Fall is here in Minneapolis. Cooler mornings, fading leaves, and the end of the Minnesota State Fair. All beacons that signal a change in season. With the end of summer, we also see fresh crop coffees appearing on offer lists. It's exciting to taste the first samples of a new coffee season. Many times, these are coffees that we haven't been able to taste since the end of last winter.
This is also the time of the year that we set our sights on one of our most important coffee offerings: our Holiday Blends. We start tasting coffees for Holiday blends in late August and early September, selecting single origins with the flavors we associate with winter treats like fruit cake, mulled wine, and Christmas cookies. Holiday blends are big sellers for roasters, and many of our customers buy our green pre-blends starting in October, so we know we need to start planning early to have these coffees, and their profiles, finalized and polished.
India coffee cherries, image courtesy of Cafe Imports
India Arabica
In the past month, we've had two different clients share washed Arabica coffees from India with us. One person wanted a simple green coffee evaluation. The other customer requested a complete Profile Design Service for both an Arabica and a Robusta from India, in anticipation of launching a new coffee brand dedicated to South Indian style coffees.
The Arabica we tasted and profiled for this customer was very nice. We tasted it first as a sample roast, where sweet notes of pecan, almond, baking spice, and a hint of jasmine were noted by our sensory team. Later, as profile roasts, a quick 411° finish temperature brought out flavors of orange oil and lemon-lime soda, while a slightly longer roast to 409° tasted like chocolate and sweet milk tea.
Specialty coffee is growing rapidly and the Arabica samples we're tasting from the southern region have been really delightful. We're thrilled to see this newer origin producing such enjoyable cups.
El Salvador José Edgardo Gutierrez Microlot, Natural
El Salvador is high on my list of favorite all-time origins. Maybe it's because, as a bright-eyed Barista Competitor back in the early 2010s, I competed with a washed Pacamara from El Salvador. Spending so much time with a coffee while preparing for competition makes you intimately familiar with its flavors, aromas, and nuances.
After doing well at the regional level of the competition, the producers of that coffee invited me to visit their farms in Ahuachapán, a trip I eagerly agreed to. Visiting a coffee farm is another experience that will forever endear you to coffees from that part of the world, and my trip had a tremendous impact on me and my interest in specialty coffee.
This natural process Pacamara was one of the coffees we brought on for consideration in a Holiday Blend, specifically Hibernate. We taste all new samples blind, to avoid bias, but when the origin was revealed during our calibration we knew we had a winner for a holiday coffee. Aromas of walnut and angostura bitters were met with notes of sweet citrus, dried fruit, and a caramelized sweetness like crème brûlée.
Hibernate is described as "a winter blend for sleepy bears" and is meant to have a profile that's cozy and comforting. We knew this sweet and warming El Salvador would be a great component in the blend and started to think about what other coffees would complement and balance it.
A younger Lauren Lathrop preparing her signature beverage for judges at NWRBC
Ethiopia Sidama Ayla Bombe, Natural
If it seems like we've been moving quickly through natural processed Ethiopia offerings lately, it's because we have. Shipping delays caused by political unrest in Eastern Africa have meant that our usual delivery of new crop naturals did not arrive on time. We bridged the gap with a few bags of other coffees like the Kayon Mountain and a natural processed coffee from the Yirgacheffe region, but we spent most of the summer looking for a longer-term replacement.
Sidama is a well-known region for washed coffees but not where we typically look for naturals. The Testi Ayla washing station in the Bombe district is where this newest offering comes from. We tasted it beside another natural from the Gedeb district, and it stood out for its intense blue and purple fruit flavors.
Notes of blueberry cobbler, grape jelly, and caramel were supported by floral undertones like bergamot and lavender. It tastes like the classic natural Ethiopia that served as an "ah-ha" moment for so many coffee people, the kind of coffee that made you realize "oh! This is a fruit!". It's a great addition to our menu and plays a crucial supporting role in our Cold Brew Blend.
Coffees from Central America
Every year around this time, we receive 10 coded samples from a small specialty importer in the Midwest that works directly with farmers in Honduras and Guatemala. They are another customer who regularly utilizes our green coffee evaluation service to gather important green coffee metrics like moisture content and defect count along with cupping notes. They use this information to market these green coffees to roasting customers and provide feedback directly to farmers, which helps the farmers continue to improve their growing, sorting, and processing practices.
Although we get very little information about the coffees (the are all coded H-##-24 and that's all we get to know) the range of flavors across the table is really interesting.
One highlight was a coffee that tasted buttery and rich like dark plums, chocolate, and cinnamon, with complexity like toasted caraway seed in a fresh loaf of rye bread. Another stand-out was a nutty coffee with flavors of granola and graham cracker, a high note like fresh squeezed orange juice, and a silky body. Of course, there were less pleasant cups on the table, like one we suspected may have been a Robusta with that familiar rubbery medicinal flavor, but most of the coffees were great.
We've seen a steady and noticeable improvement in all samples that this group has shared with us for the past several years. It's a project we look forward to and it's a nice feeling to think we may be a small part of the increase in quality.
