91) showed signs of processing-related variations in cup style, in particular an unusual though quite attractive interweaving of floral and aromatic wood notes. Nevertheless, a third red honey, the Reunion Island Sol Naciente Costa Rica (91) was by contrast crisp, delicate and zesty.

Moving to black honey, two of the four samples we tested displayed the heavy, rather woody character that one might expect from coffee dried in the fruit too slowly. On the other hand, the Willoughby’s 93-rated Costa Rica El Puente Cerro Verde Black Honey was particularly lively, with no signs of flavor-dampening fault at all, only a clean but impressively complex aromatic profile, spicy and deeply sweet, a sweetness that we might attribute in part to the black honey process and careful drying in the fruit flesh.

Further complicating any effort to generalize on our results, the processing methods for half of the coffees reviewed here were not described in detail, although the information we did have clearly qualified these samples for this report. For example, the engagingly complex Propeller El Salvador Finca El Pozo (93) and the striking and original PT’s Coko Rwanda Honey (93) were simply labeled “honey” with no color modifier attached. We can assume, given Brazilian practices, that the fine 91-rated pulped natural Espiritu Santo Brazil from Java Blend fits the criteria for “red” honey, though its pleasing juxtaposition of zesty tartness and berryish sweetness in the cup could just as well make it a conventional washed coffee. The Paradise Roasters Java Thailand Semi-Washed (91), rich with spicy chocolate character, was labeled “semi-washed,” although information we received on its processing suggests it fits the criterion for yellow or white honey, since it was dried with some but not all of the mucilage removed.

Gently Exotic Unpredictability

All of the preceding ambiguity reinforced our general conclusion as we cupped through these 21 honey samples: It appeared to us that the main characteristic that honey- (or pulped natural-) processing brings to coffees is a gently exotic, mildly unpredictable complexity. We certainly experienced far more variation in cup as we moved around the table with these coffees than we would with, for example, a table of conventional wet-processed or washed coffees from roughly the same set of origins. And, with the exception of the two rather flat, monotoned black honey coffees, those unpredictable differences were original and engaging rather than off-putting or distracting.

Probably these cup variations derived from differences in how much of the fruit flesh was removed from the beans before drying and how the drying was handled. In general, the four top 93-rated samples showed a natural sweetness, subtly exotic variations in aroma and flavor, and smooth, viscous mouthfeel that could plausibly be related to the virtues of the honey processing method. On the other hand, these four high-rated samples remained relatively pure, with clean, often bright acidity. The next tier down, the six 91-rated samples, were also quite engaging, but showed clearer (though still attractive) signs of impact from processing variation: spice and aromatic wood notes tended to complicate the fruit and flowers, for example, and in the case of the Red Rooster Honduras Finca Las Flores Honey, a faint though attractive hint of brandyish ferment surfaced.

Honey Process and Origin

On the basis of this modest sampling, it appears that the honey process does contribute adventure and originality to coffee types normally associated with the wet method. This is not to say that honey produces a “better” cup than wet-processing, just a different, and more exotic and less predictable one. In the case of origins where wet processing is typically pursued by traditional methods involving fermenting the fruit flesh before washing it off, as in Guatemala or Peru, for example, rather than through use of machines that squeeze or scrub the fruit off, as is usually the case in Costa Rica and Colombia, the advantages of the honey process in imparting complexity and nuance to the cup may be less significant. And with origins like Rwanda and Sumatra, where traditional local processing methods already add a particular intrigue to the cup, careful honey-processing may produce a different-than-usual cup, though not a more intriguing or adventurous one. Brazil represents still another situation entirely, since the norm in Brazil is “natural” or dry-processing. Honey or pulped-natural Brazils are almost always lighter-footed than typical Brazil full naturals, with more delicacy and brightness and greater emphasis on stone-fruit and flowers rather than nut and chocolate.

At any rate, coffee lovers who value the mildly exotic over the familiar and predictable in a still classically bright and balanced cup may be particularly well-served with honey coffees from classic origins like Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador. And committed aficionados should enjoy the pleasing challenge of reading in the cup the subtly original impact of still-evolving refinements of honey-processing technologies.

The post Honey-Processed Coffees: Quiet Adventure appeared first on Coffee Review.

Brazil produces considerably more coffee than any other country — about 34% of the world’s total in 2016. It produces many kinds and qualities of coffee: large volumes of natural or dried-in-the-fruit coffees of the Robusta species called conilons; even larger volumes of natural or dried-in-the-fruit coffees of the Arabica species of the type we focus on for this report; and a mix of relatively higher-end Arabica coffees processed by other methods, ranging from conventionally wet-processed or washed to “pulped natural.” Pulped naturals (or “honey coffees” as they’re called in Central America) are processed using an intermediate method situated between washed and natural, in which the skins of the fruit are removed, but all or part of the fruit pulp or mucilage is allowed to remain on the beans as they dry. In our past surveys of Brazil coffees, the top-scoring coffees were often fine pulped naturals.

But another category of fine specialty coffees is also produced in Brazil, a category that we focus on in this month’s report: old-fashioned natural dried-in-the-fruit Brazil coffees that are done particularly right.

Processing Variables: From Stripped to Coddled

Normal, decent-but-not-great Brazil natural Arabicas, the good-value kind that anchor the decent-but-not-great blends of the world, are mass-harvested, either by stripping the branches by hand or by machines that roll down the rows of coffee trees and shake the more or less ripe fruit off the trees. The resulting mix of ripe, overripe and underripe fruit is then subjected to sophisticated mechanical separation before being dried on patios in layers, hopefully not too thick, and hopefully relentlessly raked. Then comes an even more rigorous cleaning and sorting of the dried and hulled beans: by density, by bean size and shape, and by computerized electronic sorting machines. The result is a decent, solid coffee, a little uneven cup to cup, but by the luck of the draw and the relentless obstinacy of cuppers, a coffee that fills out the heart of many a “premium” all-Arabica blend cleanly and nicely, with considerable resonance, a little chocolate and a lot of nut, and not much acidy brightness because most Brazils are relatively low-grown.

The nine high-rated Brazil naturals we review this month are either exceptionally distinguished examples of that standard procedure for Brazil naturals, or special smaller lots of naturals apparently coddled right from the get-go. The cup profiles, plus the information we could dig up, suggest that many of this month’s top-rated samples may have been selectively picked rather than stripped or machine-picked. Certainly all were dried quite carefully, some in thin layers on raised African-style beds that facilitate air circulation under and through the drying fruit.

And the character of the acidity, at least, suggests that most were grown at higher elevations than typical for Brazil naturals. These high-rated Brazils did not challenge us with the intense, sweetly tart acidity characteristic of extremely high-grown coffees, but they did display a balanced, vibrant brightness we often found ourselves calling “round” or “juicy.”

Tradition and Trend

You could say that the Brazil naturals we review this month partake of two influences. First is the great tradition of Brazil naturals, a coffee-growing culture decades deep, steeped in knowledge and infrastructure peculiar to the production of naturals. On the other hand is something quite new, the example of the innovative new natural-processed coffees pioneered in the late 2000s in regions like southern Ethiopia and Central America, where fine coffees were traditionally wet-processed rather than natural-processed. This second, newly fashionable style of natural was generated by a restless specialty coffee culture that looked for, among other innovations, ways to add value to green coffee through creating distinctive cup profiles via variations in processing method. Unlike Brazil naturals, which have been produced for decades in a climate with relatively dry harvest seasons, or the even older traditional naturals produced in the semi-arid regions of Yemen and eastern Ethiopia that stretch back to the very beginnings of coffee history, these “new naturals” are produced in climates with often humid harvest seasons. Drying ripe fruit in humid conditions encourages the fermenty, fruit-forward character that epitomizes these coffees, a fruit-bomb effect that surprised and dazzled many aficionado consumers in the late 2000s.

The Brazil Difference

But while those newer natural-process coffees from Ethiopia and Central America remain popular among aficionados for their bright fruit-forwardness and lush but lively acidity, many coffee consumers aren’t familiar with the style and others simply don’t enjoy it. For those with more traditional coffee tastes, these high-end Brazil naturals may surprise and please. They offer dried-in the-fruit profiles with generally deeper, more nuanced fruit, a fundamental sweetness, and a vibrant though not assertive acidity. If the new naturals from Africa and Central America tend to bright berry notes and lush florals, the Brazil naturals we review here tend more toward the roundly sweet and less acidy stone fruits and simpler, less exotic flowers. Plus chocolate. Lots of nuts and chocolate.

If there is a through-line in the Brazil naturals we review here, it is the nut and chocolate tones that carry the cup profiles. From roasted cacao nib and rich, dark chocolate to a more austere, drier baker’s chocolate, and from classic almond notes to buttery hazelnuts to sweet, earthy pistachios — chocolate and nut tones rule.

The highest-rated of this month’s Brazil naturals include Willoughby’s Fazenda Passeio Natural, tied for the top rating at 94, a deeply sweet, complex and balanced coffee with a nectar-like mouthfeel, dried papaya notes, baker’s chocolate and almond. One of the prettiest nut- and chocolate-toned coffees we tested, Topeca’s Fazenda Sertão (93), makes its case around pistachio and baker’s chocolate. The Revel Estancia Telese, tied for top rating at 94, was less predictable, with a very slight fermenty edge that manifested as a faint hint of rye whisky complicating its deep, rich sweetness and lilac-toned florals.

Growing Regions

All of the coffees we received for this cupping were produced in three growing regions: Carmo de Minas, Mantiqueira de Minas and Cerrado Miniero, all in Minas Gerais State. Carmo de Minas and Mantiqueira de Minas are both traditional growing regions with a preponderance of smaller (by Brazilian standards) farms. Eight of the top-scoring coffees we review here were produced in Carmo de Minas and Mantiqueira de Minas. One, however, the 93-rated Fazenda Aurea from Taiwan roaster GIGA Coffee, was produced in the more technified Cerrado region, where flat terrain encourages machine-picking, and particularly dry harvest seasons encourage efficient large-scale patio-drying. Perhaps we can see the impact of a drier harvest reflected in the Fazenda Aurea’s crisply delicate profile and the fragrant way sandalwood notes complicate its melony sweetness.

Value Across the Board

In the global green coffee market, Brazil has long prospered by producing good value coffees, decent but not exceptional, with costs controlled mainly through volume efficiency and the sophisticated use of various sorting and grading technologies to compensate for relatively high labor costs. Perhaps owing to this value-first tradition, the fine Brazil coffees reviewed this month offer impressive price-to-rating ratios.

The two coffees that earned the highest scores, the Willoughby’s and the Revel (both 94 points), are priced at $13.99 for 16 ounces and $13.25 for 12 ounces, respectively. Typically, coffees that we rate at 93 or 94 hover around an average price of $17 or $18 for 12 ounces; others go for upwards of $25. On the other hand, the most expensive coffee we review this month is the 92-rated Victrola Carmo de Minas Canaan Estate, which at $16.00 for 12 ounces is still something of a bargain.

Of course, it might be best if consumers were asked to pay a higher quality premium for the best Brazil coffees, and that these quality premiums made it back to the producers and eventually to workers. But the Brazil industry continues to suffer from low expectations, particularly among North Americans. Perhaps Brazil needs its Gesha moment, some flashy break-out coffee that creates buzz and spectacular prices per pound, a moment that changes aficionado expectations about Brazil and sets off industry-wide experiments there with carefully coddled small lots. But for now, we should be grateful that these fine, subtly distinctive variations on a great traditional coffee type continue to come our way.

The post Brazil Naturals: Tradition Meets Trend appeared first on Coffee Review.