two surprises

i know. shut up.

through one of those quirky twists of fate, i was uber fortunate enough to have been the accidental recipient of two very different but very cool coffees. long story about the winding road of the u.s. postal service, taiwanese characters and confused identities. suffice it to say that the two coffees, one a 20% kona blend supposedly designed for espresso and the other a very cinnamon-ey ethiopia idido misty valley, were both right on the money in their respective ways.

a brief word about the two. i didn't formally cup the 20% kona (yet) but i tried it from the overcup pourover at cone filter auto drip grind level and 195F water. very slight agitation and just under a two minute dwell time created a smokey (it was roasted oily dark) but intensely sweet concoction. as in, i was wide eyed at the clarity of sweetness achieved from such a dark roast. was not put through the paces on an espresso machine; but i'd be insanely curious to see those results.

second up was the ethiopia idido misty valley. some quickfire thoughts: unusual coloration of the roast. very light; very uniform; very surprising for what (i assume) is a d.p. coffee. a tribute to fastidious pre and post roast sorting? i cupped a line of six of these in a row and found unrivaled uniformity in every cup. no sign of off or renegade defects in isolated cups. it was radically cool. another stunning thing was the clarity these cups had almost immediately. i typically expect and see clarification coming about a third of the way down the tasting cup as the liquid cools. these were straightaway clear as a bell. and also unusually and delightfully "backward." what i mean is that a typical cupping session might consist of coffees that sweeten as they cool, displaying molasses, honey and the deeper sweetnesses as the temperatures drop. this coffee was sweet from the get go with (i hate to use the tired description of) strawberries, butter/cream and jasmine. only as it cooled did the sweetness tarten out a bit into a faint hint of lemon, lemongrass, cedar or, OR! lime in that sweettart way. lemon is too strong a citrus. lime fits the bill for this much better. this coffee surprised me. the hot water smell was raisins and plums. the break showed that cedar/lemongrass sweet tart streak and the first slurps were mild strawberries and cream. strawberries and cream? it was very buttery/creamy, i say. and even now, thirty minutes after, what a pleasant leave. it still tastes like strawberry shortcake piled with sweet cream. i scored it a 91.

i guess that's what no defects and a light roast put to superior coffee will do for you.

i need more info on this coffee? is this bagersh? is it indeed d.p.? if so, how many fingers were ground down to the nubs to sort this coffee? i applaud simon (the aforementioned taiwanese source) for his tireless efforts at clarity through exhaustive de-defecting. superb job. superbness shows in the cup.

defecting, part two

inspired by actual events, your humble blogger has decided to sort a random pound of coffee for defects, roast the defectless batch against a regular, other batch and cup the results. defects were culled using the scaa's defects poster as a guide.

so far the defect picking has been completed and here are the results. there were 72 defects in all, with the most common (38) defect being partial sours. the second most populous group were chipped, broken or partial beans (17), followed by peaberries (10). the rest comprised an amalgamation of the other cat 2 defects such as partial insect bites (1) and (very) partial black bean (2). the rest were unclear as to which category they neatly fit into, as their defectiveness was minor at best and displayed the markings of at least two defects on the list.

in all, there were no death knell defects to be found in the sample pound and this made me quite pleased. not that i expected to see any from this source whatsoever. only that it confirmed the presence of good beans. using the system for adding the defects, however, gave me a total of 12 full defects, which is 4 more than should be seen for premium grade and seven more than for specialty grade.

if i can get this camera in line with the macro lens i'll try for some up closes of the defects.
i'll also mention that in this randomly sampled pound i did not count beans with silverskin on them, something the scca poster indicates as a sign of immature or unripe beans. i didn't count these as defects because i have a pretty good foundation for believing that this source of beans is not picking immature or unripe beans, and because i rarely have any quakers in my batches of this coffee. i'm not sure what causes the silverskin to stay on--a sign of fermenting/drying practices that need to be tightened? i would venture that it's not a dry mill issue, as the beans are already at their necessary moisture content by that point. and i would assume it's not a pulping issue, as a pulper wouldn't remove silverskin anyway, the beans still being in pergomino. the only solution that seems left is fermentation tank/drying.

i digress. next post should be about the comparison cupping. maybe some defect pics.

ah yes, one more thing. while not on the scaa poster, technically a peaberry is a defect. i counted those ten in my defect total.

can defecting be apolitical?

i'm in one of those weird temporal places just now. i don't know about you, but when i experience a very unusual thing like my trip to guatemala, it's sometimes hard for me to talk about it. i don't know why. maybe it stems from the fact that there's no way to adequately capture (or recapture) what i saw, smelled, heard, said, ate, touched, felt, etc. to try just makes me feel dumb and a little awkward. so, sorry for those of you who have been asking for updates. descriptors like "amazing" and "incredible" are so vapid and overused anyway.

also, i think i've come to a place where i've kind of decided to blog much less. the only reason for that would be that i spend too much time in front of a computer and not enough time living life that way. because i tend to put too much time and effort into my blog posts, rather than the quickfire posts so many other bloggers seem to be able to get away with successfully, i can justify my time spent on it less and less. i'm not going away. just maybe you'll see me much less around here. but we'll see.

anyways, i wanted to toss out an idea into the ether because it's been on my mind a lot lately and rather than chew it over with just me i figured i'd let the three of you who actually read this blog begin to discuss.

the idea is whether there is any such thing as completely defect free coffee? i ask this honestly without a solid opinion. knowing the little i know about growing, harvesting, processing and storing (and even roasting, since i, as a roaster, would categorize an improper roast as a defect of sorts) and what it takes and costs to eliminate defects such as sours, quakers, pest evidence, splitters and the like, and further knowing that even giving a lot one or two or maybe even three passes through the sorting equipment, you'll never be able to get them all out. i like jaime's offhanded comment about ordering the sorting monkeys to get to work de-defecting some greens. i like it because that's exactly what your brain would devolve to--the level of a monkey--if you had to sort defects 24/7. honestly, i don't know how those ladies at the conveyor belts at the mills do it without going postal after about four hours.

so given that, can we ever expect completely defect free coffee? even the coe lots are surely not 100% defect free. harking back to a post i did maybe a year ago about the harrar defect and defectless (or defect-LESS) cupping, i know i could've continued that experiments with even more and more and more sorting (although with the harrar there might be very little, if any, left!).

is there a market for it? is it just too ridiculously cost prohibitive to do? is it even desirable taste wise? could a roaster, for example, market the world's first 100% certified defect free coffee and command a premium? somehow i doubt it.

i could expand the argument, but i've made my point. i expect full participation on this one. let's talk it out and get the discussion going.