Coffee seems like a straightforward topic, at least it did when you bought coffee in a can, dissolved it in hot water, (clenched your jaw) and slogged it down. When I started in coffee, many people still did not know what a roasted coffee bean looked like, let alone the green seed! These days Joe Consumer may have an inkling that there’s more to coffee than it seems. But when a local TV station in the Bay Area (aren’t we supposed to be sophisticated?) had a “coffee expert” guest, the discussion was limited to LatteAn espresso-based beverage with steamed silky milk on top, averaging 190-220 ml with 20 ml espresso, served in a ceramic cup or bowl, or a giant giant paper cup. vs. Mocha. Information about the coffee originIn coffee talk, it refers to a coffee-producing region or country; such as, "I was just at origin." Of course "Origin" for most product we use is not..., where it was grown, by whom, how it was processed, etc. is pretty hard to find at a Starbucks … the names of proprietary beverages and blender drinks dominate the menu.
The discussion in Specialty Coffee
Specialty coffee was a term devised to mean higher levels of green coffee quality than average "industrial coffee" or "commercial coffee". At this point, the term is of... has been how to get people to take coffee seriously… how do we get them to ponder the notion that there is a lot to know about this very complexThe co-presence of many aroma and flavor attributes, with multiple layers. A general impression of a coffee, similar to judgments such as "balanced" or "structured" beverage? The answer has been to make coffee the “new wine”; talk about it like wine, write about it like wine, sell it like wine. I guess the argument was convincing; one company started to sell their roasted and green coffee
Green coffee refers to the processed seed of the coffee tree fruit. Coffee is a flowering shrub that produces fruit. The seeds of the fruit are processed, roasted,... in clear, corked wine bottles! Another deep freezes green coffee to save “vintages” as one would cellar Burgundy.
In a general sense, it is easy to compare coffee to wine. Neither are nutritional necessities, but are integral to our food habits. They are both consumed for pleasure. And the aroma
Aroma refers to sensations perceived by the olfactory bulb and conveyed to the brain; whether through the nose or "retro-nasally": The aromatics of a coffee greatly influence its... and flavors of both have the potential to connect those who imbibe with the lives and fates of people throughout the world, to their culture, their nation, their soil. What we enjoy is a direct result of their care of the plant, precision in processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural..., careful transportation and handling, and diligence in preparationPreparation refers to the dry-milling steps of preparing coffee for export: hulling, grading, classifying, sorting.: Preparation refers to the dry-milling steps of preparing coffee for export: hulling, grading,.... The more we enjoy single-farm coffees from distinct origins, the stronger and clearer that connection might become.
Why make standards? Coffee certainly needs standards to enhance the bond between those who love the drink, and all those whose work makes it possible, standards that are adaptive and suited to our unique trade. No, you can’t certify a good cup of coffee since it could be stale, or even worse, French-roasted! And the process of instituting a neutral “coffee board,” one not related to any trade association or business entity, is a daunting task. But someone has to guarantee the meaning of first-tier coffees when the market refuses to pay a fair price, and corporations are happy to fudge the names of offerings to make them sound single-origin, or Estate-grown.
“Why not let the market determine coffee denominations?”. In our trade, the highest end of specialty coffee, there is a problem with “phony specialty coffee” being offered by brokers and exporters. To an inexperienced cupperOne who cups, or tastes and evaluates, coffee.: A cupper is a person who performs the somewhat formal analysis of coffee quality, called cupping. See the definition of... they seem passable, but the coffee has not been processed to high standards, the cup masks flaws which eventually emerge, the green coffee will not hold up over time. It’s easy to attach “brand names” to coffee lots at a mill that sound like farm names, when in fact the coffee is mixed. Such coffees do not deserve their low market prices.
On the other hand, true single-farm coffees often deserve double their current price! A market based on global competition over undifferenitated commodity lots makes no sense in the specialty community. Visit a coffee farm that has its own mill; you cannot believe the amount of specialized, skilled labor that goes into each pound of green coffee.
In parts of the greater coffee trade that lie a universe apart from our business, there is another need for standards. Ever have an “espresso” from an automated machine at a service station or convenience store? Ever wondered why KonaKona coffee comes from farms along the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii: Kona coffee comes from farms along the Kona Coast on the Big Island... Blend tastes like crud, or if a Mocha-Java has YemenYemen has a coffee culture like no other place, and perhaps some of what we enjoy in this cup is due to their old style of trade...: Technically,... or Java
There are several types of Abyssinia variety coffee, but they are not from Ethiopia but rather Indonesia. Abyssinia 3 = AB3. PJS Cramer, a Dutch plant researcher, introduced this variety... in it? Or that everyone seems to have Antigua and Tarrazu now, but neither region produces that much . How about “JamaicaJamaica coffee can be excellent mild, lush coffee... sometimes. Like Kona and Puerto Rican coffee, it is soft, mild, clean and well balanced when it is good.: Ah... High Mountain?”
What you get without standards is a lot of coffee businesses with a lot of standards, competing on an uneven surface. You have roasters with the highest principles of quality and freshness in a marketplace with crudy old coffee from an unscrupulous business, and both have the exact same name on the bag: two coffees can be called SumatraIndonesians are available as a unique wet-hulled or dry-hulled (washed) coffees. Giling Basah is the name for the wet-hulling process in Bahasa language, and will have more body... MandhelingA trade name used for wet-hulled Sumatra coffees. It is an area and a culture group as well (spelled Mandailing often) but there is not as much coffee... and be of completely different cup character and quality.
But why ape the wine model? Speaking as a well-meaning and imperfect participant in a flawed trade, coffee seems to get things quite backwards. We don’t seem to understand the empirical method well, or working from a set of basic problems toward a systemic solution. We just want results. In this trade, coffee producers, brokers and sellers would love the cache (and price premiums) of selling coffee like wine, but without doing the work. The problem with comparing coffee production to viticulture is that a wine appellation system is the result of decades of history, culture and agronomyScience and study of crops and soils: A branch of agriculture dealing with field-crop production, soil management and physiology of crop plants as its focus. specific to wine. It wasn’t whipped up overnight as an answer to the question “what do consumers want?” It wasn’t the result of marketing.
Defining coffee appellations would not start with the coffee regions, the arabicaArabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the taxonomic species name of the genus responsible for around 75% of the worlds commercial coffee crop.: Arabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the... cultivars, or the altitudes of the farms. All these are important factors in quality coffee, but appellations would need to start with the cup. Why do coffees from different origins taste different? Like wine, it is a combination of history, of traditions in coffee cultivation and processing, of the people and their specific culture, and all the environmental aspects: altitude, soil, and weather. There are many ways to process coffee correctly, there are many opinions on what “correct” means. So start with the cup to determine what those who appreciate coffee, experts and amateurs side-by-side, find unique about each origin. The result will be a rough sketch of the different “signature character” cups that an origin produces. From that, the factors that produce that cup (and the negative actions that mar that cup) can be determined.
Unlike wine, the resulting set of primary “causes” that result in a particular cup character will be quite different from the oenological universe. Yes, cultivars matter, but only as a muted and oftentimes indistinguishable element of the cup. The method of processing, wet-processed or dry-processed, is much more significant. Wet processed coffees are roughly akin to white wines, fermentedAs a defect flavor, a fruit quality in a coffee that is excessively ripe, toward rotten. Fermented flavor can be the result of poor wet-processing, over-ripe cherry, or... without the grape skins, whereas dry-processed coffees are like red wines, fermented in the coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a "berry" but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the... with the skin intact.
Unlike wine, strict geographical standards would not work well with coffee. Coffee is too dependent upon altitude, microregional soil variations, climactic subregions, local soil differences. A coffee can be grown in the geographical center of Tarrazu and have no “typical Tarrazu character”, another can be grown just outside Tarrazu, and be the epitome of the region. Or a coffee can be grown on the perfect plot in Tarrazu, but is planted with Catimor
Ateng is a common name for Catimor coffees widely planted in Sumatra and other Indonesia isles.: Ateng, with several subtypes, is a common name for Catimor coffees widely... (a highly productive hybrid that is actually an arabica–robustaRobusta usually refers to Coffea Robusta, responsible for roughly 25% of the world's commercial coffee. Taxonomy of Robusta is debated: some sources use “Robusta” to refer to any... cross) and have poor cup character. And then there is another confusing problem with the way coffee is currently evaluated: some markers and grading systems are irrelevant! These factors, which seem important in some coffee marketing literature, are fairly irrelevant the cup. The screen size of the coffee, and the resulting grading based on size (SupremoA Colombian coffee grade referring to screen size of 17-18 screen. In the traditional bulk Arabica business, Supremo was the top grade Colombia, with Excelso one step below... vs. ExcelsoA Colombian coffee grade referring to screen size of 15-16. In the traditional bulk Arabica business, Excelso is a step below the large bean Supremo grade, which indicates... in ColombiaColombian coffee is highly marketed and widely available in the US. They have been largely successful at equating the name Colombian Coffee with "Good" Coffee. This is half-true...., AA vs AB in KenyaKenya is the East African powerhouse of the coffee world. Both in the cup, and the way they run their trade, everything is topnotch.: Kenya is the East..., Extra Fancy 19 screen vs. Fancy 18 screen in HawaiiThe Kona district on the big island of Hawaii produces the best coffee from this state - clean, sweet and mild. : Ah, Hawaii... what a nice place....) are differences that make no difference. Why introduce details that don’t matter in the cup, when the ones that do are obscured from the roaster and coffee-drinker?
And the influences upon cup character can not be abstracted and minimized to essential notions like terroir as they are in wine. Coffee is a product of a history; not only in terms of growing and processing, but in terms of brewing and “taste.” It is a double bind, with culture as an influence throughout. There cannot be a universally recognized “good cup” of coffee, and so there cannot be a universally “correct” way to grow and process coffee.
This cuts both ways. I deeply enjoy the traditional natural-dry coffees of BrazilBrazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, "they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil".: Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra..., and I appreciate the newer pulped-natural coffees too. But in the competitive Brazil auction, being a natural coffee is a kiss of death. I don’t believe a single natural coffee, with their unique fruityIn some coffee taster’s lexicon, “fruity” means the coffee is tainted with fruit, and “fruited” means a coffee is graced by positive fruit notes. We don't exactly see... tones and greater overall intensityWe have a simple scale to rate intensity in our coffee reviews, from Mild to Bold. Low intensity does not mean low quality!: We have a simple scale..., has made the finals in the last 4 years. Why would a historically established defining characteristic of a coffee origin be deemed a defectIn coffee, a defect refers to specific preparation problems with the green coffee, or a flavor problem found in the cupping process. Bad seeds in the green coffee..., especially when many coffee cogniscenti love it? The official answer would be that, as the capricious result of coffee processing, and not of the terroir of the coffee is a hypothetical “pure” form, these flavors are taints.
Tom 3-10-04
