Latin America

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #32

In our background post on El Salvador, one of the coffees we reviewed was Counter Culture’s Finca Mauritania, from the slopes of the Ilamantepec (Santa Ana) volcano. The Santa Ana region (shaded on map) is a premier coffee-growing area in El Salvador. The Apaneca-Ilamatepec Mountain Range where Finca Mauritania is located is in close proximity to one of the country’s most important parks, El Imposible.

Counter Culture still offers the straight Bourbon varietal from Finca Mauritania. They’ve also had a limited offering of Aida’s Grand Reserve, a peaberry selection from all three of owner Aida Batlle’s neighboring farms: Finca Mauritania, Finca Kilimanjaro, and Finca Los Alpes. For this review, we chose another special set of microlots, Counter Culture Coffee’s Finca Mauritania Microlot Gift Pack. This unique set consists of three microlots, all from Finca Mauritania, but each set of beans underwent a different type of processing.

Nearly all coffee from Central America is “washed” or wet processed. After the coffee cherries are picked and sorted, the cherries are sent through a depulping mechanism that removes the skin and flesh. Some amount of sticky mucilage or flesh may remain, and so the beans are soaked in water for one or two days to break down this matter, which is washed away by more fresh water. Beans are then dried, often in the sun on large patios.

Pulped natural is a process by which the cherries are only skinned or partially depulped before they are dried. The climate in Central America, especially the humidity, is such that this drying process must tended to vigilantly, with a lot of raking and turning, not only so the gooey beans don’t stick together, but also to prevent molds or fungi from developing. Nearly non-existent five years ago, this process is becoming more popular in El Salvador because the country grows so much Bourbon variety coffee, according to Counter Culture buyer Peter Giuliano. The pulp natural process and Bourbon beans are great for espresso blends. In Latin America, Brazil dominates the espresso-component market, where the drier climate is more appropriate for pulp natural processing. Conquering this technique opens up new frontiers for El Salvador.

If done with finesse, the enzymes in the pulp transfer flavors to the beans — the intensity will vary depending on the amount of pulp left on, drying time, and other factors. This method lowers acidity and increases body, and introduces an often fruity sweetness.

We indeed found this to be a medium-bodied coffee with a syrupy mouthfeel. Nearly all tasters found some curiously unique flavors in a French press preparation: pepper, salt, garlic (which was not as bad as it sounds), basil, spice, a complicated enzymatic astringency (this from a student who had just taken his chemistry final). As a drip coffee, it struck a couple of us as vaguely Sumatran, with muted woodsy and leather tones. One taster adequately summed up what we all experienced, “There’s a lot going on on my tongue right now.”

I was reminded of the pulped naturals we’d tried from Brazil’s Daterra Estate, although this selection was clearly more complex. I think it had the characteristics that would in fact make it terrific in an espresso blend. It was interesting and valuable to taste beside the other lots, but we were sort of confused by it and agreed that on its own, it was the least compelling of the three to drink straight. It garnered 3 motmots.

The more typical wet processed selection in this gift pack was the peaberry microlot. Peaberries are those coffee cherries which only develop a single, round seed rather than the pair of flat-sided seeds usually produced. About 5 to 10% of coffee cherries produce peaberries. These small, round beans roast more evenly than typical flat beans, but also more quickly because of their size so they must be roasted with care.

Although there isn’t any scientific proof that I know of that each peaberry gets “twice the flavor,” they are commonly thought of as being more intensely sweet and acid. Nor can I say that this peaberry microlot was twice as sweet as the rest of the FM crop, but we all agreed — bright, clean, sweet, deep, and lovely! Various tasters got some malt, baker’s chocolate, nuts, cherry, and honey. I picked up a bit of a floral aroma and tasted sweet apple in the cooling cup (I’m always pretty pleased with myself when I can pick up some sort of unique flavor, and nearly pulled a muscle patting myself on the back when I read later that some of Counter Culture’s cuppers also tasted apple). The finish was super smooth and syrupy when prepared in a French press.

This is a superior example of an exceptional classic Central American coffee. I could drink this every day and not get tired of it, and when I think of great coffee, this is the profile that I hold standard. When we cast our votes on this one, something happened that hasn’t occurred in a long time: it got 4 motmots across the board.

“Pasa” means “raisin” in Spanish, which is what coffee cherries look like when completely dried with their flesh intact. Dry process coffees are dried without removing any of the coffee cherry; the beans are removed, or hulled, after drying. The drying may take up to a month, and as with pulped naturals must be done very carefully — especially in humid climates — to prevent any molds, fungi, or bacteria from tainting the cherries. This process, common in more arid African nations, creates bold flavors, often berry-centric fruitness with heavy body.

Dry process is essentially unheard of in Central America, but it captured the imagination of Aida Batlle. I’ll let Peter Giuliano relay the story:

“Aida has completely innovated the Pasa process, based on things she has heard (but never seen firsthand) about Ethiopian and Brazilian natural processes. Aida has a strong experimental streak, and jumped into the process with her trademark enthusiasm and quality focus. Aida is always innovating, and she decided to experiment with tree-dried coffees. Just leaving them on the tree to dry was a challenge, she had to post a security guard so that people would not sneak onto the farm and pick the coffee while it dried on the tree!  Milling was another challenge — since nobody does dried-in-the-fruit coffee in El Salvador there was no equipment to do the milling, so they had to improvise with a small mill intended to husk samples in a cupping lab. As a result, it was incredibly labor intensive to produce this coffee.”

We were blown away when we opened the bag of Pasa — it was boldly fruity, mostly the familar blueberry aroma of an Ethiopian coffee. There was also a bit of a woodsy/earthy smell. The blueberry translated into the cup, although perhaps not as forcefully as an African. I’d recently tried Counter Culture’s Ethiopian Biloya and the Pasa was its more restrained and modest sister. Other than the berries, tasters commented on hints of apricot, the balance, smoothness, creamy mouthfeel, and overall sweet richness. We would have certainly thought this was a dry-process Ethiopian, but I believe we also would have wondered about the quiet differences. 3.5 motmots.

Post-script: I don’t know what Aida’s future plans are for the Pasa, but I think this a perfect substitute for an Ethiopian coffee. It has the added advantage of having less distance to travel — less fuel for shipping. Whereas Ethiopian coffees come from many small shareholders, we know exactly where the Finca Mauritania comes from, and that it is grown in a shade polyculture that benefits biodiversity. Aida is also in the process of converting all of her farms to certified organic. I know if I had the choice between a dry process African and this coffee, I’d pick the Pasa. Same great flavor, more sustainable.

Tasting these three selections, from the same farm with different preparations, was fun and enlightening…and tasty, of course. Bravo to Counter Culture for putting this package together, at a bargain price.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #31.

We don’t review many blends here at C&C (yet), mostly because it is easier and clearer to provide background and information on single-origin coffees. But we were fascinated by the 2007 Holiday Blend from Counter Culture Coffee. The coffee is a single origin, from the 21st de Septiembre co-operative in Oaxaca, Mexico. The “blend” is actually the use of different roasts of this same coffee, mixing and blending them in an old European technique called Vienna MÁ©lange. More on that in a moment.

The 21st de Septiembre co-op consists of over 950 small family farms (all under 3 hectares) growing certified organic coffee. Over 40% of the coffee comes from the vicinity of the small mountain town of Zaragoza, but there are over 20 communities contributing to the co-op. These farmers were once all part of a larger co-op, but broke away in order to market their higher quality crop alone rather than have it intermixed with lesser beans. Counter Culture buys nearly all of its coffee lots from Zaragoza; as the highest-altitude community (around 1800 meters) it tends to have the best beans.

And, as in much of Oaxaca, the coffee is grown in a fairly traditional manner, in small plots under shade. You can plug in the coordinates of Zaragoza (16.670, -97.793) to see how forested the area is, also shown in the photo at right. The forests of this region, the Sierra Madre del Sur, are considered important endemic bird areas by BirdLife International. This conservation organization lists deforestation from agriculture, including coffee, as one of the threats to the area, so supporting farmers who grown coffee under shade and are able to make a living from their coffee is a way to help preserve this area. The White-throated Jay, shown here, is one of the restricted-range birds found only in the Sierra Madre del Sur.

Counter Culture has developed a direct relationship with the 21st de Septiembre co-op, providing them with generous fair prices for their beans. Additionally, Counter Culture will donate $1 of each pound of the Holiday Blend to the women of the co-op to help them diversify through raising small livestock, and increase their income via a tortilla-making business. Around the world, empowering women is one of the fastest ways to help eradicate poverty. Not only does this buoy entire communities, it goes a very long away in preserving biodiversity and ecosystems. I wrote about the connections between poverty, biodiversity, and coffee here.

On to the coffee itself!

As mentioned above, the Holiday Blend used a roast style called vienna mÁ©lange, mixing and blending different roasts of the same bean selection. I thought this might be something like the “black and tan” blends I’ve seen before, but really the Holiday Blend looked more uniform than expected. In fact, I found it difficult to pick out notable color differences in the beans. This makes sense, as dark roasting Mexican beans would stamp out their delicate sweetness. I’ve done a little coffee roasting in my time, and one reason I quit was because there was no way I would ever be able to figure out whichever precise roast level brought out the very best in each type of bean. I leave that to the experts. So my/our inability to discern subtle differences in the light roasts just proves that we are indeed ordinary people and not coffee experts. Counter Culture isn’t talking smack here — there are really two distinct roasts that each have their own cupping profile in this blend.

Nutty was a word that popped up in descriptions of both the aroma and the flavor of the Holiday Blend. Honey and caramel, and a buttery smoothness were initial impressions, with the nuttiness becoming more pronounced as the cup cooled. Everybody seemed to have had a different nut in mind: peanuts, hazelnuts, almonds, or “anonymous nuts” (trust me, those were in the room that day!). Without having a one-roast-level sample of this coffee to compare it with, it’s hard to say if the vienna mÁ©lange technique added a lot to the coffee. However, the Holiday Blend is mild and mellow, silky and sweet, and I think it would be hard to find anybody that wouldn’t like it. Ergo, it would surely be a great coffee to serve guests. It earned 3.5 motmots, with bonus points for the coffee being organic, Counter Culture’s direct relationship with the 21st de Septiembre co-op, and the financial support empowering women in the community. That all adds up to a great sustainable coffee story.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #30.

Daterra Estate — Brazil. Sampled from three roasters: Rowster Coffee, Terroir Coffee Company, and Sweetwater Organic Coffees.

In a previous post, I discussed coffee growing in the cerrado region of Brazil. This area is a biodiversity hotspot, and is being rapidly converted to large-scale agriculture. While coffee growing is a small portion, land converted to coffee in the cerrado is nearly devoid of native biodiversity. This is because the cerrado is primarily savannah. Unlike coffee growing in forested ecosystems, where coffee farms can approximate natural habitats, a coffee farm cannot mimic a grassland. One of the most unique and important aspects of the cerrado’s biodiversity is its high level of endemic plants. These are essentially eliminated when any kind of agriculture takes over. Biodiversity preservation on farms in the cerrado depends on the existence and quality of protected set-asides.

While Brazil produces a large volume of low-quality coffee, the cerrado region is one of the areas that is important to the country’s emerging specialty coffee sector. For this review, we’ll look at Daterra Estate, a company known for its sustainability practices.

About Daterra
Daterra, established in 1974, is not a single farm but five large areas divided into 88 smaller areas, and covers over 6000 ha, of which 2500 are protected (much under Brazilian law). There are further subdivisions that each grow a specific variety of coffee. Some names you may hear associated with Daterra are Boa Vista, Sao Joao, Tabuoes, Santo (or San) Antonio, Santo Buriti, and Santo Ignacio. A number of the units are near Patrocinio in Minas Gerais. The average altitude is 1150 meters. The original crop was avocados, and land was also used for cattle ranching. Coffee was introduced in the mid-1980s.

Much of Daterra’s distinction and acclaim come from the precision in which the farms are managed, intense research into new varieties, use state-of-the-art technology, innovative packaging, traceability of every lot, and so forth. This is very interesting stuff (you can read a great overview at Sweet Marias), but we’ll concentrate on Daterra’s biodiversity and sustainability measures.

Daterra was Rainforest Alliance’s (RA) first certified farm (RA says it certifies just over 3000 ha, in both coffee and avocados). Several Daterra units are also Utz Certified (2754 ha certified). Daterra also has ISO 14001 certification (standards that help organizations minimize environmental impact).

The RA profile notes:

Daterra is located in an area where the natural vegetation is grass, shrubs and low trees. Because the ecosystem does not lend itself to shade coffee, the beans here are grown in sun and planted in tight rows. …certification should promote conservation of the natural ecosystem called cerrado.

Recall from the previous post that 35% of cerrado property must be set aside for wildlife. Specifically, 20% on the property itself, and up to 15% within the same watershed. Because there are multiple units, it’s hard to pin down how many hectares Daterra covers. There are somewhere between 2800 to 3300 ha of coffee and about 3000 to 4000 ha of protected area. Daterra’s web site gives the figure of natural preservation areas as 50%. No source mentions whether this area is contiguous or fragmented. As also noted in the previous post, any type of unused land might be counted in this set-aside.

The RA profile on Daterra states that biologists have found rare macaws (presumably Hyacinth Macaws) and owls, jaguar tracks, and a giant anteater in the Daterra protected areas. These animals indicate there is some forest habitat there. Daterra was kind enough to send me a short list of more typical grassland species found on their protected areas. In addition to a half dozen common trees and shrubs, the list included four animals: the anteater, Pampas deer, Greater Rhea, and the Red-legged Seriema (photo). If these species are represented by healthy, self-sustaining populations it indicates that there are some large, contiguous patches of classic cerrado habitat being preserved.

Further information from Daterra focused on one of the large units, Fazenda Boa Vista in Patrocinio. Purchased in 1987, it is nearly 6900 ha, with over 2800 ha of natural habitat (41%). This property was largely degraded when purchased, and Daterra has restored the rivers, streams, waterfalls, and savannah, and wildlife has returned.

Other sustainability efforts at Daterra include:

• Water. About 20% of the coffee is irrigated, as is the case in much of this region. Most or all of the water used to wash and process the coffee is recycled and used for irrigation.
• Areas are reforested using native tree species which are grown on the farms.
• Recyling. The company minimizes use of consumable products and recycles paper and other similar items. Coffee parchment is compacted into “logs” which are burned in place of firewood.
• Weed control. The by-products of coffee processing along with other organic matter is composted and returned to the soil as fertilizer and mulch. Herbicides are only used when weeds get too unruly.
• Daterra supports the use of the farm for environmental restoration and education in
  collaboration with a local college.

Reviews
A wide variety of coffees from Daterra are available as single origins and used in regular and espresso blends. We tried two different types from three roasters.

Terroir Coffee Company. Special reserve. Organic, Rainforest Alliance certified. Light, “full flavored” roast. Catuai and Mundo Novo varieties. Pulped natural process (skin removed, then bean with most of its mucilage dried on a patio, raised bed, and/or with mechanical dryers).

Terroir describes this coffee as clean, smooth, low-acid, and full flavored. “This cup has a California merlot character emphasizing mellow bass notes. It begins with fleeting floral notes of roses while very hot gradually revealing nutty flavors of walnut and pecan with a trace of
cocoa as the cup cools.”

We found it medium-bodied, and agreed it was smooth and uniform. Two people found it a bit too smooth and called it “boring.” Tasters variously detected hints of hazelnut, cinnamon, and butterscotch. Overall, it was good but lacked distinction, rather solidly like a classic Central American, but without the brightness. The final tally was 2.5 motmots.

Rowster Coffee. Sweet yellow bourbon. Rainforest Alliance certified. Full city roast. Pulped Natural. Rowster describes this as a “Round, noble, sensible cup, with touches of light chocolate, vanilla, carmel sweetness, some orange and cinnamon.”

We found this coffee to be just on the light side of medium-bodied, with a nice, smooth mouthfeel. It had a different sort of sweetness than the Terroir Special Reserve, with a faint hint of black licorice and perhaps chocolate, but it was fleeting. Beyond that, it was slightly generic, once again a very classic feel. 3.25

Sweetwater Organic Coffees. Organic Special Reserve. Rainforest Alliance certified. Same bean as Terroir selection, pulped natural, and also a very light roast.

Sweetwater roaster Chris Neumann once worked with Terroir founder George Howell, and uses similar light roasts. Considering this was also the same bean, we thought these might be very much the same. However, the Sweetwater tasted much better than the Terroir. There was still the same medium-bodied smoothness and slight nuttiness, but this selection had a slightly longer finish and seemed more balanced and refined. It was much sweeter, with several tasters all converging on some combination of subtle flavors that reminded them of rum cake, as well as cocoa notes. One taster thought it was a perfect fall coffee, although once again, one person was not impressed.  It ended up with 3.5 motmots.

Bottom line: These were all nice coffees. Looks like Daterra has worked hard to merit their reputation as environmentally-friendly coffee source, in addition to their dedication to many other unique innovations. If you wish to try cerrado coffees, chose them carefully. Hold them to at least Daterra’s sustainability standards. Personally, I still have reservations about buying coffee from any farm in such an ecologically-sensitive area, no matter how good it is. I’ll continue to look at coffee growing in this region, perhaps even visting my friend in the area, and pass on more information as it comes available.