Caribbean

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #36.

In a previous post, I gave background information on coffee growing on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. We reviewed two selections from the Dominican Republic, and now were on to Haiti.

Haitian Highlands Ferrace, Barrington Coffee Roasting Co.

This is the only non-Haitian Bleu coffee I found, and is a project between Barrington and the non-profit Fondation L’Espoir. The coffee is grown in the Grande-Anse region of Haiti, in the nation’s southwest, by 140 farmers around Pic Macaya, the second highest mountain in Haiti (highest elevation 2347 m). Pic Macaya is one of the most biodiverse and important areas on the entire island. While much of the area is protected, at least on paper, within the Macaya Biosphere Reserve, the area is threatened by subsistence agriculture, charcoal making, and other unsustainable practices. Assisting farmers with

You can view powerful images from Pic Macaya in a slideshow by author and photographer Eladio Fernandez, who is a well known champion of Hispaniolan biodiversity and conservation.

The roast was very light — around 7 or 8 at this visual guide to roast levels by Sweet Maria’s. When I smelled the beans, I thought perhaps too light. Having under-roasted a few beans myself, this sort of grassy aroma was familiar to me.

In the French press, it had a mild, sweet, chocolate taste, with a bright peak when very hot. Despite my trepidation due to the lightness, I was happily surprised, although I was equally pleased with its potential  as its actual taste. Others trying it out noted “bland peanuts,” “cereal, maybe Cheerios,” or a “yeasty-ness”. I believe these are signs of undeveloped flavor from not roasting quite enough. Brewed, it was disappointing, dull and sort of lifeless. The light roast wasn’t too light to spoil it totally, but had the roast gone just a tad further, it would have preserved the soft sweetness and brought out more chocolate and candy notes, eliminated baked goods from the mix, and give it enough oomph to stand up to a drip. I’d be anxious to try a fresh batch (this had no roast date) just a tad darker. I think it would be a super breakfast coffee.

One taster commented, “I’m tasting rioting and political strife.”  No way to roast that out. Overall, we gave it 2.75 motmots.

For another perspective on a non-Haitian Bleu, some rustic dry processed coffee, check out this post at Dan Humphries’ blog.

We’re waiting for a new crop of Haitian Bleu. When that’s available and we can order some, we’ll post a review.

UPDATE, Sep 2008: First, we are still waiting for Haitian Bleu to become available. Meanwhile, Barth Anderson from Barrington sent along the new 2008 crop of Ferrace. Here is a photo of Pic Macaya with the microregions Barrington is working with in the foreground.

We discussed the issue of our perception of a too-light roast. I offered that it was entirely possible that what we felt were flavors due to under-roasting might be part of the character of that bean, and/or that pushing those beans a little farther would be ruinous. Barth explained that Barrington’s goal with their coffees is to find a roast that doesn’t overwhelm the character of each bean and that, indeed, going any further with this Haitian coffee would have “blown out the coffee.”

Overall, I found this crop nicer than the first, although upon our first taste of it we reached the opposite conclusion. We found a really unexpected, sort of plastic or chemical flavor it the cup. Barth explained that they felt there was a rough or unpolished side to this coffee. While it’s possible that this was what we were picking up, the fact that I never came across it in subsequent tastings leads me to think we might have just gotten a bad bean in our first tasting.

Nobody voiced any of the cereal-like or yeasty qualities that we found in the 2007 crop. A few people found it a little thin and lacking in body which ended up offsetting the ratings from those who found it light and sweet and quite nice. For that reason, it ended up with a very similar rating as before — the devil of averages. I did something I don’t often do, which is using this coffee in a blend with a darker roasted bean (in this case, a Brazilian washed coffee), 75% being this light Haitian. I thought it gave it just what it needed, and can offer this as a great option for those who favor a little darker roast.

This is a project and coffee worth supporting, and Barth Anderson and Barrington continue to work to “reveal the extraordinary potential [they] know can exist with this coffee.” Kudos.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #35.

To follow up on the post on coffee growing in Hispaniola, here is our second review of a Dominican Republic coffee (the first was Café Alta Gracia). Here wer have Organic Barahona from Larry’s Beans. Fair Trade and Certified organic.

Larry’s Beans is one of the members of Cooperative Coffees, a group of 23 roasters who have banded together in a green coffee bean buying cooperative. They directly source coffees from small-scale farms at or above Fair Trade price. You can read about their producers (which provide beans to the member roasters), and best of all, you can access all the purchasing documents — complete transparency. Not every lot is acquired through Cooperative Coffees, but access to the paper trail from outside purchases will also be available as the kinks are worked out of the system.

Cooperative Coffee’s DR producer is the Federation de Caficultores de la Region Sur (FEDECARES), covering 13 provinces in the DR with over 170 member organizations and 7600 farmers. This particular lot came from the El Polo Cooperative, one of the new member organizations, based in the southwestern DR town of Polo, in Barahona province. I believe this puts the elevation of the coffee at 800 to 1200 m.

The beans were a medium roast, with a sheen of oil and some pinpricks. Nobody could adequately agree on much about this coffee. One smelled honey and tasted honey, and was quite emphatic about it — and this is a flavor highlighted by the roaster that is noted on the bag. Another found it nutty, and I thought it had a woody or earthy taste. It was one of the few coffees I’ve had that I thought tasted better cool.

There was no roast date on the bag, but it did have a use-by date. Use-by dates are “X” number of months from the roast date; presumably the day of the month of the roast date and “expiration” date are the same. This would indicate I received the coffee when it was already almost three weeks old. The less-than-vigorous bloom seemed to back this up. I think this coffee would have been much better freshly roasted, or at least we would have been able to tease some more flavors out of it.

Overall, a soft, laid-back sort of coffee, pleasant but unremarkable, coming in at 2.5 motmots. If you’ve tried to convert a grocery-store coffee drinker to specialty coffee via a really refined and elegant bean and been disappointed that the person found the good coffee to be too different or just “didn’t get it,” this DR coffee might be a better place to start. It won’t be offensive,off-putting, or weird — just a big step up and a good price and ahead in sustainability.

UPDATE! Jonathan Bonchak, Goodwill Ambassador from Larry’s Beans, sent me a fresher bag of this coffee. Indeed, it had a much better bloom, and it was pleasantly sweeter than the last bag. Two people gave it substantially higher ratings — “It was delicious!” — and in this set of tastings it earned just over 3 motmots.  Thanks, Jonathan!

In a previous post, I gave background information on coffee growing on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. We gave a some of these coffees a try. First, a selection from the Dominican Republic (DR).

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #34.

Café Alta Gracia — Vermont Coffee Company. Certified organic and Fair Trade.

Finca Alta Gracia is a 25 ha farm located at 1100 m on the slopes of Pico Duarte, the highest mountain in the West Indies, 17 km west of Jarabacoa near the town of Los Marranitos. Although the web site notes “volcanic soils,” to the best of my knowledge the last volcanic activity in the region was in the Cretaceous period. So although this is technically correct, Pico Duarte doesn’t have the types of recent volcanic soils typical of Central America, for instance. As I mentioned in the previous post, Pico Duarte is primarily underlain with granite. These soils are said to contribute to a unique taste.

Finca Alta Gracia was established in 1996 by Julia Alvarez and her husband Bill Eichner. Alvarez, a DR native, is a well known author of novels such as the powerful In the Time of the Butterflies, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, and the great little semi-biographical tale about coffee farming, A Cafecito Story. Fittingly, proceeds from this coffee help support literacy efforts — the farm includes a small literacy center with a resident volunteer teacher. I had read several books by Alvarez before coming across A Cafecito Story. I was intrigued and knew one day I’d have to see if I could track down and try the coffee.

Café Alta Gracia roasted by the Vermont Coffee Company, with about 16,000 pounds roasted annually. I believe great coffee consists of two components: a well-grown bean and an artisan roaster. Nobody can do much with a bean with poor heritage, grown in poor soil or low elevation without proper care, and sloppily processed. And an unskilled or hasty roaster can kill the taste of a perfectly good bean (Starbucks accomplishes this on a regular basis). So I was a bit unsure of what to expect from a little farm and an unknown (to me) roaster.

The coffee was a pleasant surprise. Beans appeared to be a medium roast, with a light sheen and a few pinpricks of oil. The aroma was summed up as “spicy nuts.” In the French press, it was mild, light to medium-bodied, smooth, and sweet with hints of chocolate; one reviewer also noted a bit of licorice. One thing we all noticed was a near-minty zing, especially when slurped. One person said it reminded him of a thin mint cookie, a couple others called it “refreshing.” The coffee lost some character brewed, but overall was quite an interesting cup. It garnered a solid 3.5 motmots.

Finca Alta Gracia is now managed by the Dominican Institute for Agriculture and Forestry Research (Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales  or IDIAF), although Alvarez and Eichner are still involved. IDIAF uses Finca Alta Gracia as a demonstration and research facility to help teach other farmers about organic and sustainable agriculture. This strong commitment to sustainability, literacy, and giving back to the community makes this a unique and important project to support. The coffee makes it a pleasure.