Potato defect, also called PTD, is a fault found in the unroasted coffee that develops when the coffee is still in cherry form on the trees. It affects the taste and aroma of roasted and ground coffee.
PTD is not toxic to humans and only affects the taste and aroma of coffee.
The good thing is you do not need to be an “expert taster” to find it. PTD smells and tastes like a raw potato or sometimes described as iceberg lettuce and dirt. When a barista grinds a batch to brew, the odor can be identified. Potato defect is very strong and clearly Identified and if you think you smell it chances are you do! Discard the potato grounds and start over.
The challenge is that it can only be detected when roasted and ground, and It only affects one bean at a time. With the quality of green we are sourcing, this will affect less than 1% of the lot. This means that we may find 4-5 PTD in every 1,000 cups.
The Potato defect only occurs in East African countries including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Although there has been extensive research on the subject, the jury is still out on the exact cause of PTD. It has been linked to an insect called Antestia along with a naturally occurring chemical that the plant produces when threatened or under distress.
Our main line of defense as a roaster / retailer is working with supply chains we trust to have the highest quality standard of practices. High quality in the cup is directly tied to best practices on the farm, which is where the real battle with PTD happens.
Thomas and Shaun pack their parchment coffee purchases into their old Wagoneer.
We first met founder Thomas Pingen in 2016 at a coffee auction in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. We had purchased a small lot from Chelin through Caravela’s auction that year, and Thomas helped coordinate on our first visit with Finca Chelin’s Enrique López at his farm. The communication went well, with Thomas acting as a liaison between Merit and Chelin. The three of us quickly bonded over Enrique’s unique experimental processing and our concurrent commitment to working with the region’s smaller producers. In the coming year, Thomas lived at Finca Chelin for a season under Enrique’s mentorship, mastering many of the unique techniques he employs. They remain close friends and often work together. Pingen even came to San Antonio for a month-long “internship” at Merit to learn our roasting and café operations first-hand.
Prior to his time at Chelin, Pingen had bought an old VW Beetle (painted red, of course), set it up with a miniature, portable cupping lab, and driven through Oaxaca doing on-the-spot quality analysis for producers in the state’s remote communities. Now, with more experience in export and farm management, he turned his project into an operation that could work directly with roasters in Europe and the US. Thomas began to build his team with partner Shaun Mace and a network of purchasing agents based in the regions where Red Beetle works. In the off-season, Red Beetle Coffee Lab operates in northern Peru, where they also source lots for Merit.
Ask any green buyer: it’s easy to find great coffee in Oaxaca. The hard part is getting it to your roastery tasting just as great. One major factor? The scale of coffee production in Oaxaca is incredibly small. A lot Merit uses for a week-long pour-over offering could come from five or six individuals, and a larger blend might require hundreds. To ensure quality and consistency requires screening each of these tiny lots separately, addressing each producer’s individual challenges before compiling the blend. This is a tedious, time-consuming task—at which Red Beetle excels. It would be virtually impossible for us to hold such a high standard on quality and farm-gate traceability without Thomas and Shaun’s careful tracking of every nanolot. They’ve worked hand-in-hand with us to not only cup out every lot, but conduct in-depth physical analysis which can help us understand how the coffee will age over time. These two also shepherd the coffees through the dry milling and export process, which a notorious crux for quality in Mexico.
But even they could not do this work alone. Red Beetle works with individuals in each micro-region (think county-size) communities to regularly visit each farmer, collect samples, deliver payment, and offer advice on farm management. Working side by side with locals also helps to navigate the complexity of cultural and interpersonal relations in a state with hundreds of indigenous sub-groups, many with their own pre-Hispanic languages. Rómulo Chávez (pictured above left) acts as such an agent in the Sierra Juarez region, where Merit has purchased for several consecutive years. Felipe Chazares is the key contact for Mazateca, a new favorite for its fruit-forward Typica lots.
Jamie Isetts, Merit’s Green Coffee Buyer, related this story from traveling with Red Beetle in Oaxaca:
“Thomas, a native German, is a passionate home beer brewer. But the booze we bond over is Oaxaca’s own: mezcal, the intense spirit distilled from agave. When Thomas was staying San Antonio, we shared some from mezcalero Emigdio Jarquín, bottled by Vago. Oaxacan mezcaleros share a lot with small coffee producers: they’re often remote, they use traditional methods, and they work with a fickle crop. The next season in Oaxaca, Thomas managed to track down Emigdio at his palenque in Miahuatlán, driving through with the red VW to buy Emigdio’s awesome mezcal wholesale. Needless to say, I was jealous. In 2020 (literally the week before the pandemic shut down the world), my partner Matt and I were visiting producers with Thomas in Oaxaca and, driving through Miahuatlán, decided to visit Emigdio. This was an awesome full circle moment: Thomas had learned about Emigdio through the mezcal we drank in Texas, we’d both gotten more geeky about it, and now Emigdio was walking me through his distillery. I told him that Matt and I, who were engaged, wanted to find a special mezcal for our wedding, and he pulled out a huge plastic jug of one of the best espadines I’ve ever tasted. The three of us bought the whole thing. Emigdio shook out the last drops into our glass barrel, and looking up, asked “do you want the scorpion?” Obviously, we kept the good-luck scorpion they put in the first container of each batch. Our was postponed because of COVID, but we’re saving that bottle of Emigdio’s espadín with the scorpion for our (eventual) wedding day.”
]]>Kenyan coffees are known for their intensity—high-voltage winey acidity, full body, and strong flavors. They are a coffee geek’s coffee. Because of this potent flavor, they do best as a temporary treat and we typically purchase them in small volumes. Kenya’s lot-specific set-up routinely delivers small, excellent “top lots” to coffee importers in the US.
So why would we complicate a system that clearly delivers awesome coffee?
Answer: Transparency.
...and one with a little more levity.
Communication with our multi-year relationships in Guatemala, Burundi, or Colombia is truly a collaboration. We have constant dialogue via phone, email, and Whatsapp; strategize far in advance of shipment; and see the same people each time we visit. We take risks and reap rewards together.
A typical Kenyan buying experience is completely different.
Traditionally, exporters purchase lots from the Kenyan auction or through a pre-arranged screening with marketing agents acting on behalf of cooperatives. This system produces excellent coffee, but insulates producers and roasters from the possibility of direct negotiation. This article from importer Royal Coffee lays out the challenges in more depth. Origin travel to Kenya is typically a marathon of cupping hundreds of these top lots at an exporter’s lab, dissecting the quarter-point differences of that year’s lots with no possibility of tracing back to the individual growers for repeat purchases. It’s not how we like to work.
Our limited purchasing volumes and Kenya’s entrenched market structure are major hurdles to making contact with specific farmers or groups. It has been our goal for years to establish a direct, repeatable relationship with an excellent Kenyan producer. But even in-country partners are understandably skittish about messing with this politicized system.
When distances are so broad and challenges so big, we go to our industry network. Our peers at Counter Culture Coffee inspired us with their coffees from Kenya’s Kushikamana cooperative. With arduous, patient work, they developed real connections that benefit from the feedback loop between those who roast the coffee and those who grow it. In 2019, they connected us with Edwin Kamau Mati of Guchienda Estate. This “Estate” is only 4.5 hectares, very small by Latin American standards but mid-size among Kenyan producers. We were able to directly negotiate pricing, get the story of the farm in Edwin’s voice, and safely move the coffee in the midst of a pandemic with exporter Sucafina. For 2020, Guchienda will be our only Kenyan offering.
The coffee itself is unique, as well. Its provenance of Embu County has a distinct, autumnal profile of orange zest, black currant, black tea, and incense-like aromatics. Check out Guchienda while it lasts!
Cherries mature before ripening on Edwin's farm.
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The goal of the Merit 101 series is to help educate all levels of coffee enthusiasts who want to learn more about who we are at Merit, as well as the many aspects of coffee.
A special thanks to Dr. Taya Brown for her help on this post. Taya is a coffee horticulturist whose research connects agronomy and and sociocultural practices in Yepocapa, Guatemala. Learn more about her work with the Del Fuego project here.
Terroir describes the unique flavor profile connected to a place where a crop grows, or where a culinary process (like fermentation) unfolds.
In our first installment, we explored the effect of the physical environment on coffee quality. Here we’ll transition into the biological environment’s effects on quality. Within our ideal climate, soil and ecology have the largest influence on plant health. The overall trend is simple: slow, healthy growth produces more complex coffee. Specific flavors may come into play in the microecology of fermentation.
Arabica coffee grows in a wide range of soils, from the sandy slopes of volcanoes in central America to red clay soils in highland Kenya. Coffee plants need plenty of water, but also soil with good drainage and thus, lots of oxygen.
Then, there’s nutrition. It’s not enough for a soil to have a good starting cocktail of key macronutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Without a minimum level of ANY micronutrient (like zinc or cobalt), the plant can’t unlock its full potential. This is called the law of the minimum, usually explained with the barrel analogy below.
The waterline represents the plant’s yield and quality. Each wooden segment represents a specific nutrient, macro and micro. When a segment doesn’t reach the top of the barrel (a nutrient deficiency), the barrel can only hold water to that level. Similarly, plants are limited in their potential by ANY nutrient deficiency.
To naturally and cheaply achieve this goldilocks environment, we need organic material (OM). Organic as in “derived from living matter,” this describes a layer of leaves, plant material, and animal byproducts - the rich, soft stuff you’ll find on a forest floor. Such a feast draws worms and other decomposers to the party (and if they don’t come naturally, farmers will bring them in). These creatures break down OM into baseline minerals that the plant can consume, leaving behind sticky mucilage that binds small soil particles together. The entire process creates a substance called humus (pronounced hue-mus).
Organic Material transforming into rich humus. San Jose Lourdes, Cajamarca, Peru.
Humus is like a dark, spongy chocolate cake for the plants—lots of space for air, but still moist, and full of fuel. It also buffers the variance in pH, creating a more stable environment for nutrient uptake. The availability of nutrients and presence of decomposing bacteria draws in other fungi, yeast, and microorganisms, which creates a thriving soil ecology.
How can you taste nutrition in coffee? Defects known as quakers are a great example. Just like humans, if a plant is under extra stress (from climate change, disease, etc.), it burns more energy. When a coffee plant can’t eat enough for all the work it’s doing, its becomes weak. Its body has to prioritize where the energy goes, and some developing seeds will get less nutrition than others.
Yellowish "quakers" stand out against fully caramelized, roasted coffee.
These seeds grow less densely, leading to oat-like (get it? Quaker?) and cereal flavors, thin body, and a soapy finish in the final cup. You can even see them in roasted coffee: quakers look much lighter than normal beans because they lack the compounds that turn brown in the roasting process.
Coffee plants growing under a natural shade canopy. Bita Genet, Kaffa, Ethiopia.
If organic material is the basis for great soil and micro-fauna, shade trees are the foundation of biodiversity on a macro level. The entire ecosystem is a holistic,living entity that reinforces itself as it grows. Improving the health of any aspect of this environment adds resilience against major shifts or shocks and thus creates stronger plants and better cup quality.
The ideal role for coffee is as a mid-level shrub, with roots in the soil and protection under a higher forest canopy. The tallest trees in this ecosystem (which we’ll refer to as shade trees) dapple light on the forest floor. At the right density, this level of light allows coffee plants to grow slowly but inhibits weeds and grasses that compete for water or nutrients. Heavier shade also makes the seeds grow more densely. The space between the top of the canopy and the coffee plants acts like a layer of insulation, cocooning the coffee in a stable range of temperature and humidity. The roots of shade trees anchor the soil to prevent erosion. And, of course, they’re deeply connected to OM: shade trees create organic material as they shed leaves and branches.
These benefits appeal to other plants and animals as well. Such a cozy habitat invites larger insects, spiders, birds, and mammals. Combined with beneficial microorganisms in the OM, they create a strong defense against coffee’s major pests and diseases. On the flip side, a lack of shade can stress the plants and inhibit nutrition, contributing to the quaker defect.
Leguminous Inga trees interspersed among coffee plants. El Socorro, Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
The best shade trees and cover crops do double-duty by fixing key elements in the soil. For example, leguminous plants have special nodules in their roots that team up with rhizobacteria to make nitrogen more available for coffee plants. Nitrogen fixation is critical for any agriculture; without it, no life can grow.
Producers have some favorite plants and animals to pair with coffee. Inga trees offer great shade, and their leguminous roots enhance the soil’s nitrogen. The Grevillea genus of trees acts as a great wind-break while providing an excellent home for birds. Farmers often establish beehives within their coffee farm since the bees’ pollination hugely enhances overall biodiversity, strengthening the whole system.
Coffee and honey, both harvested from the same farm. Jaén, Peru.
A diverse ecology also plays a part in coffee fermentation. The fermentation environment—whether it be de-pulped cherries in a tank or whole cherries drying in the sun—creates a complex microecology all its own. Unlike a lot of commercial fermentation, most coffee is fermented using whatever wild microbes are on the cherry skin or in this. Richer biodiversity on the farm will translate to the fermentation ecosystem. This system has a massive influence on the complex aromatics that are imparted in fermentation, both because of the species of microbes around and the way they interact with each other.
Pickers pre-sort cherries they've just brought in from the field. With every cherry comes wild yeast and other microbes from the farm's environment, which affect the outcome of fermentation. El Soccoro, Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
Thoughtful producers often practice intercropping. By building an ecology with multiple cultivated crops, they can secure their personal food supply and generate more consistent income. When done right, this makes coffee a more sustainable enterprise both financially and environmentally.
Coffee, cardamom, and vanilla seedlings in a nursery for an edible forestry project. All three plants will grow in concord with each other on the same plot. Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, Mexico.
To sum it up: soil and above-ground ecology have a more general effect on coffee quality, but they are a crucial reason why certain areas have gained renown.
]]>The goal of the Merit 101 series is to help educate all levels of coffee enthusiasts who want to learn more about who we are at Merit, as well as the many aspects of coffee.
Terroir is a French term that roughly means sense of the earth, originating from the French word “terre.” It encompasses all of the place-based flavor factors that influence the environment where a plant is cultivated, or where a culinary process (like fermentation) unfolds.
Coffee as nature intended, growing in its original habitat: the equatorial cloud forest of Kaffa, Ethiopia.
Terroir is the justification for the appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) system in France that recognizes wines, cheeses, and other products that come from specific regions. This is why, legally, only wines that come from France’s northeastern Champagne region can carry that name on the label, though similarly-styled sparkling white wines are produced throughout the world. Most of nature and humanity’s best collaborations (chocolate, honey, tea, spirits, meat) carry the effects of their provenance.
Coffee is no exception. Because terroir is a holistic concept, it can be difficult to break it down into components. This sense of place really does depend on the interaction of the entire system—people included. And it can change depending on what brackets you put around the term “place,” from country-wide generalizations (ex. “all Kenyan coffees are bright and acidic) to notes on specific parts of one farm (ex. “this lot from the rainy side of the mountain tastes fruitier than coffee grown on the dry side”).
Once you decide the scope of the place you’re talking about, you can start to identify the things that affect what you taste in your cup. In this three-part series, we’ll cover the effects of climate, ecology, and human cultivation on terroir.
Farms at high elevation (like Elvis Davila's, pictured here) have better starting conditions for specialty coffee. Jaén, Peru.
Frost is the limiting factor for Arabica coffee’s habitat. For this reason, it grows best in “the tropics,” a belt between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, each about 23.5 degrees of latitude away from the equator. But high temperatures can cause problems too, like wilting and pests. Thus, Arabica is happiest in a goldilocks compromise of the two: equatorial mountains. These places (like coffee’s native habitat in western Ethiopia) are warm during the day and cool at night, an undulating but balanced climate that keeps the plant content.
As a quality-focused farmer, you want to plant as high on the mountain as possible without encountering frost. However, the cooler temperatures that keep fungi and insects away also cause the coffee trees (and their seeds, the coffee beans) to grow slowly and densely. This decreases the quantity of the coffee’s yield, but because the plant is putting more resources into less seeds, the quality increases. Denser beans, with the right roast, have a lot more nuance and flavor to give.
Most coffee companies (including Merit) list the coffee’s growing elevation in meters above sea level (masl). Generally, higher growing elevation equals better coffee. The idea here is that the whole equatorial Arabica “belt” experiences the same unchanging baseline temperature, and the only differing variable is how high up you are. Equatorial regions don’t experience seasons in the same way as, say, North America. Instead of cold winters and hot summers, they have milder annual shifts in temperature that are marked by rainy and dry seasons. This is the general paradigm for coffee production.
Latitude refers to the angle of a place to (and as a consequence, the distance from) the equator. The sun’s rays hit the earth straight on, year-round at the equator (0 degrees latitude), heating the ground more intensely and effectively making the sun “stronger.” This effect decreases the further you go from the equator and changes at different times of the year because of the way the earth rotates around its axis. Within the latitudes of the tropics, the angle of the sun’s rays hit the ground perpendicularly at least once throughout the year, causing that lack of seasons that allows us to generalize the climate in this zone.
Equating elevation to quality is a good rule of thumb, but it has some obvious limitations. The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are roughly 3200 miles apart. Even within this range, the angle of the sun varies more as you move away from 0 degrees latitude. A farm at 1500 masl in Ecuador will get more direct sun (and thus probably be warmer) than one at the same elevation in Mexico. The farm’s distance from the equator defines the range of ideal growing elevations, but within that spectrum the general trend of higher = better prevails.
A mountain pass on the way to a coffee farm. Such rugged topography captures wind and water in a way that creates microclimates. Oaxaca, Mexico.
Elevation affects temperature, but the topography makes a big difference. A mountain plateau will have a much different climate than rolling hills or rugged peaks. The shape of the landscape traps wind and water in different ways, which also affects temperature since those elements carry heat. Whenever this creates a small pocket that’s different from the surrounding area, it’s called a microclimate.
Microclimates are especially common in mountain ranges because clouds often get trapped on one side of the peak, causing one side to receive most of the rainfall and the other to be disproportionately dry. Depending on what side of the mountain your farm is on, your coffee plants will experience a very different growing environment.
Fermenting coffee (in this case, via the "washed" process) in open-air conditions. Chirinos, Peru.
Ripe coffee cherries contain lots of sugar. Having eaten many, I can attest to how tasty they are. Wild microorganisms (mostly yeast) also think they’re delicious, and will break down their sugar and spit out other stuff that affects the flavor we taste in the final cup, a process called fermentation. Yeast are sensitive, and the rate of this reaction has a big effect on what type of flavors compounds they’ll make, and how long it takes you to process one “batch” of coffee cherries. Fermentation slows down with less heat, and speeds up with more. Since most coffee farmers are processing their coffee in open-air environments, the starting temperature of fermentation is whatever the ambient air temperature is. A colder climate means your coffee will ferment more slowly.
So in a nutshell, climate (elevation, latitude, topography) sets the stage for broad distinctions of coffee quality. In context, higher elevation means cooler temperatures, which makes the coffee denser and leads to more refined acidity and flavor. In our minds, these are very desirable qualities.
In Part Two, we’ll cover the effects of soil and above-ground ecology on coffee terroir.
]]>In our Raw Materials series, Merit's Director of Green Coffee Jamie Isetts writes on green coffee, origin, and the finer details that make our coffees and partners so unique. Have a question? Email info@meritcoffee.com.
In this podcast, Jamie brings on our partners at Chicago-based Spirit Tea, who source for all of Merit's cafes. Featuring Spirit co-founder Taylor Cowan, this 30 minute chat covers travel stories, business etiquette in a different culture, climate change, and the human connection in their respective work.
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Just like grape varieties in wine, the kind of coffee plant affects flavor and cultivation. Learn the basics in this post.
]]>The goal of the Merit 101 series is to help educate all levels of coffee enthusiasts who want to learn more about who we are at Merit, as well as the many aspects of coffee.
In a nutshell, a cultivar is a type of coffee plant. Specific cultivars can have different flavors in the final drink. Think yellow and red tomatoes, or Granny Smith vs Red Delicious.
Seedlings of a selected Ethiopian cultivar (known as 74110) are separated in a nursery in Ethiopia.
Flavor contrast between cultivars is much more nuanced than in process-- so don’t kick yourself if you can’t tell a Bourbon from a Typica. The final outcome depends a lot on the skill of the farmer and the place where it was grown. With time and tasting, you can learn to recognize the major flavor markers of various cultivars.
All life is divided into species. The species of Merit’s offerings (and most in the specialty coffee world) is called Coffea arabica, or just Arabica. Individuals within a species can show different traits depending on their genetics. For example, Great Dane and Chihuahua are breeds within the Canis familiaris species.
You might remember from your high school biology class that modern genetics stems from Gregor Mendel’s breeding within one species: pea plants. Over time, humans can choose to propagate specific plants that are easier to grow or who produce tastier fruit. When these genetic types stabilize over several generations they create plant breeds, or cultivars (cultivated varieties). Farmers have been selecting plants this way for thousands of years.
Some coffee plants are hybrids between Arabica and another popular species, Robusta. Hybrids are created when two species interbreed. A mule is an example of a hybrid, between a donkey and a horse. It's uncommon for this to occur naturally with Arabica, but by cross-breeding the occasional hybrid into a mostly Arabica stock, horticulturists have been able to create cultivars of Arabica that benefit from varying degrees of Robusta genetics.
Note: this is different from GMOs, which are created using enzymes to physically edit the DNA in a way that would be impossible in nature. There is currently no GMO coffee on the market.
A Bourbon Rosado (Pink Bourbon) plant in Huila, Colombia. The cherries of most cultivars mature to a deep red, with some exceptions like this.
Arabica cultivars differ in these aspects.
This isn't every single one we buy--more like the greatest hits.
The lithe, tall structure of Ethiopian cultivars on a small farm in Southern Ethiopia. Mature coffee plants look different depending on their cultivar. The appearance of the trees also depends on the farmer's maintenance.
Here’s a few great resources for exploring cultivars further.
Jamison Savage of Finca Deborah / Morgan Estate with Gesha seedlings at his nursery.
The goal of the Merit 101 series is to help educate all levels of coffee enthusiasts who want to learn more about who we are at Merit, as well as the many aspects of coffee.
Post-harvest processing (or just process for short) describes the steps that turn coffee cherries into the raw, green beans that we roast. If you know a coffee’s process, you can make some educated guesses about its flavor profile.
Getting Creative A unique honey process coffee dries at Finca Chelín in Oaxaca, Mexico. Farmer Enrique López is one of the most inventive producers we work with when it comes to process.
Great coffee begins its life as a flower on a shrub. Each self-pollinated bloom takes half a year to develop into a ripe coffee cherry, which looks like a large cranberry with two coffee seeds inside. Between the flesh of the fruit and the seeds is a casing called parchment, which provides extra protection for the seeds.
Layers Inside each cherry is a protective casing called parchment, which holds two green seeds that we will eventually roast. Above right, some parchment with the fruit completely removed using the washed process.
During the harvest, pickers pluck the coffee cherries off the tree. Three things have to happen to make green coffee:
That first step is the biggest determinant of flavor, and on a basic level forms what we call “processing.” Variations here can create coffees as different from each other as red and white wine.
Here are three major processes:
A natural process lot dries in cherry in the bright sun of Jimma, Ethiopia.
Natural, dry-process, or cherry-dried: this the most ancient way of doing it, but definitely not the easiest. Cherries are simply picked off the tree and dried with the skin intact. This process produces coffees with a distinct berry flavor and sometimes a bit of a winey funk.
In honey process coffees, bits of the remaining fruit cling to the parchment layer as they dry. Finca La Senda, Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
Honey is a newer, more experimental approach. The skin is removed, but a layer of fruit remains. Its name comes from its honey-like texture as it dries. Honeys have a wide range of flavors depending on the exact protocol, but they usually have more sweetness and fruitiness than a washed coffee.
Honey coffees often come with a color designation: red, yellow, purple, black, white. A darker color (red and deeper) have more of the fruit left on for drying and will taste more like a winey natural. Lighter colors (yellow and lighter) sway more towards the flavor of a washed.
A depulping machine is used to strip the skin off the cherries. Tank fermentation (top) and water/manual agitation break down and wash off the rest of the fruit, resulting in (bottom) a clean, hay-colored parchment for drying.
Producers remove the skin, then use wild fermentation to break down the remaining fruit so it can be washed off, giving the process its name. The most widely used coffee processing method, this took hold during colonial rule because coffee dries 2-3 times faster when the fruit is removed. Washed coffees lean toward traditional coffee flavors like chocolate and caramel. This process provides a “clean slate” to show off other aspects of the coffee’s cultivation, like cultivar and terroir.
Looking for the process on your favorite coffee? On every Merit bag, you’ll find it listed right below the name of the coffee on the label. If you see something other than washed, honey, or natural, check out the info sheet on the product page for more details! We work with innovative producers that are redefining coffee processing, creating unique flavors along the way.
]]>Merit's Director of Green Coffee Jamie Isetts writes on her visit last year to the producers of our spring batch coffee from Huabal, Peru. Have a question? Email info@meritcoffee.com.
In Peru, large cooperatives have dominated the specialty coffee that people in importing countries drink. These groups dove heavily into the Fair Trade – Organic movement. While these certifications guarantee a higher price than commodity coffee, they still do not account for better quality and farmers’ cost of production. Individual farmers still lack agency. Because of this limited scope, I was surprised to discover that 80% of Peruvian producers were not affiliated with any association or coop as of 2017 (Programa Nacional de Renovación de Cafetales. In the last five years, international specialty groups have set up buying stations in Cajamarca, a hot spot for specialty production. This has not only revealed the potential of unincorporated producers, but given coop members more choices and ultimately more power over their livelihood. As an added plus, there is more financial incentive for quality because specialty exporters can now differentiate farmers’ coffees and compensate directly.
Merit has dabbled in these projects before, but what really made us stand at attention were our purchases from Falcon Coffee’s buying station in Jaén. After our first successful season working with Falcon on a community blend in Cajamarca's Huabal district, I made a visit to Northern Peru to investigate further. Falcon’s US Import office is right in Austin, helmed by Kevin Sullivan and Brian Speckman. I’ve wanted to work with Falcon for a while because of their incredible traceability reporting, but as a British company, they have largely focused on Europe for the specialty market. Brian and I worked together at my last job, so I was excited when he came on to start Falcon’s US Specialty sales last year. I met up with him and Simon Brown, who built Falcon’s specialty buying station from scratch in 2018. In just a year, their growth and organization was impressive.
The organization of the warehouse is elegant and smart. After coffees are purchased and cupped, the parchment is placed in bags color-coded by the cup score. They each have an individual ID tag with the lot specs and cup score. When the parchment is moved to the dry mill to be hulled and sorted, the color-coded bags make it difficult to mix up lots of different qualities. It’s a simple solution to a common problem.
Brian Speckman of Falcon in their buying station in Jaén, Peru.
Peruvian farmers are used to getting paid cash-in-hand, so it’s important to have a quick turn-around in QC and payment time if you want farmers to work with you. For this reason, it’s also important to buy a range of qualities of clean coffee (no defects) so that farmers feel it’s worth the risk of waiting even a few hours to get paid. As of last September, their buying station manages to receive lots in the morning, pay a flat base price, cup in the afternoon, and then pay a premium based on cup score in the afternoon. This is a breakneck pace for head cupper David Hancco Cahuapaza and his team, especially during peak harvest season.
The work pays off: farmers who are unfamiliar with specialty are much more willing to deliver coffee here if 1) they can sell clean coffee even if it cups out mediocre and 2) it doesn’t require them to wait for payment and make a second (lengthy) trip into town to collect. The buying station maintains payment and farm information about each farmers’ delivery and pass it on to me, which sounds easy but requires a high level of organization when building blends of different producers and receiving dates. Farm visits, processing and farm advice come from Auber Terrones Rojas, Falcon’s agronomist in the region as well as a professional cupper.
Falcon agronomist Auber Terrones shows a farmer how to distribute seeds in a germinating bed.
This year, we worked with Falcon to build this 23 farmer blend specifically for Merit. My intention in the long term is to leverage this traceability to create a farmer group like Andino Leal and to create a similar, three-way contract between Merit, Falcon, and specific farmers who we’ve bought from repeatedly. We're excited to share their work with you this spring!
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A view from the path through the farm.
After parting ways amicably with a another producer in Guatemala, I began purchasing a small amount from newcomer Finca La Senda last year. Owners Arnoldo and Maria Eugenia Pérez had been selling cherries from their 25 hectares of coffee to a nearby cooperative for years. Last harvest, they made the surprising decision to transition into specialty, hiring our friend Thomas Pingen as a consultant. Their daughter Yancy was also instrumental in helping create this new paradigm on the farm.
Maria Eugenia Pérez, owner and manager of processing. Maria is super detail-oriented, so when she noticed that some of the drying hydronaturals weren't spread just so, she grabbed a rake and showed me how it's done.
This was a huge investment! It’s akin to going from a café to a roastery—they had to build an entirely new wet mill, buy an expensive de-pulping machine, and start from scratch. And they didn’t just go from cherry producers to parchment producers for the internal market. They went directly to exporting specialty coffee, a ballsy move for people way younger than 70-year‐old Arnoldo and Maria Eugenia. The results were surprisingly good. This is in no small way a credit to Arnoldo’s farming—the default state of the coffee had noticeably less quakers and malnutrition than the typical Guatemalan coffee. In 2018, we purchased 24 bags at a “trial price” to get an idea of what was possible. The coffee also lasted a very long time without any age or paper flavors, which means that it was dried very well.
Workers at La Senda's wet mill tend to various experiments. La Senda recognizes that the mill staff is critical in the realization of these complicated processes.
I would argue that Guatemala remains the most colonial country in Latin America. People still use Spanish colloquial measurements from the 15th century (like manzana as a unit of land). The chasm between wealthy, white estate farmers and indigenous workers that live in generational poverty is enough to make me sick to my stomach in many places.
Thus, the most special thing about this farm to me is the level of transparency that Thomas and the owners have offered me, without me even having to ask. It is rare to find a farm that does crazy experiments AND pays their workers fairly, not just competitively. Take, for example, the pickers. Farms in this area hire seasonal labor and pay them a flat daily rate along with a typical rate per “quintal” ( a basket) of cherry that they pick. But for high‐quality specialty coffee, the pickers have to select only cherries at the perfect degree of ripeness. This is about twice as much work. To compensate for this, La Senda is now paying double the “competitive” rate per quintal. Paying more for quality picking is not unusual, but this much of a jump is unique.
A worker tends to drying parchment on stacked, raised beds. The various colors seen in each bed are different processes.
In effect, these farmers hired Thomas and basically gave him free reign to do exactly what he wanted with processing and management. Last year, Thomas did over 120 experiments in various processes and drying protocols, ranging from bland control samples to the wildest carbonic maceration honeys. They essentially threw spaghetti at the wall and saw what stuck. He was instrumental in hiring decisions at the mill and on the farm. For the 2018/2019 harvest, they picked out the most successful protocols to focus on. Here are the ones we will feature:
Washed with long fermentation time
The blend we purchased last year was consistent and sweet, but lacked some complexity. Thomas worked with me on a more complex profile intended for filter coffee. This involved fermenting the coffee longer and more aggressively. On top of the new fermentation protocol, cherry selection was better this year and the harvest was a bit lower. These factors contribute to a higher sugar content in the cherries, meaning more “fuel” for fermentation. Preliminary cuppings were spot on—the coffees are smooth and elegant with a great combination of fruit, chocolate, and caramel/nut.
Carbonic Maceration
Just like at Morgan Estate in Panama, the whole cherries are put into a plastic barrel and closed. A small tube comes out of the tank. As the fermentation process progresses, yeasts generate dense carbon dioxide which pushes oxygen through the tube and out of the tank. This creates a mostly anaerobic environment, stimulating different processes and thus different flavors.
Hydro Natural with Yeasts and Acids
“Hydro Natural” is an experimental process designed to get the depth and fruity flavors of naturals with the clean finish and consistency of a washed. The coffee is first dried in cherry for 4-5 days. Then, it is re‐soaked in water overnight with yeast and acids. Once it’s almost at full moisture again, it is taken out and dried to completion. This process produces lots of tartaric acidity (think red wine) and gives a fantastic, deep profile.
Triple Fermentation Red Honey
A surprise favorite last year, I have contracted a sweeter, larger lot for solo espresso. I’ve also booked a special nanolot of the same process that is scoring even higher and, if we didn’t purchase it, was going to be submitted to Cup of Excellence. Screaming with tropical fruits and berry flavors!
To refresh, this process involves three stages. First, the full cherries are rested in the tank for 12 to 24 hours. A type of fermentation occurs at this point, essentially allowing them to “ripen” more. Cherries are de-pulped and fermented in tanks for 12‐24 hours. “Typical” honeys do not have this step and go straight to drying. Allowing this stage definitely adds more fruit flavor. Then, rather than rinsing the broken‐down mucilage like in a washed coffee, the parchment is taken immediately to the drying bed, where a third type of fermentation happens on the beds. Thomas actually adapted this process from his mentor Enrique Lopez of Finca Chelin in Mexico.
When drying, the fruit remaining on the parchment of triple fermentation red honey lots oxidizes to a brilliant orange-crimson.
Look for the La Senda Series label on Merit Coffees to try Arnoldo and Maria Eugenia’s awesome experiments! This farm is truly a gem in a country famous for quality coffee.
]]>In our Raw Materials series, Merit's Director of Green Coffee Jamie Isetts writes on green coffee, origin, and the finer details that make our coffees and partners so unique.
Conventional wisdom for coffee processing is that cherries are processed the same day that they are picked off the tree. This rule of thumb is so rigid that mills often run late into the night during the harvest season.
However, I’ve noticed an interesting trend at farms around the world in the last few seasons. More and more farmers are adding a “resting” period, where whole cherries sit undisturbed without drying for up to three days. They can then be processed as a washed or honey coffee or taken to sunny drying beds to become naturals. Once perfected, this technique requires little investment in infrastructure and no advanced technology.
So, what’s going on with this method?
Cherries rest before processing at Guatemala's Finca La Senda.
As far as I know, there’s no research-based consensus on what exactly is happening during this “cherry resting” period. Going forward, the generalizations I make are based on my own anecdotal experience working with specific farms and coffees. Another key resource was Schwan and Fleet’s excellent book, Cocoa and Coffee Fermentations. If you would like to debate something I mention here or just discuss more about this topic, please reach out at info@meritcoffee.com.
I first came across “resting” while visiting Enrique López of Mexico’s Finca Chelin. Enrique is a die-hard processing nerd who, oddly, has a professed love for grape soda. He loved the fruity flavors so much that he began to look for ways to amplify them in his coffee. The answer? Resting or “reposando” the cherries for one or two nights before processing.
The drying patio at Enrique López's Finca Chelín brims with a variety of processing experiments, which dry to different colors.
Coffees that were rested before processing tend to have more grape, peach, and green apple flavors, along with tartaric and malic acidity. These acidities pair with the more standard citrus acidity to give coffees dimension and strong fruit character. I’ve also noticed that these coffees have a more syrupy body, decreased astringency, and greater sweetness. The overall effect is a rounder, juicier coffee.
These flavors mostly come from the fermentation that happens as these whole cherries are sitting still, waiting to be processed. Microorganisms in the environment consume the sugars present in the fruit and release flavor compounds like esters that are small enough to penetrate the cell membranes of the seed (green bean) inside.
Of course, fermentation occurs in all “normal”, unrested coffees, too. However, the step of removing part or all of the fruit through depulping takes away some of the material available for microbe fuel. On top of that, the coffee seed begins to germinate when stripped of its skin. At this stage, the seed itself is also consuming sugars that could be otherwise be used by microorganisms. Having a rest period before depulping offers more material for fermentation.
And what about naturals? This same effect is happening, but the environment is a little different. Many producers of fine naturals use a thin layer of cherries dried on a raised bed by sun or air currents. Fermentation can occur until the moisture needed for microbes to survive has evaporated. The faster and more evenly that a natural lot is dried, the less of these berry/boozy flavors we’ll taste. In the case of “resting”, the cherries are kept closer together in a fermentation tank, a bag, or even under a sheet of plastic.
There’s a reason this practice isn’t used by everyone. Resting requires pretty tight control over a farmer’s inputs, and lots of trial and error.
As with naturals and honeys, consistency is an issue. The amount of available sugar, exposure to microorganisms, and access to oxygen will vary between each cherry in the tank. Immaculate cherry selection is critical to avoid off flavors and produce a consistent final lot.
Temperature is an important factor in determining the rate of fermentation. Since nearly all coffee processing takes place outside, the weather will dictate the temperature and humidity on a given day. Overfermentation can happen very quickly where the climate is naturally hot. Resting tends to work best at high altitudes where the temperatures are cooler, allowing for easier control of the fermentation process. However, it is possible to be too cold. Ethiopia’s Abana Estate is located at roughly 2000m above sea level in western Ethiopia. Owner Michael Omran sped up his cherries’ reactions by covering them with tarp to create a hot-house effect. The ideal conditions and length of resting time vary greatly from farm to farm.
Michael Omran, owner of Abana Estate in Ethiopia. Omran employs the resting, or cherry fermentation, technique at his high altitude washing station. Unfortunately we don't have a good picture of his plastic-covering method!
In addition to both coffees in Abana’s Anderacha series, we’ll offer a few other coffees this year that have been “rested” before processing. Look out for our range of coffees from Guatemala’s Finca La Senda. Owner Maria Eugenia Pérez worked with consultant Thomas Pingen to design a variety of unique processes that include an open-air resting period before being depulped or dried.
Maria Eugenia Pérez checks some drying beds at Finca La Senda. She oversees the processing at her farm, which employs the resting technique in many of its coffees.
]]>In our Raw Materials series, Merit's Director of Green Coffee Jamie Isetts writes on green coffee, origin, and the finer details that make our coffees and partners so unique. Have a question? Email info@meritcoffee.com.
Spanish proficiency is a major asset for a green coffee buyer. The majority of what we roast at Merit comes from Latin America, and the combination of English and Spanish unlocks almost the entire Western Hemisphere.
For me, speaking another language has always been about going to more remote places. Outdoor gear helps you see new places in nature; language allows you to explore new places in culture. The personal depth of your native tongue will never be matched, but the fun is in the process of learning. Foreign languages represent a never-ending path toward mastery.
Me on the left in 2012, during a short stint harvesting figs in Spain.
I started learning Spanish on a goat farm in Southern Spain. I was just out of college, doing a farm work exchange with a bunch of other travelers from different parts of Europe. I had never taken a Spanish class. Talk about being thrown into the fire! The locals in that rural area spoke in Andalucía’s notoriously garbled accent, with a slang I would never use again without people scratching their heads. The Italians, Germans, and Poles that lived on the farm had their own quirks that I later discovered were not the way everyone spoke.
Studying Portuguese gave me a head start, but the more I progressed, the more it got in the way. I’ve always been a person who expressed myself through words, and not being able to communicate well made me feel dumb. It was humbling, lonely, and exhausting—and it motivated me to learn fast.
Eventually, with great patience on the part of others and a lot of advanced charades, I could speak well enough to make friends. I learned to talk less, listen more, and take my time. The entire experience had a huge effect on the way that I travel today, forcing me to accept situations where I did not have control. This ambiguity sharpened my intuition about who I trust based on their demeanor and body language. I drew on the meta-understanding of how I learned a second language to begin learning another.
Getting to know a family of coffee producers we buy from in Southern Huila, Colombia.
People often ask me if I’m “fluent.” Definitely not! I make grammatical mistakes all the time, misspell words, and get tired speaking in Spanish all day. While fluency is something to strive towards, it is absolutely not necessary to make connections. With a good attitude and some humility, you can make friends at a pretty low level of proficiency. Bump that up to an intermediate level and add in some professional vocabulary, and you can work in that language, too.
Getting comfortable talking to other people—and making some mistakes while doing it—is the skill I use the most. Preoccupation with perfect grammar can sometimes distract you from your role as a listener in a conversation. Not only does this limit your experience with the other person, it can cause you to miss crucial details that are relevant to the business that you need to do. Listening is much more important to my work than talking.
Talking with Maria Eugenia Pérez about the details of the natural process on her farm, Finca La Senda.
Over time, I built up a professional vocabulary specific to coffee production. These words are key--the difference between the volume in pergamino (parchment) and oro (green coffee) is a big one! I’m aware of my handicap in my non-native languages, so I’m careful to clarify important details like price, volume, or farm processes. Sometimes I discuss in person, and then confirm in writing later. I have never had something go wrong in a purchase because of a language barrier.
Understanding even 80% of what's going on is hugely enlightening and saves tons of time. Even the most savvy translator may not realize which details are meaningful to you. Logistically, repeating every phrase cuts the conversation in half—or more, if we’re translating across more than one language. On a recent trip to southern Ethiopia, a farmer described her practices through two other people to translate her words from Oromic to Amharic to English.
With the extra time, I leave space to let the people I’m visiting express themselves. I aim for each visit to be part of a long collaboration, so I relish learning about the producers’ personality. Hearing a farmer’s story in her own words is priceless. Many of the people I visit welcome me into their homes.. Being able to have a conversation is the least I can offer in return. After all, the most important phrase in any language is "thank you."
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Our Gold Lantern release of El Encanto Natural is made possible with an unusual approach to drying. Producer Juan Saldarriaga’s farms are in a wet, overcast climate that would normally rule out this berry-forward process. But how does coffee go from wet to dry? For some context, let’s delve into the drying process and how it’s used across the world.
As soon as ripe coffee cherries are picked off of the tree, they begin their long journey to become the material we roast at the warehouse. Broadly, the steps that transform a cherry to a dried green bean are called “processing.” The style and quality of a coffee’s processing has the most noticeable effect on flavor and longevity.
The drying step is a crucial element of processing. Producers dry coffee to a fraction of its original weight so it can be stable for transport without the risk of fungus and mold. But just like roasting, how coffee is dried matters. Each drying approach has a huge effect on the taste profile of the coffee, its consistency, and how long it will retain its flavors. At this stage, the coffee is often referred to as “parchment,” since this intermediary casing layer is still intact over the green bean.
Drying patio at Finca Chelin, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Mostly seen in Latin America, these traditional patios are made of flat concrete. The parchment is spread out in a thin layer and mostly dried by the heat and light of the sun. Since the coffee is only exposed on one side, workers must turn it with a rake or a paddle throughout the day. Being on the ground also leaves more opportunity for the coffee to be exposed to dirt and stepped on by people and animals.
A full-sun raised bed at Kinyovu washing station, Kayanza, Burundi.
Raised drying beds (sometimes called “African beds,” since they originated there) lift the entire drying operation up off the ground. Importantly, the flat part of the bed has a layer of mesh or loose-weave cloth rather than a completely closed surface. This allows for airflow on more of the coffee’s surface areas, drying it more evenly. Since most raised beds are about waist-height, workers can more turn the coffee more easily and inspect for defects faster.
Just like in roasting, good drying is about the rate at which things happen. Think of the difference between cooking a steak on one level of heat versus moving from high to low. In both scenarios, you cooked the steak, but how you do it affects the flavor. Sophisticated producers will employ different tactics to expose the coffee to a specific pattern of light, heat, and humidity throughout its drying cycle.
Coffee parchment being dried and sorted under a roof for shade at Mpanga Washing Station, Kayanza, Burundi.
Some producers will dry coffee on beds or patios that are open on the sides, but partially or fully protected from sunlight overhead. This allows producers to control the amount of sunlight (and heat) that hits the parchment at any time. “Shade drying,” as it’s known, can also reduce the UV exposure during drying, which some producers think can be more detrimental than drying by airflow.
A parabolic dryer at the farm of the Fernandez family in Santa Barbara, Honduras.
A structure like this can also help with the opposite situation. In wet areas, parabolic or house dryers are covered in translucent plastic that lets light in, keeps intermittent rainfall out, and allows wind to blow through open sides as the coffee dries.
Also at Mpanga Washing Station, a honey-process coffee is dried in "pyramids" to slow down drying from the scorching sun.
Producers also manipulate the thickness of the parchment layer to get different affects or protect from too much sunlight tor moisture. Choosing the right level of thickness depends on the local climate and may be changed several times throughout the day.
Since drying is all about surface area, having enough space to dry everything is a common bottleneck for producers. One interesting way to solve this problem? Go vertical! Multi-level drying beds create more space for drying coffee. Yet, the really interesting application of multi-level beds is about manipulating heat, sun exposure, and humidity. Coffee can be moved to another level at various stages in the drying process to expose it to different conditions, changing the rate of drying.
Multi-level raised beds at Finca La Senda, Acatenango, Guatemala.
All of these methods are still somewhat exposed to the climate outside. The level of sunlight or changes in humidity are not completely within the producer’s control.
Machine dryers coffee have existed for over a century. The most traditional style, called “guardiolas,” work very similarly to a coffee roaster. Wet parchment rotates in a turning drum over a heat source as air flows through. Since these systems are more focused on drying the coffee quickly, they usually deteriorate the quality. But the idea of a drying system that is independent of the climate provides a new frontier for intrepid producers with resources for experimentation.
El Encanto Natural is a successful example. Saldarriaga bought a mechanical dryer designed for fruit that dries with cold air and allows him to control both temperature and air flow. The lot we purchased was dried on this system, and the results are phenomenal. Careful drying allows for clean, crisp flavors along with the rich berry notes that make naturals so memorable. Saldarriaga’s wet climate is not ideal for traditional natural production, so this system opens up a whole new flavor profile for him.
We at Merit are stoked to share the El Encanto Natural with you this season! If you’re in the mood for something fruity, we’ve got you covered.
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The goal of the Merit 101 series is to help educate all levels of coffee enthusiasts who want to learn more about who we are at Merit, as well as the many aspects of coffee. This entry is written by our green coffee buyer, Jamie Isetts.
Harvest Cycles A coffee farm in Huila, Colombia. Colombia is famous for having two harvest cycles per year.
Coffee is a plant, and the bean that is roasted to make your final drink begins its life as a seed inside a fruit. Unlike a peach picked in the evening and sold at the farmer’s market the next morning, it takes at least 4-6 months from picking the coffee cherry off the tree to service in our cafes. This means that coffee has specific growing seasons based on the time of year for that fruit to be at the perfect point to harvest. Once the coffee is picked, it must be processed, dried, milled, sorted, shipped, and roasted before becoming the final drinkable coffee you enjoy.
Most of this time lag comes from the logistics of moving coffee across the world, but other steps in the process – processing (5 hrs-2 days), drying (1-3 weeks), rest (1-3 months), and hulling—are absolutely necessary and should not be rushed. At Merit, we also have a 1-4 week R&D period for each coffee once it arrives. During this time, we develop a unique roast and brew profile before we launch it for our customers.
Green coffee can become old or “faded”, but what exactly does that mean? The structure of the bean begins to break down and loses its complexity, acidity, and distinct flavor. If coffees are old enough, they lose their personality completely and begin to taste lightly papery. This usually becomes noticeable around six months from the time the coffee lands in the US. It’s not going to make anyone sick, but it won’t taste very good.
Even so, this timing varies wildly. Bad farming/processing practices will shorten the coffee’s shelf life. Drying, specifically, is a very important step. Coffee can taste “aged” when it first arrives to us if the drying process was rushed, or the coffee was exposed to moisture at certain point in its journey.
On the flip side, green coffee made with good practices can last longer! An excellent example from our stable is the Beneficio San Vicente group from Santa Barbara, Honduras. With a strong focus on effective drying, the farmers in this group have extended the high point of their coffee much farther.
Coffee plants generally have one major harvest per year. The timing varies across the world based on climate, but it can still be radically different from one side of a mountain to another. So how can we wrap our heads around this concept?
A broad way to think of harvest cycles is in two segments, or “semesters,” based on the hemisphere where the coffee grows.
First Semester: Northern Hemisphere
Second Semester: Southern Hemisphere
Notice how harvest happens about six months before we serve it. This means that while the baristas are serving one semester, the green buyer is focusing on the next.
Farmers also have more and better coffee to sell at the height of the harvest cycle. If we as roasters are aware of the seasonality of their farm, we can plan to buy more when the farmers have the most to offer. This awareness builds a sustainable relationship.
Some coffee origins completely ignore the tidy once-a-year system. These places have what’s known as a fly crop—a second, usually smaller harvest outside of the main one. The most famous example of a fly crop is Colombia’s mitaca, which is so large that it rivals the volume of the main crop. This pattern means that we can offer coffee seasonally from Colombia all year long, and buy from the same farmers twice per year.
To understand why, we must explore the life cycle of a coffee seed (or bean). After a period of heavy rain, the buds on a coffee tree will bloom into fragrant, jasmine-like flowers. At this point, the flowers begin the process that makes coffee cherries, with two seeds inside each one. If we know when it’s going to rain, we know when the plants will flower—and when the fruit they produce will be ready to pick.
In the past, most coffee regions had a very precise schedule of heavy rain followed by complete dryness, which allowed farmers to predict a tight range for the harvest period. In Colombia, more scattered precipitation throughout the year allows for a second, large harvest.
Flowers and Cherries Seeing a ripe cherries, flowers, and buds on the same branch indicates a long harvest period. Climate change is creating less distinct harvest cycles in many parts of the world.
As climate change completely topples our understanding of weather patterns, farmers are now adapting to intermittent rainfall and spread out harvest cycles. Being able to harvest coffee throughout the year isn’t a good thing if you’re not prepared for it. The plant is less stressed if it’s just focusing on one thing at a time, and stressed out plants require a lot more fertilizer and care to produce good coffee. In addition, farmers save money by only employing a full staff during a smaller picking period. Now more than ever, we strive to understand the complexity of seasonality to bring you coffees at their very best.
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Shattah Geisha will only be available in Merit Coffee/Local Coffee locations beginning September 8th. Dying to try it? Write us at info@meritcoffee.com and we’ll ship to you on request.
Our Gold Lantern offerings showcase the top 5% of our offerings based on our cupping scores. Many of these coffees highlight new techniques that challenge our conception of what defines a typical cup of coffee.
Mauricio Shattah is not the typical Colombian producer. He has the resources and the vision to create something that no other farmer in a country famous for coffee cultivation can offer. Here we’ll explore his approach with our offering of his Geisha lot using the washed process with tartaric acid. Click here for more info about this coffee's unique processing method.
Just as a green grape grows and tastes differently than a red grape, the Arabica species of coffee has myriad sub-varieties. One particularly revered variety is “Geisha,” or “Gesha,” which hails historically from the town of Gesha in Ethiopia. After a complicated history, this variety made its way to Panama where it became a hignly coveted luxury in the world of coffee connoisseurs. Mauricio purchased the Geisha seeds for this lot from a Panamanian farm and began cultivating them at Finca La Negrita. These Geisha plants’ expression in a Shattah’s terroir is familiar, but distinct from Geisha coffees grown in Panama.
Shattah comes from a medical background. He approaches farming with an attention to detail that seems to point to this history. His entire farm is a made-to-order garden of exotic varieties processed with the most cutting-edge techniques available.
The farm, Finca La Negrita, is in the Colombian state of Tolima. The farm is high up, but its location offers ample cloud cover that hides the cherries from direct sunlight. The snow-capped Tolima volcano is within 15 miles, and dictates the weather and soil type.
Something I’ve noticed: most farmers of Mauricio’s caliber are stewards to their community and environment. This stuff isn’t just lip service. It actually makes the coffee taste better.
Finca La Negrita employs staff year-round (not just during the harvest), and, according to Shattah, pays 25% more than the average rate in the area. The farm uses no herbicides and only organic fertilizers. Shattah cultivates plants that cater to the bee population. He even purchased a second farm nearby to prevent it from being clear-cut.
An unusual consequence of Finca La Negrita’s inimitable organization is the fact that many of Shattah’s coffees are made-to-order for his roaster clients. Based on a preliminary cupping and Shattah’s recommendations, we chose this process, lot, and variety nearly a year ago. The farm then created the coffee with the 2018 harvest specifically for Merit, in the quantity that we desired.
]]>In August, we revisited the “village” that helps make our Andino espresso a reality. Here’s a profile of some of the real people that create Andino from the town of Bruselas in Huila, Colombia.
]]>Tasting one coffee is a hobby. Tasting fifty per day is a job for an expert. Duver manages the quality control for all of the coffees that pass through the Bruselas warehouse. He works closely with Tatiana and other technicians to offer feedback to all of the farmers that sell to Caravela in this area. When not cupping coffee, he often makes farm visits as well to reinforce the connection between the farmers’ practices and cup profile. His cupping scores are more than observations: they dictate how much Caravela offers to pay for the lot. Duver also has a razor-sharp sense of humor, which keeps this pressure feeling light.
These are just a few of the folks who make this coffee possible. Warehouse managers, drivers, mill technicians, and exporters are also critical to what we do in Colombia. By working with each individual year on year, we can better understand how to be good partners.
In the aftermath, she moved herself and her son to a small village in the Yirgacheffe district. The government had given her a small parcel of land in this renowned coffee region as retribution for her husband’s death. She ran a small kiosk selling household goods and food. All the while, her son Girma started school and discovered an interest in metalworks. Girma remembers, oddly, toying around with soldering and makeshift welding on the side of the dusty road behind the kiosk. The past was tough, but the present looked good. Thus, Eshetu’s mother never talked about where Girma was born or their original tribe.
One thing she did talk about: school. Girma emphasizes how hard she pushed him in his studies, and it paid off with a placement in technical college in the capital of Addis Ababa. He became a mechanical engineer for St George Beer factory. After twenty years of working for this iconic Ethiopian brand, he started his own company designing coffee wet mill equipment—the critical step of coffee production where the fruit of the cherry is removed from the seed.
Now the story arrives at just a few years ago. Mr. Eshetu was at a manufacturing expo in Addis. One of Girma’s objectives for the show was to check out a unique new alloy, produced in a small area in western Ethiopia. By coincidence, the source of this metal was close to where he had recently leased land to start a coffee farm.
Eshetu came to the booth and was surprised by the physical resemblance between himself and the sales rep, who hailed from the town that produces the alloy. They started talking and the rep described his tribe in the west, which is known its particular facial features. In a reversal of his mother’s journey decades before, Eshetu traveled to the village and began asking about the little he knew of his family’s history. In an incredible turn of events, he had unearthed his ancestral homeland: people from this village remembered his mother, father, and even little Girma.
An interesting footnote: Girma’s long lost tribe is famous for highly skilled metalwork. Whether fate or coincidence, Girma Eshetu’s childhood hobby, career in mechanical engineering, and lease of farmland in this district seem to bind him to his homeland in a preternatural way.
]]>Too bad: we love Mexican coffee and we'll always try to get the best to our shops. This year, we're working with a long time partner of ours, Thomas Pingen (pictured cupping with Jamie). Thomas has worked as a farm assistant at Finca Chelin, another Oaxacan luminary. He also consults worldwide to producers large and small on fermentation, best practices, and exposure to the specialty market. This native German has long been part of the Merit family, even interning in our cafes and roastery in 2017.
Thomas has helped us source some incredible coffees from the Sierra Juarez region from small-scale female producers. We can't wait to share! Look for these lots in mid-fall.
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Coffees from BSV's partners in the Santa Barbara region routinely dominate national and international competitions. One can find a sweeping range of profiles in their coffees, from deep, chocolatey staple to bright and tropical stunners. We were shocked to discover that nearly all of the farms that BSV works with are located on one mountain! A simple drive around the ridge is like a who's who of specialty coffee, with individual farmers selling to specific well-known roasters.
The Paz family (including our key contact for lot selection, Benjamin Paz) meticulously separates every lot delivered to the station. This means isolating coffees by farmer, cultivar, section of farm, and even the day that the coffee was picked. There is no question that this involves much more work for the dry mill. Yet, this degree of detail is what makes it possible for roasters to hone in on a farm to work with and pay a higher premium for their effort.
Now to the coffees! We intend to repeat several favorite offerings from the 2017 run of this project. The constant scattered rainfall of the Santa Barbara region means that the harvest is extremely long, meaning we can get fresh coffee from several different points in the season. Fastidious practices in drying and sorting the coffee further extend the life of these coffees. This allows us to serve a range of BSV coffees from fall to early spring.
Here are the farmers we intend to repeat business with in 2018:
Miguel Guzman Miguel's Pacas cultivar was a standout on our espresso menu. We cupped several promising lots and hope to see the same unique flavors of ginger, lime, and tropical fruit.
Nelson Ramirez The most sophisticated of the farmers we purchased from, Nelson has built an incredible wet mill in the El Cielito area. Ramirez has long-term plans to convert his farm to an organic model. The soil health, drying area, and overall cleanliness give us high hopes for what's to come.
Nahun Fernandez & the Fernandez Family Though this family loves to experiment, they're really good at doing the simple things right. They pick ripe cherries with care, separate their lots, and dry their coffees in parabolic driers they've constructed next to their wet mill. We're excited to see more from this family in 2018, both experimental and traditional.
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