New Coffees

I ordered a few new coffees.  Here are the notes about some of them from Cafe Imports.

Kenya Chania French Mission Varietal, new crop Tanzania Songea Peaberry, and Ethiopia Harrar East Haraghe Highlands.  I also ordered a Brazil Ipanema Yellow Icatu from Beccor, which will be a good coffee.

Kenya

I got up early this morning and sample roasted four Kenyans from Cafe Imports.  The guys from Hanson are coming in this afternoon to taste them and potentially sell one of them on their website.  I hope.

I'm doing a little research, so I don't sound so ignorant if they ask questions.  Thought I'd share with you.

As far as I can tell, there are 8 grades of coffee coming out of Kenya.  

AA is the highest grade, but all it really means is th

at it is a 18 or 17 screen (18/64 or 17/64 inch).  

AB is a 16 screen.  

PB - Peaberries are sorted out and make up about 10% of the crop.  

C grade is smaller than AB.

TT is the size of AA and AB, but are less dense, and separated via air pressure.

T grade are very light and broken pieces.

It appears there are two other grades of coffee, but I'm not certain what they are.  I'm sure at least one of them is a designation of domestic consumption coffee.

Most coffee produced in Kenya is Arabica.  But there are many, many different varietals grown there.  The French Mission Varietal is one of the oldest types of coffee in Kenya.  It is a Bourbon strand brought over from Reunion Island by French missionaries in the late 1800s.  Bourbon coffee developed (sort-of) naturally.  The British East India Company sold seeds from Aden, Yemen to the French, who planted them on the island of Bourbon (which is now called Reunion).  After a few generations on the island it took on unique characteristics.  It is generally more "robust" than Typica and tends to have a higher production.  The trees and cherries have a distinctive look, as well.

Some hybrid varietals are grown in Kenya.  SL-28 was created by Scott Labs from Bourbon and Ethiopian Mokka varietals.  (From Sweet Maria's site:) "It supposedly is selected from Tanganyika DR cultivar, found by A.D Trench on a trip through Tanzania, and has similar drought resistant properties.  DR is of French Mission Bourbon origin.  Many prefer SL-28 to the other successful... cultivar SL-34."  I don't know who A.D. Trench is and I can't seem to find anything on the internet about him.

SL-34 is another hybrid produced by Scott Labs.  (Again from Sweet Maria's:) "It supposedly is selected from French Mission Bourbon trees at Loresho Estate in Kabete Kenya.  SL types are responsible for 90% of Kenya coffees.  SL-34 has better yields than SL-28, and is grown at lower altitudes than SL-28."  Generally, a higher-yielding varietal that produces well at lower elevations doesn't taste as good, so that's my assumption.

RUIRU 11:  "is named for the station at Ruiru, Kenya where it was developed in the '70s and released in 1986.  The initial tests were with Hibrido de Timor (a cross between Arabica and Robusta, resistant to Coffee Leaf Rust) and Rume Sudan, an original coffee strain resistant to Coffee Berry Disease.  Later they added SL-28 and SL-34 inputs due to poor cup character of the early tests.  The Robusta content of Ruiru 11 is still an issue, and the cup does not match the quality of the SL types."

Here is a map of Kenya with the growing regions highlighted.

Follow-up to The Perfect Cappuccino

Good afternoon! Thanks to everyone who came to watch The Perfect Cappuccino! If you were unable to make it, I think you can still purchase it at Doubleshot, or online at www.cappuccinomovie.com. It's wonderful!
Watching it reminded me of a book I read awhile ago (actually, long enough ago that I no longer remember it vividly, so this is going to be a 'book review' in a very superficial sense...): Starbucked by Taylor Clark. It's at the Central Library. If you watched the movie and are curious to learn more about this omnipresent company for whatever reason (I read it to fuel an anti-Starbucks bias, although it is a fairly balanced book), you should check it out! Since I don't remember anything, here is a trivia quote from the back of the book: "Americans now drink so much coffee that scientists have detected caffeine in many of the nation's rivers, lakes, and bays--and even in treated drinking water." Interesting--
Secondly, if you watched the movie you'll remember when Amy showed clips from old coffee commercials. Here are some Blues lyrics written by Mississippi John Hurt, copyrighted in 1963...back in the days where prepackaged coffee was the only option. *Shudder* They're in the same vein as those old commercials: "This is the 'Coffee Blues,' I likes a certain brand--Maxwell's House--it's good till the last drop, just like it says on the can. I used to have a girl cookin' a good Maxwell House. She moved away. Some said to Memphis and some said to Leland, but I found her. I wanted her to cook me some good Maxwell's House. You understand, if I can get me just a spoonful of Maxwell's House, do me much good as two or three cups this other coffee..."
Don't know if that was originally written as a commerical for Maxwell's House, or if the songwriter really did love Maxwell's enough to include it in a song, but...there you have it. :)

Finally, an interaction-question: A personal "goal" is to learn how to say "I like Coffee" in as many languages as possible. If you are able to say/write "I like coffee" in a foreign tongue, please share! I think in German it's "Der Kaffee schmeckt mir gut"--literally, the coffee tastes good to me.
Thanks, and I hope you all have a great day!

The Perfect Cappuccino

I hope you all will do your best to make it to the screening of The Perfect Cappuccino here tomorrow night at 7p.  I got the projector and a big screen.  We're going to have a live video web chat with Amy Ferraris afterward.  Should be a fun time.  Please come and bring people.  We'll open the doors at 6p, so come early to socialize and drink coffee.

Colombian Coffee Children

This is something that has slid onto the back burner over the past few weeks.  It's on my mind again now though.  

I'm referring to the community center they are proposing to build in Concordia for the poorer coffee workers' children.  We talked about finding a way to raise money to help.  

Obviously we could do anything.  We could have a bake sale and send them $200 and feel good about ourselves that we did something to help.  But that's not much help.  Nothing we do will be A LOT of help, but I feel that we can do something.  

One thing that we already do is put on the DoubleShot races.  This is the fourth year for it.  And this year, we decided to do three duathlons and one six hour mountain bike race.  The second duathlon is this weekend at Osage Hills State Park.  We've always donated proceeds from the races to a charity (Coffee Kids).  This year we decided to set up our own 501(3)c not-for-profit organization so we could do more than just give to an overall cause.  This way we can donate directly to the project in Concordia.  Or do other things I've thought about doing, such as building swing sets or taking soccer balls for the kids.  If we don't do it this way, our all-consuming government will tax the hell out of me.  It's not easy to give to charitable causes.  

You can see the website for the DoubleShot Duathlon series here:  www.DoubleshotDuathlon.com

If you'd like to come volunteer (hang out, help a little, drink coffee and beer, and eat hotdogs), please send an email to Kari:  Kari@DoubleShotDuathlon.com

Anyway, let's try to get back on track and thinking about what we could do to raise money for this project.  I think we should help.  If you have ideas, post them in the comments of this blog or email me.

Colombia and Cappuccino

First, I've decided that we should push back the showing of the film The Perfect Cappuccino to the evening of Thursday, September 10 at 7p.  It lasts 90 minutes and then we'll (hopefully) have a live video chat with Amy Ferraris, the filmmaker.  Stay tuned for details.  

The coffee experiments are going really good.  I skyped with Cristina a couple days ago and we talked about all that is happening with these developments.  She told me the first sample was with red Maragogipe dried on concrete, and it was really great.  The second sample Ariel used yellow Maragogipe (they ripen yellow instead of red), dried on raised beds and covered with a cloth.  She said it wasn't as good- cooled more astringent and green.  She thinks it's because it's harder to tell if the yellows are ripe or not, so more unripe could've gotten in.  Also the cloth he used to cover the coffee wasn't porous enough and the coffee may have gotten too hot.  So he did another sample with red Maragogipe dried on raised beds and covered with a more porous cloth.  She hadn't tasted it yet when I talked to her.

The first two samples Ariel milled at his mill on the farm.  The sample I got still had silverskin on the outside of the beans and on that was a lot of sugars, so when I roasted it, it suddenly looked like it was burning.  This third sample, Ariel brought to Cristina's father's dry mill in Medellin.  They have better equipment and she's hoping they can polish the silverskin off the coffee, so it looks more like a washed coffee and roasts better.  She was hoping to get that lot of coffee in two days ago, after I talked to her.  Then she was going to roast and cup it hopefully today.  This could be the one.  If it works out, there's a possibility she can get us a few bags.  And THAT would be awesome.  Right now, we're the only people in the world who are even talking about natural coffee from Colombia.  The FNC (Colombian Coffee Federation) is not going to let this coffee out of the country if they find out about it, so the key is to mix the bags in with a container of other coffee and try to sneak it through.

She told me that she had the same experiment done at one of her father's farms in Concordia, and the coffee was a Caturrra variety.  She said it was sweet, a lot brighter (higher acidity) and not as complex as the Maragogipe.  Could be interesting though.

I asked her about having Alfredo do this with his coffee.  She said she asked him to and he had been too busy with the beginning of their harvest.  But she asked him again and she was hoping that he had done it.  This could actually change the face of Colombian coffee forever.  And we're involved.  Exciting.

I can't wait to taste the next samples.

Most Exciting

This is one of the most exciting events of my coffee career.  I've learned so much (yet so little) in my few years on the industry, and the more I learn, the more it enables me to ask questions.  Those questions sometimes have answers and sometimes they don't.  Usually one answer brings more questions than I had before.

So the last time I was in Colombia, we were asking lots of questions as usual.  What makes the coffee taste the way it does?  What if we did things differently?  What if we planted a different varietal of tree?  What if we fermented the coffee instead of running it through a desmucilaginadora?  What happens if we ferment it for 12 hours or 24 hours or 36 hours?  How does it change the flavor?  What if we put it in refrigerated tanks and introduced lager yeast?  Or what if we fermented it with Trappist yeast?  Yum.  How much different does it taste if we dry the parchment in the sun as opposed to using a static dryer?  And what if we process the coffee using pulped natural method or dry processing instead of wet?  Interesting.

Finally, at Ariel's farm, El Boton, we found a place where we could experiment with a couple of these questions.  We asked Ariel a lot of these questions.  I told him what I have learned in my travels to other origins and I described coffee from other countries.  The people in Colombia only get to drink Colombian coffee, so they don't know what it's like to taste coffees from exotic locales around the world.  We are fortunate in this way.  Ariel is a curious guy with the means to play, so he agreed to do these experiments with small lots.  He divided a lot into four batches.  One he fermented 24 hours.  One he fermented 36 hours.  Cristina said these two were not very good, and we didn't get samples of them.  The third part he processed using the pulped natural method.  That means he stripped the skins off the cherries and dried the beans with the parchment and mucilage still intact.  The fourth he dried the cherries whole.  Ariel built raised beds to dry the coffee on for these last two methods.  These are the two samples I received from Cristina last week.  

I roasted them yesterday (along with 20 other samples).  I waited until I really had the sample roaster as dialed in as I was going to get it, and then I roasted these Colombians.  There was only enough for one roast, so one shot and I had to get it right.  I was more than slightly concerned because everything was going fine with all the other coffees, but when I was roasting the Natural it suddenly seemed to be burning.  For no reason.  It hadn't even hit second crack.  But I could see (by drawing samples) that the outsides were beginning to get shiny.  Not good.  So I dropped it.  I thought I had ruined it, for sure.  The Honey (pulped natural) roasted just fine.

Today I cupped them on a table with 6 other coffees, including Ariel's regular coffee (which is run through a desmucilaginadora).  By the way, all of the coffees from El Boton are maragogipe, which means they are larger beans.  Usually these coffees are a bit flatter than other types, but I had cupped Ariel's maragogipe a couple weeks ago and found it to be very interesting.  It had a nice acidity, chocolate and nut flavors, and some dark fruits or grape in the nose.  

As soon as I ground the Boton Natural, my nose lit up.  The fruits were jumping off that coffee like crazy.  I started to get excited.  When I took my first sip... well, it was an amazing experience.  It was like a great natural Harrar or a really complex natural Sidamo.  Just freaking amazing coffee.  The pulped natural was pretty good, but nothing like the natural.

Now I have more questions.  The processing method dramatically changed the taste of that ONE LOT of coffee.  Is it repeatable?  We'll see.  Cristina is cupping another batch tomorrow in her office in Medellin and is going to call me on skype afterward.  Would coffee of a different varietal (besides maragogipe) taste the same, just as good, not as good?  How much does terroir actually affect the taste of coffee?  The soil, climate, elevation, and agricultural methods affect the taste, but compared to processing, how much?  

This thing has big, juicy fruit fragrances and a bit of vanilla in the aroma.  Very fruity taste that was a lot like artificial, intense cherry you find in flavored gum or soda.  Lots of other tastes muddied the waters and added insane amounts of complexity, but I haven't even gotten that far yet.  I'm still reeling from the sweetness on my palate.

I know Cristina is amazed and excited.  Ariel is very excited as well.  We have no idea how we could get these coffees exported to the US because the Federation has such a tight grip on exports, there's no way they would let this go through if they sampled it.  

My thoughts run much deeper.  What if...

What if this is the thing that makes Concordia famous?  Could it be that we've discovered something about Colombian coffee that could make it a highly sought-after coffee destination?  Could this replace Ethiopian coffees on the market, since that origin is so wrought with problems?  I'm sure Cristina is thinking the same thing.  This could be huge.  I'm wondering what Alfredo's coffee (San Rafael) would taste like if we processed it exactly the same way.  What if, somehow, Cristina were to find a way to change the rules of the Federation, so that they would let her export this coffee?  Or maybe she could find a different way to send it to the US.  I'm telling you, this is the beginning of something REALLY BIG.

When you taste it, you'll understand.