We have finally started roasting our last 2009 Cup of excellence coffee from Guatemala.

For more info about the coffee go here.

We now have a new espresso blend for sale in the store.

It consists of:

50 % Suaza, Huila, Colombia. Wet processed.
35 % Fazenda Primavera, Brazil. Wet processed.
15 % San Antonio, Guatemala CoE. Wet processed.

Go here to read more about it.

Friday afternoon we had our 3rd tasting of the 6 trial roasts of Fazenda Santa Barbara, a newly arrived coffee from Bahia, Brazil.
We had 2 favourites, the roasts were 1:30 minutes apart in total roast time, so now we need to do some new trial roasts to see which direction to take. We also need to determine the roast level (colour) and then test it on the big roaster before we start selling the coffee.

This is one of the most exciting times of the year, when new crop coffees start coming in. It is great to get to know these coffees through endless tasting of trial roasts. We also base our flavour descriptors on these tastings, so it is not just based upon one tasting.

The Fazenda Santa Barbara will be for sale in about 3-4 weeks. More info will come once we get it from the farmer.

(The coffee was tasting so nice that we drank it all.)

I am finally back home again after a fantastic week in Kenya.

It looks like we will be buying a lot from the Karogoto factory which is part of the Tekangu coop and a lot from the Kiamabara factory which is part of the Mugaga coop. More info on these coffees will come when the coffees are ready for sale in our store. First it needs to be processed, sorted, packed and shipped to Norway. It will probably take about 2 months before we have it in house.

I have made a slideshow with some comments for every picture. Watch it in full screen and click “show info” to see the comments.
I Hope you like it:

We have used a coffee lot from Suaza, Colombia in our espresso for a while. From Tuesday february 2nd,  we will start to sell it as a single origin coffee (light roast) too. To read more about the coffee, go here.

The first day in Kenya I spent in Nairobi at Dorman’s head offices tasting about 400 cups of coffee (Or more. I lost count) I was hoping to find some gems on the table, but unfortunately Kenya has had severe problems with drought that has affected the production both in quantity and quality. Therefore, I was very dissappointed that I did not find any coffees that were as juicy and intense as our last years Tekangu lot.

Bridget, one of the head cuppers and also one of the bosses at Dorman’s was unsure whether the lack of quality was because of the drought or if it was still a bit too early after the harvest and therefore the coffees we tasted were mainly from the first picking (which is normally of inferior quality.)  I was hoping it was the latter one being the reason. Still, after a full day of cupping without any luck I was feeling miserable but Bridet gave me hope when she told me that when the production is low and the trees are stressed and there is less of the big beans (AA+ top quality) she often finds that the peaberries are tasting better (Peaberry is when a coffee cherry only contains 1 bean instead of 2). Maybe because there is more mucilage and energy directed into 1 bean instead of two and when there is less water and therefore less energy the PB becomes more tasty.

Regardless of theories, there is no doubt that because of the lower production this year and inflation, we are going to have to pay a higher price for the Kenyan coffees this year compared to the 2008/2009 crop which was a very good year for Kenya in terms of coffee production.

On Tuesday morning I had breakfat with Mr. Kamau who is the manager of CMS (Coffee managment services) which is an organisation which helps the farmers sell their coffee and also educates the farmers in good agricultural practices. In addition, CMS are the ones monitoring the transaction between the buyers (Tim Wendelboe in this case), the cooperatives and the farmers. They provide documentation to assure full transparency in the money flow, etc. This is essential when trading in a country like Kenya that is struggling with a lot of corruption and it is important for us as a buyer to ensure that the farmers are getting paid according to the price we paid. If the farmers are not getting paid, they stop growing coffee, and the reason why we choose to pay a premium for the coffee it is to honour the quality of the coffee and to motivate the farmers to keep up the good work so that we can have as great or even better coffees for the future. It is simple; to grow quality coffee takes more time and work and therefore the expenses are higher.

After an hour breakfast and interesting conversation, I headed for Nyeri which is located in Kenyas Rift Valley in the Central Highlands.

When I arrived at the Central Kenya Coffee Mill, I was welcomed by one of their agronomists and the cupper Ernest. Ernest had set up 6 coffees for me to taste, three of them coming from the Tekangu cooperative that we allready bought from last year (and won the Nordic Roaster Competition with). The coffees were already a little bit cold, as I was a bit late, but after tasting a couple of fair coffees there was a sudden explosion of flavours in my mouth when I tasted the 3rd cup on the table. It turned out to be a Tekangu coffee and it was by far miles ahead of all the coffees I tasted in Nairobi. The coffee was extremely juicy with tonnes of fruity berry flavours remniscent of rasberries, blackberries, black currants, rose hips and yes, yes, YES! The buttery mouthfeel and the juicy acidity made me think about great white burgundy wines.  I never decide upon which coffee to buy in origin, but this coffee was just too good to take the risk of someone else buying it. Therefore I offered to buy it immediately.

After the cupping we went to visit the Tekangu cooperative society located only 5 minutes away from the mill. I was welcomed by their chairman and his staff and we had a long discussion about prices, coffee quality, the future of coffee and how we could work together in order to build a long term relationship based on sustainability and developing quality together to secure future coffee supplies and to secure future income for the farmers. Afterwards they showed me their 3 faktories; TEgu, KArogoto and NGUnguru (therefore TEKANGU). The managers of the different factories explained to me what their biggest issues were in terms of ensuring the quality of the coffee and they spoke about their 5 year strategic plan and what they were trying to improve before the next harvest. Hopefully we will be able to help them a little bit in their investments by paying a premium price for their coffees this year.

Now I am sitting outside an old colonial style house, enjoying a Tusker Malt overlooking the impressive Mount Kenya lit by a beautiful sunset. I have yet to digest all the impressions and information from today’s excursion, but all in all I am very excited to tell you that once again we will bring great coffee back home from Kenya.

Tomorrow I will be tasting more coffees and visit another cooperative.

Cheers!

TW

I am leaving for Kenya on sunday morning. Hopefully I will have time to report during my trip and hopefully I will bring back some amazing coffees that are at least as good as this years Tekangu and Kiawamururu.

We only have about 200 kg left of both these coffees, so if they are among your favourites,  I recommend getting some before it is all gone. I predict it will sell out by the end of February / beginning of March.

I will try as hard as I can to push our exporter to ship the new crop Kenyas as fast as possible, but first I need to taste some 100 or more lots before I decide which ones to buy.

We are glad to announce that we now have 2 Best of Panama lots and a Christmas espressoblend for sale:

The Christmas espresso blend consists of:

50% Badnekhan Estate, washed coffee from India
50% Suaza, washed coffee from Huila Colombia

Flavour profile: Rich, nutty, chocolaty, dried fruit, oak and spice.

The Panamacoffees are:

Lot no. 14: Panacoffee, espresso roast
Lot size: 220 kg
Producer: Finca la Milagrosa, Mr. Héctor Vargas
Harvest: January 2009
Origin: Alto Jaramillo, Boquete, Panama.
Growing conditions: 1600 m.a.s.
Botanical variety: 50% Caturra & 50% Typica
Processing: Washed.
Flavour profile: Fruity, light, sweet and refreshing.

Lot no. 7: Café Ole
Lot size: 150 kg
Producer: Café Olé S.A.
Harvest: January 2009.
Origin: Barriles, Volcan, Panama.
Growing conditions: 1380 m.a.s.
Botanical variety: Geisha.
Process: Washed.
Flavour profile: Floral, fruity, citric and sweet.

After 11 days in Brazil I have had a total of 7 hours of rest (not counting sleeping at night), taken 7 airplanes, spent at least 30 hours in a car, cupped at least 150 different coffees and visited around 20 farms all across Brazil. I have also done 3 intensive days of coffee seminars, barista and roast- training for about 30 people in Sao Paulo at Isabela Raposeiras’s coffee lab and at the Uni Octavio.

The trip has been very exciting and extremely educational, and although I have been to Brazil a couple of times in the past, I have never been in Brazil as a coffee buyer. Traveling with a coffee buyers point of wiev really opened my eyes in terms of what Brazil has to offer.

I came to brazil with no expectations of the qualities I would find here, as most of the coffees I have tasted from Brazil has been quite neutral in flavour, hevy bodied, sweet, chocolaty and low on acidity. (I think this is what most people expect a Brazilian coffee to taste like.) Therefore  I had a very open mind in terms of what kind of flavour profiles I was looking for. Little did I know that Brazil could offer such a vast difference in qualities. I found coffees that were like a classic Brazil, very sweet, low acidity, chocolate and nutty aromas and creamy mouthfeel. This is what I look for to use in our espresso blend. Especially because of the sweetness and lingering sweet aftertaste, these coffees are like the potato, you can use them for everything.

I also found crazy coffees. Especially one from Piata that tasted like liquid molasses (the syrup gained from sugar cane). Another coffee I found in Mococa tasted like a washed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe with high citric acidity, coffee flowers and bergamoth in the aromas and delicate slim body. Unfortunately, this coffee was allready sold, but the molasses coffee will probably be in our shelves this winter.

Our competitor and coffee friends at KAFFA had also bought a lot from Piata that I really liked. Very transparent, fruity and elegant coffee. I am glad it will be available in Norway, as this was a great coffee too. (If they had not bought it, I would.)

I think one of the main reasons why Brazilian coffees has a reputation of being a bit dull and can only be used for espresso blending is that Brazil is the biggest coffee producing country in the world with a lot of mechanical harvesting and a very streamlined production where most of the farmers have been doing more or less the same things to their coffee for years and years.  Their coffees used to be sold in bulk, and because everything is mixed and sold together, you get very uniform coffees and loose the unique coffees. Although a lot of the coffees still have “the Brazilian profile” there is a lot of farmers experimenting with different varietals, growing practices, picking practices, processing techniques, resting, etc. Sometimes with great results, other times disasterous.

Here are some different practices that I found on my travels through Brazil:

Growing:

Conventional, streamlined growing including tonns of fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation systems, pruning of the trees, mechanical harvesting or strip picking. These are medium to large scale producers producing both very mediocre coffees and some good coffees. Big monoculture plantations with a few trees around functioning as wind breakers.

Organic, not necessarily certified organic growing, but the farmers use no pesticides and only use organic fertilizers. Farms look a bit different from the larger ones, but are still streamlined and most picking is done by hand, either strip picking (everything is ripped off the branch) or selective picking. Coffee trees are normally grown under some shade trees like banana palms, Gravelia, Mango trees, etc.

Biodynamical / forest coffee, Coffee grown in a secondary forest. The trees are not pruned, nor are they treated with any fertilizer or pesticides. Picking is done by hand selectively or by strip picking.

Althoug I only tasted some organic and forest coffees, they were by far very different from the majority of  the conventional grown coffee. They had a lot of acidity and floral aromas. The best coffee I tried came from a farmer that had just decided to stop using fertilizer and pesticides and let mother nature do her work. The coffee trees adapted over a 2 year period and the production was now only slightly lower than normal, trees were even more healthy, the farm looked more natural and the farmer was very happy because his production cost was lower and his coffee tasted far better. He was now investing money in suspended beds for drying his coffee as this had given him the best results so far. (Below is a picture of The farmer Mr. Hamilton on his beautiful farm.)
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Processing:

Natural processing of coffee is the most common way of drying the coffee after harvesting. This is the traditional way of drying coffee and because it is less labour intensive and therefore cheaper it is normally used on the worst qualities in all countries around the world.  It is difficult to get a clean result in the cup by natural processing the coffee, however Brazil has a reputaton of preparing great natural processed coffees that are sweet and these coffees are often used in espresso blends to enhance the sweetness. If done properly, a natural processed coffee can taste fantastic, but in most cases there are a lot of unripe coffee among the ripe coffee which makes the cup taste astringent, nutty and dry.

The most common practice is to strip pick the coffee from the tree when 80% of the coffee cherries has dried out to become what farmers call raisins. (Since the coffee trees are fully exposed to the sun and the climate is dry, the cherries dry on the tree and look like raisins.) Still there are some fully ripe, unripe and semi ripe cherries on the tree, but everything is picked and separated mechanically before drying. (In most cases the separation process is not working 100%)

Below is a picture of the left over coffee from the 2009 harvest. This coffee is picked up from the ground and stripped from the trees in order to prevent diseases and insect damage to the trees and to prepare for the next harvest. This coffee is rarely exported and is sold to coffee roasters in Brazil for local consumption

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I really think that this type of coffee should be banned from the market, as it is full of toxins and really is unhealthy to drink. Brazil is today one of the biggest consumers of coffee in the world, but unfortunately the coffee drunk in Brazil is nothing close to the qualities that they export. If the big quantities of poor quality coffee was removed from the market I believe the market price for coffee would go up to a sustainable level and both the farmers and the consumers would benefit. Yes we can!

Pulped natural is when the coffee cherries are picked when they are fully ripe (or sometimes strip picked), the skin and pulp of the coffee cherry is removed from the beans mechanicaly by squeesing the cherries and the beans are dried on suspended beds or patios with the sticky mucilage left on. This often creates a cleaner coffee than the natural processed coffee but still with a lot of sweetness.

Semi washed is when the beens are depulped and sent through a mechanical demucilage machine that normally uses water and centrifugal principles in order to remove the desired amount of mucilage from the beans before drying. This creates more acidity in the cup and normally also a cleaner cup.

Fully washed can sometimes be the same as semi washed, but all the mucilage is removed with the demucilage machine. In some cases fermentation tanks are used after the demucilage machine where the beans will soak in water from around 6 to 24 hours before they are dried. The beans are rarely washed after fermentation, as most of the mucilage is removed in the demucilage machine anyway.

Repass is used occationally as an experimental method. Normally the dried raisins (natural coffees) are re- soaked in water until the pulp is moist again. Then the cherries are depulped and dried as a pulped natural coffee. Unfortunately I did not get to taste this version.

These are only some of the differences I found in Brazil, and there are no absolute truths wether strip picking is better than selective picking or natural process is better than fully washed, etc. The fact is that a well produced coffee will taste better than a poorly produced coffee regardless of production method. That means a well prepared natural processed coffee will always taste better than if the farmer is washing his coffee but doing it without care and attention. I know this is very basic knowledge, but still we come across discussions where people say that natural processed coffee is inferior to washed, and that strip picked coffee is equivalent to poor quality.

I think we should encourage the diversity of production methods and let our taste decide what we like or not.

After all, we drink coffee because of it’s flavour, not the story…

There are more pictures from my trip to Brazil here.

After spending a long day in Piata, Bahia, I am too exhausted to write a long report about it. I have visited several farms today and had a great dinner yesterday with over 40 farmers from around Piata.
Tomorrow I will be tasting samples of a lot of their coffees and I am really looking forward to it. It looks like the producers in Piata are very committed to quality and there is a lot of potential in their coffees.

I believe it is a little bit easier to write about this after tasting the coffees, so in the meanwhile you can see some pictures from my first day in Brazil.