Well, it’s simply that the rustic sweetness of this sample just stuck with me. Honestly, I wasn’t going to purchase this since I was already ordering another of their coffees. Not that I thought it wasn’t a great coffee, but I was clearly referencing the deep complex fruit of their Espresso Reserve. But after a few weeks, I was still thinking about this one. The rustic sweetness of Muskovado Sugar draping over light cocoa and chocolate just kept coming back into my mind. So here we are, and there you go. A smooth, classic Brazil coffee with tons of old world sweetness and chocolate from one of the most innovative, quality-driven estates in Brazil.
Tag Archive for 'coffee'
From the Cerrado region in Minas Gerais, Brazil comes a wonderfully complex Brazilian coffee. Daterra has long been on the forefront of producer technology, but that isn’t why I am so fond of their coffees. It’s the flavor. A rich, full-bodied chocolate & cocao base that mingle with deeply fruited layers of raisin and black cherry delivers an extraordinarily balanced, structured cup with a long, sweet finish.
This particular coffee is a blend of three varietals, grown and selected from different plots on the farms, and although it has espresso in the name, it is equally suited for press and drip brewing.
And to top it all off, this coffee is certified by Utz Kapeh & The Rainforest Alliance.
I was directed to an article in The Standard about changes to the Kenyan coffee system that apparently are taking effect immediately…
Is Kenya taking a learning lesson from Ethiopia, and not doing the same thing? It looks like this is a good thing – something which will increase transparency and traceability in Kenyan Coffees – something that the new ECX in Ethiopia has made difficult over the past year or so.
Through the article mentioned above is thin in terms of detail, I think that this is a great step for creating a sustainable system of coffee, equitable to the ones who grow and process it, that is open and where price can be based on quality.
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’ve been casually been making a survey of coffee related books available.. the most recent book being skimmed through is "Coffee & Tea" (4th ed.) by Elin McCoy & John Frederick Walker. As a book originally written in 1976 and updated in 1998, it’s nothing new if you’ve read any other books that claim to be "The Complete Guide to Evaluating, Buying, Preparing, and Enjoying Every Variety of Coffee and Tea". It basically covers the same ground as all the others….
But even though it’s pretty quickly clear that this isn’t an unique book, I still wanted to check out the glossary of terms to see how they define certain common words, especially ones that are flavor descriptors. I came across this one:
Cocoa: Characteristic sweetish smell of completely stale roasted coffee. (emphasis theirs).
Hmmm… Perhaps it’s a result of the difference between theirs and my times, but I haven’t ever attributed the dryness of cocoa to staleness of the roast. Maybe I should. I’ve occasionally noted a dry blueberry flavor in Harrars that were once lush and vibrant and thought that it was maybe getting a bit too far from the harvest. Possibly a different situation. Anyway, I’m friends with a purveyor of super fine chocolates with whom I’ve had some 100% cocoa bars that are exquisite with a somewhat powdery texture, but not dusty as their &qout;completely stale roasted coffee" would suggest. But yeh, I’ve also tried some Hershey’s cocoa and it was dead as dust. But it hadn’t occurred to me to attribute the flavor to staleness. Not till now anyway.
It also makes me wonder if sweetness isn’t one of the last flavors to go as the coffee stales? Hadn’t paid attention to that either.
Lots to do. lots to do. -)
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…
I had just a small amount of the that San Ignacio left (~18g, to be exact) and it is hot as a mutha here right now, so I set out to make a delicate, fully satisfying iced coffee. (Vietnamese stye)
Bolivia San Ignacio as it's brewing, icing
Sweet isn’t quite enough of a word for it. The buttery body (mmm) that was in hot cup, completely turned inward, and became more of a perceived sense than actual flavor – like jabbing your finger in the stick of warm butter sitting on the butcher block, maybe even on a slab of Himalayan pink salt, and putting it in your mouth. Warmth. Oily. Yummy.
Then. And then… that delicate flower of sweetness takes off, floats lightly, and clearly above the cool ice and butter. Like finding lost berries and cream. Clear hints of cherry and super ripe raspberries (just like the amazingly juicy ones Christy just brought home from the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island the other day…) ‘Twas beauty. Total beauty. ‘Nother please… If only I had some more.
I still need to post the roast notes from this batch…
