Posts from — November 2007

It sounds like a Zen koan, but there’s a method behind the madness of the question. People typically associate arabica beans with specialty (i.e., good) coffee and Robusta beans with commodity (i.e., bad) coffee. But the specialty coffee craze of the last twenty years has had an effect on the coffee market, an effect that challenges the usual notions of what good and bad coffee is.

Many coffee consumers wouldn’t be surprised to know that the largest coffee-producing country in the world is Brazil. But what they may not know is that Brazil is also the leading producer of low-grown, “junk” arabica–coffee plants that are grown near sea level in non-volcanic, non-forested soil. The crops are more volatile than Robustas grown in the same soil, but the arabica name commands enough of a higher price that growers find it worth the risk, and employ pesticides and other non-organic methods to preserve the crop. Most if not all the “100% arabica” blends offered by the usual store brands such as Maxwell House, Folger’s, etc. consist of this “junk” arabica. The beans are technically arabica, but the beans were produced without care in bad soil and can’t carry the same flavor notes or terroir of quality, high-grown arabica. You may recall that purines from the soil and sucrose production are responsible for the flavor of coffee, and while arabica is more capable of this production than Robusta, growing it at a low altitude in comparatively dry grassland soil prevents this production. So just because something says “arabica” on the package doesn’t mean you’re getting quality coffee.

Perhaps more surprising is the notion that just because a coffee is Robusta doesn’t automatically mean you’re getting bad coffee. One of the most exciting things to happen in the coffee industry in the past ten years has been the arrival of quality Robusta coffees from India. India started experimenting with high-grown Robustas some time ago, presumably to weather the typical volatility of the specialty coffee market, and the Coffee Board of India has started pushing these Robustas into the market–facing initial resistance right up to the moment they’re tasted.

Probably the best single-origin coffee I have ever cupped that wasn’t a Wallingford Blue Mountain was a 2004 Kaapi Royale from Josuma Coffee, which is a high-grown Robusta. It was an endlessly complex coffee, with intense notes of blueberry and vanilla bean giving way to milk chocolate, then honey, then dark chocolate and rich tobacco, cedar, and cardamom. You could pretty much throw a dart at the entire flavor wheel and hit something this coffee had in spades. It’s hard to sell without holding tastings, however, because the moment someone reads “Robusta” on the bag they’ll naturally wonder why you’re selling them “cheap” coffee. Once they taste a true quality Robusta, however, their minds always change.

Quality Robustas are hard to find; many shops won’t carry them because of the expense and the name’s negative connotations. I’ve seen several shops carry it as a kind of “back-door” thing where you have to specially ask for it, as if you were in a speakeasy. But if you can find a shop that carries an Indian Robusta, give it a try. You’ll almost certainly be surprised.

If you’re perfectionistic about your coffee–and why wouldn’t you be?–UK competitive barista champ Jim Hoffman gives a great tip about using digital scales to figure out how to create partial preparations of your French press or cone coffee maker without having to dig around the cabinets for a measuring cup.

Speaking for myself, I like my coffee to be as hot as possible, and the time it takes to find a measuring cup, as well as the room-temperature of the glass itself, can lower your waiting hot water by several degrees (one of these days soon I need to do an experiment to find out exactly how much heat is lost in the process). Plus, my French press at home is pretty big and I don’t always want a full serving. Using a cheap digital scale to measure out the water while preparing not only saves time, but preserves your water heat.

So if you typically make coffee at home using a French press or cone filter maker like a Chemex, consider Jim’s tip. Also check out his blog, as he not only has great things to say about coffee, but he posts some knockout photography.

(Image via the linked article at jimsevens.com.)

I’ve said before that you should never, ever refrigerate or freeze your coffee beans during storage, but Coffee Geek’s latest podcast raises the intriguing question: what about freezing green coffees before roasting?

It’s quite common for green coffees, after having been picked and processed, to sit in warehouses for up to 18 months before being sold to a roaster. Green coffee is fairly sensitive to climate and humidity changes, so if you’re a roaster buying an end-of-season bag, the quality of the coffee will often be noticeably different–particularly if the moisture level has been allowed to fluctuate.

Coffee Geek writer Mark Prince talks about freezing green coffees to stabilize the moisture level. It’s geared more towards the home roaster who buys only a few pounds of green coffee at a time, since freezing a warehouse full of 300lb. jute bags would prove a daunting task. Still, the science of it is something that no one has looked at much before, which is one of the greatest things about this industry–there’s always something new to try, something that invites investigation. Mark talks a little about the science and provides some interesting anecdotes. Check it out, especially if you roast your own.