Indonesia Coffee Update 11-29-10

So, here it is, the end of November and still no Sulawesi White Eagle!

The last update I stated that the coffee would be shipped in about 10 days and would likely be here in six weeks. I figured six weeks would give me plenty of time to look good. But alas, the universe did not cooperate!

There seems to be an inverse relationship to receiving orders to the level of demand for those orders. The more we need a coffee order to arrive, the longer it takes. So it is with the White Eagle. Not only did I underbuy the coffee last year, causing us to run out before new crop was available, but weather in Indonesia has effectively stopped most transport, delaying our shipment for weeks. Still, it could be worse than just us inconvenienced by not having a favorite coffee. The intense rains in Indonesia have hampered rescue efforts in Sumatra for the victims of the volcano eruption.

Our producing partners have confirmed a new shipping date and the coffee should be on its way presently. But this will mean that we most likely will not see the coffee until sometime in January.

On a similar note. The rains have also affected the harvest in Sumatra. So far, the quality of the cherries coming into the mill have been such that our partners have yet to do a wet run for us. They expect that the harvest will improve later in the pickings but for now we will have to wait. This is actually better news than what was offered earlier when we were in doubt of even having in wet processed Sumatra coffee. Here's keeping our fingers crossed.

Judging Roast Style

Each year at about this time an old friend of mine who works for the major liquor distributor in Alaska comes down for the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). If I am lucky enough our schedules coincide and I get to tag along. I am always intrigued to step out of the coffee biz and take a look at how another similar industry operates. And there are plenty of parallels to the specialty coffee and craft beer trades. Both operate at about the same percentage to their conventional counterparts, both have issues with perishability, and both are still enjoying growth even in economic downturns.

This year I was able to tour a couple of breweries before going to the festival itself, the first being the Great Divide Brewery in downtown Denver and the other being the New Belgium Brewery in Ft. Collins. Both breweries are well respected but are quite different, principally in size and automation. Whereas Great Divide is a much smaller brewery that is very hands on, New Belgium is something of the Starbucks of the craft beer world.

The Festival itself is an impressive event. About 10,000 people will pass through the convention center sampling 1 oz portions from a huge variety of breweries from all over the country. The floor is arranged by region, making it somewhat easier to find favorites. There were a couple of things that really struck me while participating that I think the specialty coffee trade could learn from.

The first is the sheer amount of camaraderie that brewers share with one another. This is now more apparent with the advent of "Collaboration" brews where two breweries will join together to create a beer and sell it in their own respective markets. Perhaps part of this camaraderie is due to the fact that distribution is largely a factor of production output, and most breweries have limited production abilities. Quite different to the specialty coffee trade where most imagine themselves as the next Starbucks if they could simply land the distribution arrangements. I would argue that the specialty coffee trade has over capacity in contrast to the craft beer industry. This creates an environment of competitiveness that hinders cooperative arrangements, but there may be some of us who are happy with selling in their own region and don't have an eye on being a national brand where collaboration may occur - an idea.

Another thing that struck me was the respect, and indeed, the understanding of styles. The GABF is ultimately a judged event, the principal reason the brewers participate in the first place. Brewers are invited to submit any number of entries into a set of defined styles, pilsners, ales, lagers and so on. Even large brewers like Budweiser and Miller compete along side small craft brewers based on style. This is sorely lacking in the coffee industry. While there was historically recognized a set of roast styles this has fallen away in the last decade or so. And even when it was generally acknowledged, it was very loosely interpreted. If you pick up a book on coffee from say, the 70's or 80's you may read about the different roast styles of Continental, City, Full City, Viennese, French and sometimes, Italian. Trouble was, while there was some continuity in the books about these styles, in practice there was little agreement. Continental and City Roasts were typically the traditional light roasts favored by large, commercial roasters that prepackaged coffee in cans for supermarket and institutional uses. Full City and darker were the preferred styles of the specialty trade.

The first champion of darker roasts was Peet's Coffee out of California. Alfred Peet was disappointed with the coffee offerings he found here in the states and wanted to introduce coffee drinkers to the darker roast styles that were typical in Europe. When Starbucks came along, they too, championed darker roasts, referring to them as Full City Roasts. However, what they were calling Full City was much more in line with what would be understood as French Roast. And as things got caught up in the marketing world, if dark roast is good, then darker roasts must be better. There seemed to be a constant push to go darker and darker. I recall when I first began roasting over twenty years ago the principal complaint I would here is that we didn't roast dark enough.

The reason I think I got to thinking about all this really stems from another experience that struck me while touring the breweries. Towards the end of our tour at New Belgium we ended up in an area that contained a number of large wooden casks. This is where they were brewing a style of beer that has become something of a phenomena of late. They are called Barrel-Aged Sours. As the guide was describing the flavors (very excitedly I might add) I found myself imagining how good this was going to be. Flavors of ripe banana, apricot and so on. However, once I tasted it, I could not get over the excessive souriness. I was told that was the style and it was best paired with food, such as Alfredo Pasta, as a way of cleansing the palate. I'm sorry, if I'm going to drink beer, I want to enjoy the taste for its own sake. Now, I'm told that this is a beer for connoisseurs. That may be. But, it is a style and should be judged according to the framework of that style, which, for myself, clearly I am no judge.

There is a similar phenomena going on in the coffee trade with very light roasted coffees. We are now told that over-roasting ruins the acidity and masks the complexity of flavors in coffee. A new breed of roasters are promoting these light roasts with much fanfare. Now, this is a style of roasting. It is a style of roasting that I am not particularly fond of and so make a poor judge. The problem is that there are those who want to make the case that this style is better than another style. That style is tied to quality. And I think it is here where the specialty coffee trade could benefit from a recognition of roast styles again. Just as at the GABF no one would enter a lager in a Stout competition arguing that lagers best represent what beer is suppose to taste like, so too should roast styles be judged within their own parameters. As I mentioned earlier, when I first began I received critiques that I didn't roast dark enough, now the critiques is that I over-roast. There is a style of roast I prefer, and I have stuck to that style over the years. I am not suggesting it to be the only style, but it is what I like.

On occasion I have had a customer ask why I don't do a light roast. I usually tell them its because I prefer darker roasts (it is the Viennese style that I prefer) and sometimes they may press the issue: that they prefer a light roast and would buy it if it were offered. But the fact is, I don't prefer that style and just as I am not qualified to judge a Barrel-Aged Sour beer, nor do I think I am going to do something well if I don't like the taste. Better to support a roaster who knows that style and does it well than me trying to do something that doesn't suit my tastes in the hopes that someone else may like it.

Coffee Update 8-30-10

On the cupping table this week we tasted the shipment sample for the Sulawesi Toraja White Eagle and approved it for shipping. Now our 50 bags will be loaded onto the next available container and shipped out of Indonesia to Hayward, California, home of The Annex, one of the West Coast's many coffee warehouses. Once it arrives it will have to go through Customs Inspection and so long as everything goes well we will be able to start trucking bags into Denver. We might be a little later than our original hope of having the coffee in during the month of September, I would guess that it is more like six weeks out before we see the coffee here.

We still have had no word about the Sumatra Washed Gayo coffee and quite frankly have little hope of seeing the coffee this year. Over the years we have become rather spoiled with this coffee and the fact that it is the only wet processed Sumatra coffee leaves us few options, none that we are aware of in Sumatra, anyway. Last month we brought in a few bags of a semi-wet processed Papua New Guinea. It was well received so it will most likely take the place of the Gayo Mountain coffee this year. While not a full wet-processed coffee like what we could get from the Gayo Mountain mill, but it is not the dirty tasting dry-processed that is de rigueur for Sumatra.

Perhaps here would be a good place to speak about the differing types of processing for coffee cherries. Generally when one reads about how coffee is grown and processed two types of processing are described: the wet method, sometimes called washed; and the dry method, sometimes called natural. In the specialty trade the former is more prized than the latter. With the dry method the just picked cherries are laid out to dry in the sun. The surface the cherries are on vary, sometimes concrete, sometimes rattan mats, sometimes on bare earth. Once the cherry fruit has dried the cherries are milled, either in a hand operated husker or, if available, larger motorized ones. Typically these coffees are coming from rudimentary areas and as a result the quality varies significantly. So much so that in most cases this coffee is not seen fit for the specialty coffee trade. With a couple of exceptions, principally Ethiopia, Yemen, and Sumatra. Since each of these countries are some of the earliest areas where coffee was propagated they have obtained a certain status.

On the other end of the scale is the wet processed coffees. These coffees come from areas where water is abundant and there have been infrastructure developments within the area. In some places the wet-mill is owned by the farm or cooperative themselves, in other places it may be a separate operation buying coffee from around the area. Cherries arrive shortly after picking, ideally the same day, and are placed into large vats of water. Once the cherries have soaked they are then sent via water through a pulping device that separates the fruit and seeds. From there the depulped seeds sit in a tank for a period of time that allows naturally occurring enzymes to break down a layer of skin around the seeds. From there the seeds are then sent through a series of troughs to separate under and over ripened seeds and then to the drying beds. Almost always these beds will be made of concrete. The whole process can take place in as little as 24 hours. The net result is a clean, uniform product.

Some in the trade argue that the coffee coming from wet mills robs coffee of its natural flavor. We disagree (more or less respectively).

There is, however, a third process that sits in-between these two. It is called semi-wet. This coffee comes from areas that are water abundant but infrastructure deficient. The cherries will be pulped with water but then immediately set out to dry on varying surfaces (earth, mats, concrete). This method can be seen as something of the best of both worlds. While it lacks the sorting ability of a full wet method, most often the cherries are coming from small family run farms where better care in picking is employed. This gives us access to a lot of old heirloom coffees grown in very bio-diverse areas.

The majority of our organic cooperative coffee is processed this way, including our best selling varietals from Peru, Bolivia and Rwanda. It is this method that the Papua New Guinea coffee we have brought in is processed. To me, this is a better alternative than trying to find a not so dirty dry-processed coffee from Sumatra. Even when we find one that seems not so offending, it always seems to have a unpleasant rough aftertaste. One of the hallmarks of our coffee has always been the attribute of it tasting just as good cold as it did hot. Dry-processed coffees lack this characteristic and so really don't belong here.

Intro to the Sivetz Roaster

Coffee Update 7-22-10

I think I will start with the good news. Our new crop Ethiopia Yirgacheffe should arrive sometime next week and hopefully I have bought enough to last us through the year this time around. In my defense, I think it only fair to point out that last year I had forecasted the amount before one of our clients in Boulder who had previously been only using our espresso began using the Ethiopia as one of their brew offerings, thus absorbing the lion's share of the roasts. This year I have factored them in the mix, so there should be enough to go around! New crop Mexico Chiapas El Triumfo is arriving this month as well. This has been one of our Cafe Femenino projects and a real favorite here at the store.

We have received confirmation for our Sulawesi Toraja White Eagle but do not yet have shipping info. That is mostly good news - it means it's in the pipeline at least. For reasons we have yet to find out, the cooperative lost their Fair Trade status but still have their Organic certification. I decided to go ahead and follow through the purchase despite the Fair Trade situation. We have experienced such situations in the past where a cooperative loses their Fair Trade status for reasons that are out of their control and in the end have their status restored. Part of being a Fair Trade roaster is a commitment to buying from a cooperative over the long haul and not leave them hanging year to year. So, we will continue to support this cooperative and trust that the situation is resolved in the near future. Without a confirmed shipping date it is difficult to speculate when the coffee will arrive but I wouldn't expect to see it until the first part of September.

Probably the most disappointing news is that we have yet to see a sample of our Washed Gayo Mountain coffee from Sumatra. There have been some managerial issues with the mill and the parent company that appear not to have been sorted out yet. Consequently, I am fearful that we may not see any Washed coffee from Sumatra this year. As far as I know, this is the only wet mill existing in Sumatra and I have become so spoiled on the clean flavor that I have trouble even cupping dry processed coffees anymore. We only have a limited amount of current crop Gayo's left in stock which I'm sure will be running out soon.

As a peace offering I have bought a small amount of a very nice Fair Trade coffee from Papua New Guinea. It cupped out very nicely on the sample roaster so I have good expectations for it once we get it into the production roaster. Papua's have always been a hit and miss kind of coffee for me so I am not promising that we will have it for the long haul but it might be a nice stop gap until we know more on the Sumatra's.

Indonesian Coffee Update

Since so many of you have become big fans of our Indonesian coffee offerings from Sumatra and Sulawesi I wanted to give everyone an update to this year's supply. It's sort of a good news, bad news, good news, maybe not so good news kind of thing.

First, a little background. The coffee's we are buying are the result of some serious pulling of strings by long term relationships with our producing partners. It started with our importing partner developing a relationship with an old exporting partner friend of ours. Our importing partner had been bringing in some organic, fair trade certified coffee from the Aceh region of Sumatra. There are two principal suppliers of coffee from this area, one called Gayoland Coffee and the other called Gayo Mountain Coffee. When the importer began working with the folks at Gayo Mountain I remembered that they (Gayo Mountain) had one of the only wet processing mills in Sumatra. It was a project from a number of years ago in an attempt to add quality to the coffee in Sumatra by adopting methods from neighboring Java. For the first time, clean quality coffee could be produced from Sumatra. Trouble was, most coffee roasters here in the States preferred the old, dirty dry processed coffees so they stopped offering the wet processed coffees here. Well, we asked if we could have a run of wet processed coffee and they agreed. This has proven to be a customer favorite: a medium to full bodied coffee with a soft mouthfeel and delicious clove-like aroma notes.

The success of this coffee prompted me to ask about another old favorite of mine, Toraja coffee from Sulawesi. This coffee could fairly be called my first love in coffee. It was rare, it was exotic, it was rare and exotic! It was also confusing. Sometimes I would see it labeled Sulawesi Toraja, other times Celebes Kalossi, and sometimes a combination of both, i.e, Toraja/Kalossi. Another confusing thing about it was the sheer inconsistency of any given lot, sometimes even within a bag the coffee could be wildly different. My first visit there cleared all this up. Celebes is the old Dutch name for the island that has since been changed (back) to Sulawesi with Indonesia's independence. The Celebes name had still had some cachet in the market so many roaster's continued using that name. As for Toraja and Kalossi, these were the two early production areas that had developed a reputation for fine coffees. But the two areas are dramatically different. Toraja, or Torajaland as the locals know it, was an area that the Dutch had introduced coffee to but later abandoned and left the coffee to grow wild in the jungles. The Toraja people began picking and drying this coffee to sell in small quantities. Kalossi, on the other hand, is characterized by small to medium sized coffee farms. While often more consistent than that of the Toraja coffee, there was something quite amazing about Toraja coffee when it was right.

As the fame of Toraja coffee grew the area that could identify itself as Toraja expanded to include many traditional style coffee farms and consequently the coffee lost it's wild character. That is, until our exporting partner decided to do something about it. Having a deep historical knowledge of the area he ventured out and sourced some of the original coffee trees. There are no roads in this region, the coffee must make a four day journey on muleback along twisting, mountain trails. The trees themselves are 150 years old or older, some dating back to the original trees the Dutch brought over nearly 400 years ago. The coffee was branded "White Eagle" after the sacred symbol of the Toraja people. This coffee was offered a few years ago to the American market but unfortunately since there was many cheaper coffees designated Toraja few were willing to step up and pay the price for this exclusive coffee. So, like the Wet Processed coffee we get from Sumatra, the exporter sets up a special shipment for us each year.

Okay, with that behind us, here is the mixed news: The good news first, we have received and approved the pre-shipment sample for this years supply of the Sulawesi Toraja White Eagle. Now it is in the proverbial liminal state of "on the water." This is where the coffee awaits a container to be shipped to the US. Once it arrives and clears customs we will receive an arrival sample and as long as everything is fine we will begin taking delivery. This process may take sixty days or more so we will be out of this coffee for the better part of the summer.

Now the Sumatra. As of this writing we have about a thousand pounds left. That's the sort of good news. But . . . the first sample was rejected and we are awaiting a sample from the second run. So this one's a bit up in the air. I feel fairly confident that the next sample will be fine but who can say what the future holds. When this thousand pounds runs out, and with Sulawesi already out putting more pressure on Sumatra sales, we will be out for easily ninety days. At this point it is a big unknown with a lot of variables out of our control.

Many may ask, why don't you just get another Sumatra/Sulawesi? Well, for the Sumatra's, there is no other Wet Processed, and we really dislike the taste of Dry Processed coffees. As for the Sulawesi, there are other Toraja's available but none with the flavor we have come to expect. So, in either case it would be selling something we don't feel good about and we didn't get into this business to sell stuff we don't like. I would like to say just be patient and all will be fine, but in this case, not only is the fat lady not singing, she isn't even on stage yet.

Jack@$$ Attempts Van Theft!

So, at 2am Jess arrived back at the shop from roasting at the warehouse with a load of beans. She parks it in the alley, opens the side door and goes into the shop. At that moment, a friendly jack@!$ from the Stadium Inn runs across the street, jumps into the van, fires it up and peels away, catching the dumpster with the side door, dragging it several feet, takes out the neighbors fence and promptly runs into a telephone poll. Total length of trip: 50 feet!