Just did a first cupping of a new Peru coffee – El Guabo… Very impressed. It was what I call a casual cupping, which means I don’t score it and just note my experience with it. It’s something I do with most all the coffees to get to how it strikes me emotionally than, say, the degree of complexity or whatnot.
Anyway, it was quite elegant – hazlenut base, smooth medium-full body with hints of vanilla and apricot (especially in the dry aroma). Great balance. I kept thinking to myself that I could simply drink this all day long and neither get bored of it nor feel that I had to pay attention to it.
Archive for the 'cupping notes' Category
Rich like the marbling of Kobe beef. Medium-heavy body. Stone fruits – like apricot and the light starch of a real good, I mean amazingly smooth and even textured, pear – weave complex, layered dolphin patterns through a bed of bittersweet cocao and chocolate.
(this coffee is currently sold out)
Similar to the Koratie Dry-Processes that sold out so quickly, but with more crispness. Lighter fruits are at play – starfruit, citrusy notes. But it’s sweet and aromatic, floral. Complex and delicate. Light in body. This is like the sun the last couple days, crisp, bright, but with a stark clarity to the air that is mesmerizing. Truly, this coffee is an amazing display of skill set to work amid the right environmental conditions. This is a very light roast, gingerly stretched at the right points to bring forward the floral and clear crisp complexity of its fruit flavors.
(this is currently sold out)
The ambiance set by clear morning light and this Kenyan from the Giakanja Cooperative Mill in Nyeri match perfectly.
Light Streaming through Ponderosa Pines along the banks of the Metolius River
This was a casual morning cupping – one where it happens as you wake up… The beauty of this coffee pulled me immediately out of my frozen slumber. Yes, the air was chilled, felt like dry ice, but with bright morning light glinting off the Metolius River as it burbled by the site. I got full round fruits, melons playing in a bed of rich stone fruit (without any hint of starch). Intense flavor mingled with the clear bright yellow, almost white light coming through the tops of majestic Ponderosa Pines along the Green Ridge line.
On a plate in front of me, a slice of pan fried (in butter, of course) sourdough bread topped with Cheddar and slices of real Tomato. The Satisfying tartness of the sour starter, crispy and chewy, the caramelized / browned butters sweetness supports the bright marmalade-like fruitiness of this Nyeri district Kenyan. The fact that I stretched the Millard phase of the roast a tiny bit, giving the fruits a bit less clarity, but more intertwined complexity works well with the acidulous nature of good fresh tomatoes.
I have three new roasts to post about: I think that I am getting close to actually being able to reproduce my results (which means installing the manometer I purchased a few weeks ago…) which means that I am going to start posting more complete roast profiles than what I’m jotting down on the chip of paper bag. I am working through a way to do this easily, cause I don’t want to spend my time copying information from one place to another.
On a somewhat side note, but still related, I do think that the air control isn’t set right. Even in the better roasts, there is a cloudiness to the flavors. They just aren’t as clear as I am expecting. It’s perhaps simply nothing more than my expectations, and looking for that unattainable, but I do think that the air isn’t being drawn through the roast chamber well enough. Noting to pay more attention to this in future roasts.
Anyway, I roasted three different coffees to help Christy and me re-enter daily life after our honeymoon (5 days on the Metolious River in Central Oregon. The whole week was totally amazing!). I’ve roasted two of them before with good results and one with not so good results… They are:
El Salvadore Matalapa Estate
Roasted 27 July, 2008
27 July '08 roast of El Salvadore Matalapa Estate
250g / 210g (16.0% loss)
1Cb = 10:23
1Cr = 10:46
1Cf = 11:05 (stragglers til 11:20)
D = 12:40
Cupping Notes:
29 July ‘08 (~36 hrs)
Base flavors are nut – hazel mostly. There are hints of other flavors in there, but it is somewhat muddled together. Slightly harsh acidity wrapped up into some nice fruit flavors. But off balance.
Roasting Notes:
10:23 is really too long to hit 1rst crack. It’s clear from the cupping that it dried out the coffee too much, baking it, and setting of some internal scorching. Visually, verified in some beans.
What the hell, I’ll blame that on poor planning and not having the guage hooked up yet. This was the last batch roasted, and jumping from 150g to 250… I just didn’t get it moving quick enough. The beans were turning yellow – indicating the end of the drying phase – about 1:30 past where I would normally expect that.
Once I turned up the gas, things progressed fine, at least on paper. The duration of 1rst crack was nice and short. The progression of the roast after that was about right. I still think I held it in a bit long, but honestly, the damage was done before I passed 5 minutes. The beans were too dried out to really develop good aciduous flavors without also turning the insides darker than the outer surface.
Rwanda Gkongoro Nyrautzi
29 July ‘08 (~36 hrs)
27 July '08 roast of Rwanda Gkongogo Nyarusiza
Roasted 27 July, 2008
144g / 123g (14.6% loss)
1Cb = 7:09
1Cr = 7:36
1Cf = 8:20 (stragglers til 11:20)
D = 9:28
Cupping Notes:
Cups bright, a bit tight but not as green as I had assumed based on the times.
Roasting Notes:
Nope. It was clear from the times that this wasn’t going to cup stellar… Actually, since I’m judging the progress almost purely visually in the early stages of the roast, I knew I was flying through it when the end of the warming/drying phase was showing at around 2:20. It was already too late by then, but might as well finish it out.
It was the first roast after the warmup, and the first couple do tend to race too fast – and it didn’t help that I was dumping in only 144g (all that I had left). In hindsight, shouldda sent the El Salvador through first and saved this for last. Though not sure that would have been what would have helped.
So, though first crack began at 7:09, started rolling 25s later, it cupped pretty green.
Not a whole lot else to say. It wasn’t particurally thin, but there wasn’t any development to the flavors, and this should have been a nicely nutty, balanced coffee.
Bolivia San Igacio (2007 CoE 2nd place)
Roasted 27 July, 2008
27 July '08 Roast of Bolivia San Igacio (CoE)
198g / 168g (15.2% loss)
1Cb = 9:13
1Cr = 9:3
1Cf = 10:10
D = 11:09
Cupping Notes:
28 July ‘08 (~12 hrs)
This is a Spring/Summer coffee for certain… Fresh, clean aromatics – flowery.
Sweetcream sweetness like Crème fraîche. Light chocolate, light nuttyness – a bit peanut with some few cashews thrown in for better creaminess.
Light tending towards medium body.
I just can’t get over how, um pervasive the sweetness in this coffee is. It brings back to memory a sample of a coffee from the Galapagos sent to me about 4 years ago that blew me away with how mellow and sweet it was. I wasn’t able to purchase it only because of the cost, but shit did I want to. This Bolivia did the same thing – so mellow, so sweet in an unassuming way. Like it was so easy for this coffee to be this good, it didn’t have to prove it. It did by just showing up.
Roast Notes:
Well, of any to get right, or at least not screw up, this would be it. The times seemed right on. Breaing open a few beans and checking how evenly their color was compared to the outer surface, I am very happy with where this turned out.
I could probably cut of the roast ever so slightly sooner and get a bit more pronounced fruit, which was here more than any other roast of this coffee yet, but I wanted more of it forward. Though I don’t want to lose that sweetness. Had I the samples, this is where it would be excellent to try roasting again with identical progression up to 1rst crack and dump at the same end temp, but with stretch the time between 1rst crack and dump temp by about, say 15-20 sec. Gets me wondering about what, exactly would happen. Would the fruit hold together and it increase in overall sweetness? or would it dull, and begin turning to caramel? I suspect the latter, but not totally sure.
This is an experiment waiting to happen…
My friend Mark has been asking me for a Brazilian coffee that will rekindle his interest in Brazils.. This is one for that… Satisfyingly sweet up front, delicate floral nose, and generally balanced, mild and interesting. More nutty and round in the body (mild)
Roast 2 has more vibrancy and a bit more body. In comparison, the longer development (in roast 1) after 1c muted it’s fruit and floral notes, and slightly muddies the body tones. Not that it’s awful, just not as good.
This is alertness beautifully balanced with elegant patience. Summery. Well structured. It’s clarity cuts through me like sitting in the sun porch on bright mornings. Bright warmth, eye squinty and attentive.
Beautiful, clean, light and floral sweetness. Grapefruit like undercurrent helps round out structure – especially in the mid range temperatures as the cup cools. It shows a lighter body than most other Brazils – even compared to the more citrusy, nutty sul de Minas region or certain Central American coffees – this tends toward the light side. But don’t take this for thin. It has depth and structure.
Said sample of Brazil Carmo de Minas at a light – city plus – roast in order to preserve the delicateness of the yellow bourbon varietal. You can see that the surface color is still mottled as it hasn’t progressed far enough past first crack to even the surface out… Not a bad thing at this stage of roast. The interior is very even and consistent with the surface color.. and by the way, this is the first roast that I am satisfied with since hooking up the Pinhalense…
