CR Learnin's

Just a few notes from my trip last week.

Hacienda Rio Negro is a farm that La Minita's parent company bought three years ago.  It's Rainforest Alliance Certified.  Normally that wouldn't mean jack to me, but it was cool to actually be in a rainforest where coffee is growing amongst big trees.  Shade-grown, for real.  

When I was in Guatemala last year an agronomist told me that the varietal Yellow Catuai has a lot more pulp in the cherry, so the farmers like it but the mills do not like it (because the farmers sell their coffee to the mill by weight).  In Costa Rica I learned that Yellow Catuai also don't taste very good.  Sergio (Master Cupper at La Minita) told me he was able to separate the different varieties of coffee at La Minita and cup each one separately.  He said the Yellow Catuai are flat and not good.  That's great info.  He also told me the variety Catimor is a high-yield coffee but tastes terrible.

The coffee from Rio Negro was good.  It had a really big body and huge dark chocolate taste.  It didn't have the sweetness that the La Minita brings.  I tasted more stuff like cinnamon and whatnot in the Rio Negro, but I guess the most interesting thing was that it lacked sweetness.  

When I was riding around with Sergio in his car, I asked him how coffee had changed over the course of his 15- or 20-year career as a cupper.  He said the cupping ritual has remained the same but coffee is changing.  He said consumer demand has caused the producers to make changes in their processing.  Apparently during the years of high production and low quality, a lot of mills took out their washing channels and put in aquapulpers.  The aquapulper spins rapidly and takes the mucilage off the beans.  The traditional way of getting the mucilage off in wet-processed coffee is to put the coffee in a fermentation tank overnight and then run it down a washing channel to get the mucilage off.  Sergio told me the result of using an aquapulper is that the coffee doesn't have the sweetness of a traditionally fermented coffee.

Then it hit me.  Rio Negro has aquapulpers.  It's partially cleaned in the aquapulper and then fermented in tanks for 8 hours to finish the cleaning process.  THAT's why it's not as sweet.

Much interesting information.

Just wanted to drop that in while it's fresh on my mind.

One other thing.  I noticed that the kids down there didn't really have much to play with or things to play on.  I was thinking maybe it would be nice if we (The DoubleShot) could ask the farm to put in swingsets if we would pay for them.  I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not- or how much it would cost.  But while I was talking to Paul and Janette McEntire today, they mentioned that they take soccer balls to give to the kids.  I think that's a great idea.  So I'm thinking about (selfishly) getting some soccer balls printed with the DoubleShot logo and taking several on my next origin trip to give to the kids.  I don't know if this is something any of you have interest in helping with or not.  But I thought I'd let you know what I'm thinking...

Pulped Natural

The new Panamanian coffee (Hartmann Honey - micro-lot #7) is unique.  In fact, in our five years of business we've never had a coffee like this.  Part of its uniqueness is due to the processing of the coffee at origin.  We've talked extensively about washed coffees (wet-processed) and naturals (dry-processed), but there are other methods that lie somewhere in between.  This coffee is processed using the "pulped natural" method.  

The processing of coffee that I'm referring to is necessary to get the coffee from cherry to seed.  Coffee beans are the seeds of coffee cherries.  These cherries grow on trees and for the most part, people pick them by hand when they are ripe.  The cherries consist of skin (which is a bit fibrous), a fairly thin layer of pulp (or mucilage), a shell around the seed (called parchment skin), silverskin (a very thin layer around the seed, like the skin on a peanut), and finally the seed (or bean) itself.  All these layers must be removed at some point in order to get to the coffee beans I buy and sell to you.

In the pulped natural method, the skins are removed from the cherries as soon as they get to the mill.  This is usually done with a machine called a pulper, which is the common method used in wet processing.  It squeezes the cherries between two metal, pebbled rollers, popping the slimy seeds out of the tough skins.  At this point, in wet processing, the seeds with mucilage on them would usually go into a fermentation tank or a desmucilaginadora (demucilager).  But in pulped natural, they are laid out to dry.  I suppose many places (e.g. Brazil) lay the slimy seeds out on patios, but at the Hartmann estate they put them on raised beds to dry.  This method requires a lot of attention and turning of the beans to avoid mold.  Drying them on raised beds allows for air-flow above and below the coffee, and produces a much higher-quality coffee.

After the mucilage is fully dry, it is run through a huller, which takes off the dried mucilage and parchment.  Then the coffee is bagged and shipped to us for roasting.

The Hartmann Honey has a darker, uneven color to the beans.  This is caused by the processing.  The pulped natural method generally exudes a sweeter, slightly fruitier taste to the coffee, and this is the case with the Hartmann.  They tend to have some characteristics of a natural coffee, but cleaner.  The coloration of the beans tells me that the coffee has been "over-fermented."  It must have more of the sugars from the fruit on the bean.  And when I roast it, the beans turn a much darker color early in the roast, even though they're not fully roasted on the inside.  I wonder if this is from sugar browning on the outside of the beans.  Another interesting characteristic of the coffee is that it has a lot of honeyed flavors; and if I light-roast it, even though it doesn't taste green, the grounds sink straight to the bottom of a cup.  From what I understand, these are characteristics of a coffee that is "under-fermented."  Hmm.  What a contradiction.  Could this coffee be over- and under-fermented at the same time?  I'm sure, according to the specialty coffee industry, it could.  

I've roasted the coffee twice now, and I think I could still tweak the roast next time.  But the coffee is great this week.  It's a pulped natural.