Chapter 4

WHAT TO ROAST

Choosing Green Beans

Every green coffee holds in its vegetable heart a slightly different collection of secrets. One of the pleasures of roasting at home is becoming acquainted with those intimacies in a far more direct and active way than by simply tasting someone else’s roasted coffees.

Of course you may not care about the subtle differences among beans, only the general result: cheaper and fresher coffee. If so, you might simply buy a few pounds of green Colombia, Kenya, or Sumatra, skip to here, and start roasting. Suggestions for obtaining green coffee beans and roasting paraphernalia can be found in “Resources.”

Eventually, however, you may want to begin exploring the full range of taste distinctions among the world’s fine coffees. You can explore a single great coffee in a variety of roast styles, for example. Or you can develop a sort of cellar of green coffees from which you can choose at your own and your guests’ whims. Finally, you can experiment with composing personal blends in a far more thoroughgoing way than you can by relying on the already roasted coffees of others.

Green-Coffee Basics

The world’s coffees are many and their differences complex. What follows is a general orientation to selecting green coffees. For more detail, consult my Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing & Enjoying and Philippe Jobin’s The Coffees Produced Throughout the World. See “Resources” for additional specialized books on coffee.

Keep in mind that the ultimate test of a coffee is not its name, or its grade, or any of the rest of the muttering that we attach to things, but rather its taste. If you try it and like it, then it’s a good coffee. And if you don’t like it, then you should be prepared to ignore all of the pontificating that tries to convince you otherwise.

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An illustration from Jean La Roque’s Voyage de l’Arabie Heureuse (Voyage to Arabia Felix), 1716. Coffee trees of the arabica varieties grown in Yemen, or historical Arabia Felix, do have a sparse, sturdy look like this one. Other arabica varieties may tend toward a fuller, droopier profile.

Narrowing the Field: Species and Market Category

Given the bewildering variety of the world’s coffees, it is probably just as well that we can dismiss some categories at the outset.

First, our considerations can be narrowed on the basis of species. Botanists now recognize approximately one hundred species of coffee plant, but only one, Coffea arabica, is the source of all of the world’s most celebrated coffees.

The coffee species second in importance in world coffee trade is Coffea robusta, or Coffea canephora, as it is known to botanists. Robusta grows at lower altitudes than arabica and is more disease resistant. Robustas, as coffees from the robusta tree are called commercially, generally lack the acidity and complexity of the best arabica coffees, although they often display a satisfyingly heavy body. They are used mainly as unnamed constituents of the cheaper coffee blends that line the aisles of supermarkets and fill the carafes of cost-conscious restaurants and corporate lunchrooms. Their only importance in the world of fine coffees occurs in relation to espresso. Small quantities of better-quality robustas are often used to give body and sweetness to espresso blends.

A second candidate for dismissal is coffee from arabica trees grown at relatively low altitudes in Brazil. Known in the trade as Brazils, these coffees are stripped from the trees rather than selectively picked, and handled carelessly. Together with robustas they contribute to the preponderance of the coffees used in packaged preground and soluble coffee blends. Similar low-quality arabicas grown in countries other than Brazil are sometimes called hard coffees. They compete with Brazils in price.

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Another famous illustration from La Roque’s Voyage de l’Arabie Heureuse, showing a coffee-tree branch of the arabica species with budding flowers at the top, modulating to fully opened flowers near the middle of the branch, to unripe and ripe fruit clustered together near the bottom. Although this illustration may stretch the point somewhat, flowers, unripe fruit, and ripe fruit typically do inhabit the same branch simultaneously.

Other, better coffees are also grown in Brazil. These, together with all of the other better arabica coffees of the world, fall into the third great market classification, variously called milds or high-grown milds.

It is the many coffees making up this third category that we turn to now. These are the fancy coffees of the world, which appear in the bins and bags of specialty-coffee stores, and these are what you will be buying and roasting.

The Tortuous Question of Coffee Names

Before launching into a quick circumnavigation of the world of mild or fancy coffees, a word (actually quite a few words) about coffee names is in order.

Fancy or specialty coffees are sold in two forms: blends, mixtures of coffees from more than one crop or region, and unblended coffees from a single crop and region (often called single-origin or varietal coffees). Unblended coffees are of most interest to home roasters because they facilitate knowledge (you know what you’re roasting), adventure (they often taste intriguingly different), and control (once you get a feel for various individual coffees you can begin to assemble your own blends).

Most unblended or single-origin coffees are labeled on the lists of exporters and importers by country of origin, by market name, and by grade. Grade often includes references to processing methods and occasionally to growing conditions, like altitude. An increasing number of coffees may be identified also (or alternatively) by the name of the estate or cooperative where they were grown and (occasionally) by their botanical variety. Let’s look at each of these naming categories in order.

Country of Origin

This designator (Kenya, Colombia, and so on) is easy to understand. It is the one descriptive term that always appears on store labels and coffee bags. However, countries are large, coffees in any given country are many, and market forces complex. Hence the various names and categories that follow.

Mysterious Market Names

A market name is a traditional identifier that appears on burlap coffee bags and on exporters’ and importers’ lists. Most market names originated in the nineteenth century or even earlier. They derive from a variety of sources. Most refer to region (Guatemalan Antigua or Mexican Oaxaca,), a few to a port through which the coffee is traditionally shipped (Brazilian Santos) or even to a port through which the coffee once was shipped but isn’t anymore (Yemeni Mocha: Mocha is a Red Sea port that hasn’t shipped coffee for more than a century).

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This illustration hints at the beauty of coffee trees in flower: The white blossoms with their delicate, jasminelike abandon contrast strikingly with the shiny, dark-green leaves.

However, market names ultimately describe a coffee, not a place. Market names carry specific associations that include not only growing regions, but certain taste characteristics. Some market names are more famous than the country of origin. Hawaiian Kona coffee is typically known by its market name, Kona, not by its country of origin, United States, or even by its state of origin, Hawaii.

Layers of Grade Names

Coffee is also sold by grade (Kenyan AA, Colombian Supremo, and so on). Grade names can be based on evaluative criteria ranging from how big the bean is to how high the coffee is grown, to how good it tastes (cup quality). Grading criteria are usually established by coffee bureaucracies in the growing nations in an effort to discipline growers and encourage quality. Grading also provides sellers and buyers with a framework for describing and negotiating their transactions. In general, the grading process tends to focus more on externals, like how many sticks or defective beans a coffee harbors, than on subjective criteria, like taste.

Bulking coffee in large generic lots according to grade traditionally has been a way for coffee bureaucracies of growing countries to maintain centralized control over the coffee enterprise. However, as more and more growing countries join the current global trend toward deregulation and allow individual growers and grower associations to cut their own deals with buyers, the importance of grading for the fancy-coffee business may be waning. In one growing country after another, the discipline of regulation as embodied in grading standards is being replaced or supplemented by the discipline of the market as embodied in competition among individual growers and grower associations for the attention of roasters and buyers in consuming countries.

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Selective picking is crucial to quality coffee, since ripe and unripe fruit typically inhabit the same branches, and the unripe will spoil the ripe if both are allowed to commingle after picking. Machines that literally vibrate the ripe fruit off the tree are now in use in some parts of the world, but most coffee still is picked by skillful workers like this woman, whose hands deftly move down the branches, plucking the ripe fruit and allowing it to drop into the basket at her waist.

Nevertheless, grade names remain an important element of coffee nomenclature. The more informative coffee store may identify a coffee by country (Guatemala), by market name (Antigua), and finally by grade (Strictly Hard Bean). As a rule, however, stores qualify the country name of a bulk coffee with only one adjective, either grade or market name.

One particularly confusing grading term that often appears in importer and store literature is peaberry. The peaberry (caracolillo in Spanish) is a single oval bean that sometimes appears inside the coffee fruit in place of the usual two flat-sided beans. Peaberries may be mixed in with the normal beans, or separated and sold as a distinct grade of a given coffee. Peaberries generally embody the characteristics of a coffee with somewhat greater intensity than normal beans from the same crop.

For home roasters peaberries present a special advantage: They tend to roast more uniformly owing to their regular shape. In particular, roasters who use a stove-top roaster or corn popper will find that the rounded shape of peaberries makes them easier to agitate than normal beans with their motion-resistant flat side.

The Wet and the Dry: Processing Method and Grade Names

The coffee bean is actually a seed of a small fruit that coffee people call a cherry. How the fruit is removed from the bean and how the bean is dried are steps collectively known as processing. Since processing is one of the most important influences on coffee quality and taste it is no wonder that names for various processing methods figure so largely in grading and other descriptions of green coffees.

In the wet method the various layers of skin and fruit around the bean are stripped off gently and gradually, layer by layer, before the bean is dried. Such wet-processed or washed coffees tend to be more consistent, cleaner, and brighter, or more acidy in taste than dry-processed, natural, or unwashed coffees, which are dried with the coffee fruit still adhered to the bean. The dried fruit is subsequently removed from the dry beans, customarily by machine. Dry-processed coffees are generally more idiosyncratic in flavor, fruitier in taste, and heavier in body than wet-processed coffees.

Semidry or pulped natural coffees are a sort of compromise. The skin of the fruit is removed immediately after picking, but the flesh or pulp is allowed to dry on the bean. The dried pulp is later stripped off by machine. This method, developed in Brazil and now widely used there, has produced some exceptional and very distinctive coffees, with the clarity of wet processing but the fruity and floral notes we associate with dry processing.

See here for an illustrated review of these three main processing methods. Understanding the differences among the three methods is only a starting point. A staggering array of subtle variations can be played on the wet method in particular. Fruit pulp may be loosened by natural fermentation before being washed off the beans in channels of water (the traditional ferment-and-wash approach), or the fruit pulp may be stripped off the fruit by machine without the fermentation step (mechanical demucilaging or aquapulping).

Furthermore, additional clean water may be added to the beans during the fermentation step, a procedure called wet fermentation. Alternatively, the beans can be left to ferment in their own pulp with no added water, which is called dry fermentation. All Kenyan and Ethiopian washed coffees are wet fermented, whereas most Guatemalan coffees are dry fermented. Or coffees can be fermented and then washed, but not completely, so that some fruit residue still clings to the bean during drying, which typically contributes slight fermented or musty notes to the cup. This is the case with Sumatran Mandheling and other traditionally processed Indonesian coffees.

How coffees are dried also may affect flavor and quality. As a rule, sun-dried coffees are considered preferable to machine-dried coffees, although here again various compromises and combinations and nuances complicate the picture. Beans may be partly dried by the sun and partly by machine. Coffees dried by machine at somewhat lower temperatures are more desirable than those dried at higher temperatures. Handling during drying is also important. Sun-dried coffees that have been protected from nighttime moisture during drying may be favored over sun-dried coffees that have been left unprotected at night, for example.

Growing Conditions and Grade Names

Finally, the altitude at which coffee is grown figures in many grade names. Arabica coffee beans grown at higher altitudes typically mature more slowly than beans grown at lower altitudes, and the resulting denser bean may display more acidity and sometimes more complexity in the cup. As with most coffee generalizations, however, this one entertains many exceptions. Certainly growing altitude is only one aspect of many that influence coffee quality and flavor. In Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America it figures in various grade names, ranging from the explicit high grown to the less explicit altura (height or altitude), a grading term in Mexico, and Strictly Hard Bean, a name for the highest grades of coffee in Guatemala and Costa Rica (the higher the altitude, the denser or “harder” the bean).

Estate and Cooperative Names

As the specialty-coffee trade matures, closer relationships are being established between individual growers and buyers. These direct relationships mean that a specific coffee often no longer needs to be combined or “bulked” with other coffees from the same region in large lots to reach roasters and their customers.

Owners of quality-conscious coffee farms enlist the aid of their colleagues in consumer countries to establish estate identities for their coffees. Estates also may be called fincas (in Spanish-speaking Latin America), plantations, or simply farms. These estates, fincas, or farms may be large establishments that remove the fruit from the bean and dry the coffee at their own facilities, or occasionally smaller enterprises that process their coffee through cooperatively run facilities but maintain control of their product. In either case, estates sell their coffees directly to dealers without mixing them with other coffees from the same region, in theory ensuring that these coffees reflect consistent growing conditions and processing practices.

A similar consistency is achieved by some cooperatives of smaller growers who market their coffees separately like estates through special arrangements with coffee dealers or roasting establishments. These designated cooperative coffees often support environmental and/or social agendas.

Occasional confusion and chicanery have developed around the estate concept, just as they have around other areas of coffee marketing. The sheer number of growers the currently scrambling to cash in on the estate idea has created confusion. Some estates may depend more on hype than on quality. Others may coast on a reputation that their coffees no longer merit.

Fortunately, however, well-established estate coffees are seldom counterfeited. Well-established estate coffees are handled by dealers and roasters who have too much pride and reputation at stake to play games with their customers. What have been counterfeited are high-priced regional origins like Hawaiian Kona and Jamaican Blue Mountain, where the path to market is more complex and harder to track than is the case with coffees from a single farm or mill.


STAGES OF WET-PROCESSING COFFEE

The various steps in removing the skin and fruit from the coffee bean or seed are collectively called processing. Here, in cross section, are the main stages of traditional wet processing, the most common and also the most elaborate method of processing used for fancy coffee.

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1. Ripe coffee fruit
The coffee fruit is protected by pulp and several layers of skin. In wet processing, these layers are removed one by one.

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2. Pulping and fermentation
The first stage of processing is called pulping. Immediately after the beans are picked, the outer skin of the fruit is slipped off by machine, exposing the sweet, sticky pulp. The pulp is then removed by fermentation: The fruit is held in open tanks, permitting enzymes and then bacteria naturally present in the fruit to literally consume much of the pulp from the beans. The remainder of the pulp is easily washed away.

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3. Drying in parchment
The beans, now separated and pulp-free but still in their parchment and silver skin, are dried, usually in the sun on open terraces but sometimes in machines. At this point the coffee is said to be in parchment.

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4. Hulling
Finally the parchment and silver skin, both now dry and brittle, are crumbled off the beans by machine, a stage called hulling. Fragments of the silver skin still adhere to the bean, however. These tiny, paperlike flakes float away from the beans during roasting, constituting the often troublesome chaff. In some cases the grower removes the chaff by subjecting the coffee to a last tumbling called polishing.

OTHER PROCESSING METHODS

Dry method. In this process the entire fruit is dried immediately after picking. The shriveled skins and pulp are then abraded from the beans in a single final step.

Semidry method. As in the wet method, the outer skin is first removed by machine. But the middle step in the wet method, fermentation, is skipped. Instead the beans are dried with pulp, parchment, and silver skin all still attached. These three layers later are removed by machine.

Processing influences both flavor and appearance. Wet-processed coffees are regular in appearance and typically display clean, consistent taste and aroma and bright acidity. Dry-processed and semi-dry coffees may have more broken beans, and may exhibit more idiosyncratic, often more complex flavor profiles because the beans were dried while in contact with the fruit.


Names for Certified and Other Coffees

Closer, person-to-person relationships between growers in producing countries and roasters and dealers in consuming countries have led to the development of various programs and niche-marketed coffees that attempt to blunt the destruction that a relentlessly price-driven agricultural commodity like coffee tends to inflict on the earth and people of regions where it is grown. In effect, these programs ask the consumer to pay a bit more for a coffee to support social and/or environmental agendas. Some of these “cause” coffees are certified by international agencies to have fulfilled certain specified health, environmental, or socioeconomic criteria. Others are not certified but represent long-term partnerships or relationships between roasters and growers.

Here are some certification programs:

Certified Organic Coffees. This certification assures the buyer that the coffee has been grown, transported, stored, and roasted without the use of manufactured or processed chemicals.

Certified Shade-Grown or “Bird Friendly” Coffees. Coffees that are both organically grown as well as grown in mixed-species shade may merit an additional Bird Friendly certification from The Smithsonian Institution’s Migratory Bird Center.

The issue of shade growing in coffee is complex and contentious. Coffees roughly can be divided into four categories in regard to shade. True shade-grown coffees are interplanted among a variety of other trees and crops. Such mixed-species farms tend to look like miniature forests in which the coffee trees form a scraggly middle tier. However, the majority of the world’s fine arabica coffees are grown in managed shade, a parklike arrangement wherein the coffee trees grow under a canopy of carefully tended single-species shade trees. A third category is made up of coffees that are grown without shade but in traditional, relatively benign environmental conditions. These include coffees grown in regions with heavy cloud cover, for example (Jamaican Blue Mountain), or in semiarid regions (Yemen), or in cooler regions relatively far from the equator (most Brazilian and Hawaiian coffees)—all situations that make shade growing impractical. Finally, there is the true bête noir of environmentalists, technified coffees, which are grown like corn in full sun in often vast, otherwise barren fields. At this point there are very few fully technified coffee farms in the world, but if the price of coffee continues to decline we undoubtedly will see more of them.

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An assortment of marks of the kind that appear on coffee bags, which ultimately are the origin of many of the terms used in importers’ lists and coffee-store signs and brochures. The majority of the marks in this illustration, from the early twentieth century, are Colombian. Typically they display the name or initials of the exporter, the market name (Medellin, Armenia), and the grade name (Excelso). There are also marks from Sumatra (market name Mandheling), from Ethiopia (Djimah, Longberry Harrar), Venezuela (Mérida), and several from Brazil (Santos). In two cases the marks refer to botanical variety: the desirable “bourbons” or beans produced by trees of the bourbon variety.

Environmentalists support the first category of coffees, those grown in multispecies shade, because the often dense canopy of trees and other plants creates an environment that shelters migrating birds and other wildlife and reduces erosion and dependence on chemical fertilizers. The issue is most relevant in regard to Central American coffees, because many of these coffees have been traditionally grown in multispecies shade and historically have provided key shelter for migrating birds.

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A nineteenth-century engraving of a Latin American coffee warehouse. It would appear to offer perfect conditions for storing green coffee: dark, as cool as the tropics permit, and presumably dry. In case you can’t tell, the boss is the one counting the bags.

Certified Fair-Trade Coffees. Fair-trade coffees are produced by democratically run cooperatives whose members have been guaranteed a “fair” price for their coffees based on an internationally determined formula. Some of the extra money paid by coffee lovers for fair-trade coffees is used to promote the fair-trade principle in consuming countries, but most of the premium reaches the farmers directly. Almost all fair-trade coffees are also certified organically grown and many are shade grown. Therefore, buying a fair-trade coffee is probably the concerned coffee drinker’s most impeccably progressive choice.

Certified Eco-OK Coffees. The Rainforest Alliance’s Eco-OK seal certifies that inspectors have found that qualifying coffee farms and mills meet a wide variety of environmental criteria, including wildlife diversity, nonpolluting practices, and responsible and limited use of agrochemicals, as well as social and economic criteria that support the welfare of farmers and workers.

“Sustainable” Coffees. Various parties within the Specialty Coffee Association of America are attempting to come up with a big-tent, inclusive definition of sustainability that will combine criteria for environmental as well as social and economic sustainability. However, at this writing no certification program has been developed that reflects this goal, although conceivably there could be such a program in the future.

Partnership or Relationship Coffees. Roasting companies and coffee cooperatives frequently form partnerships, in which a fixed percentage of the retail price of a coffee is returned directly to the cooperative or village that produces the coffee. Other roasting companies may contribute to Coffee Kids, a development organization that sponsors projects in Latin American growing regions.

“Cause” Coffees and the Connoisseur

What are the trade-offs for a home roaster who wishes to support progressive environmental and socioeconomic programs by buying only certified and “cause” coffees?

Their main drawback is the limited number of options they currently offer to the aficionado. At this writing, most certified organic and fair-trade coffees come from Latin America, particularly Peru, Mexico, and Central America. Even from these regions, the choice is limited, and many of the world’s most celebrated coffee-growing regions are not represented by any certification program whatsoever. To give only two examples: Kenyan coffees are almost entirely produced by cooperatives of small-holding peasant growers, yet no Kenyan coffees are certified fair-trade. Chemicals of any kind are virtually unheard of in the Harrar region of Ethiopia and in Yemen, yet virtually no coffees from those regions are certified organic.

Given that rather significant caveat, there are many fine fair-trade and certified organic coffees available at this writing. The best Nicaraguan and Peruvian coffees I cupped from the 2001–2002 crop year were certified organic and fair-trade, for example. But, for now, it is difficult for home roasters interested in fully exploring the world of coffee in its drama, range, and complexity to roast exclusively certified coffees.

Names for Botanical Varieties

All fine coffees derive from the arabica species, but not all coffees derive from the same botanical variety of that species. Think about the differences among apples: Golden Delicious versus McIntosh, for example: or wine grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon versus Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc versus Chardonnay. There is little doubt that botanical variety is one of the main influences (along with climate, soil, altitude, and processing) on the taste characteristics of coffee. (Botanists often distinguish between cultivars or cultivated varieties of a species versus naturally occurring varieties, or between varieties and strains, groups of individuals within a variety that share common characteristics. Coffee professionals who are not botanists generally apply the term variety to all three: variety, cultivar, and strain. I use the term with the same inclusiveness here.)

The fine-coffee world is only beginning to market coffee by variety (or cultivar, or strain). At most we may learn that an estate’s coffee trees are Bourbon and Typica, or Caturra and Catuai. Often we have no idea whatsoever which arabica varieties produced the fruit that produced the coffee we are drinking.

Variety is a source of conflict in the coffee world. The connoisseurs and traditionalists raise the banner of what they call “old” arabica varieties, while some scientists, coffee growers, and government officials defend the usefulness of new arabicas.

“Old” or Selected Varieties. In fact, the old varieties are often not that old, but they are spontaneous. Nature itself with its inscrutable processes caused these mutants to appear suddenly on someone’s coffee farm at some point in the past, and human intervention was confined to merely taking advantage of that gift by preserving its seed through selection. Some of the most famous of traditional selected arabica varieties are the Moka (or Mocha) of Ethiopia and Yemen; Typica and Bourbon, which until recently dominated the coffee fields of Latin America; the Blue Mountain of the Caribbean; and Sumatra from Indonesia. The most striking of these spontaneous mutants is Maragogipe, a variety with very large beans (but low yields per tree) that appeared in about 1870 in Brazil.

Newer selected varieties include Mundo Novo (1920), Caturra (1935), and Catuai. Caturra has been planted widely in Latin America because of its compact growth and high yield. Although Caturra typically produces a rather simple, straightforward cup, Catuai often produces a more complex and complete cup than more traditional varieties like Typica.

“New” or Hybrid Varieties. The real source of the conflict between coffee snobs and coffee scientists is new (really new) arabica varieties that have been developed deliberately through cross-breeding programs. Some hybrids, like the famous SL28 cultivar widely planted in East Africa, are celebrated for their fine cup character. However, Colombia, Brazil, India, and Kenya have developed new disease-resistant or higher-bearing varieties that often introduce elements of other coffee species—usually robusta—into their genetic makeup.

The controversy is taste. Many coffee buyers claim that these concocted varieties may pay off for the farmer by producing more coffee at less risk of crop loss, but only at the cost of cup quality. Officials responsible for the cross-breeding programs tend to disagree, of course, arguing that the ecological and economic benefits of the new varieties outweigh any slight loss on the drinking end of things.

The most infamous of hybrids that include a bit of robusta in their parentage is Catimor, which most definitely produces a flatter, simpler cup than traditional varieties. However, the cup difference between traditional varieties and the newer, more sophisticated hybrids developed in places like India and Colombia is much less extreme and may be undetectable.

A final note: Even more disturbing for traditionalists than varieties produced by traditional cross-breeding is the prospect of coffee varieties that have been genetically engineered. Researchers at a private laboratory in Hawaii, for example are well along in developing a tree that will produce beans naturally free of caffeine, together with another variety whose fruit will ripen all at the same time, simplifying picking. It remains to be seen when and if either coffee will actually be approved for use. John Stiles, the main researcher responsible for the development of the Hawaiian caffeine-free coffee, argues that all he has done is to reverse one gene that is responsible for producing caffeine and that all of the remaining genetic material, including the genes that determine cup quality, will remain unaffected by this single alteration. If a coffee genetically engineered to be caffeine free does appear, I am sure we will hear about it and will have an opportunity to make our own judgment about the cup quality and character issue. Although, as usual, controversies about environmental impact doubtless will be decided for us.

The Ultimate Challenge: Adding Roast Names

Keep in mind that style of roast also can figure in the names that appear on store labels and signs. Most straight, unblended coffees are offered in whatever roast style the roasting company considers “regular” or normal. However, if an unblended coffee is offered in a style darker or lighter than the company’s assumed norm, the name of the coffee and the roast style both may appear: Sumatran Mandheling Dark Roast, for example. Thus theoretically it might be possible to see a coffee designated Costa Rica (country), Tarrazú (market name), La Minita (estate), Washed (process), Strictly Hard Bean (grade), French Roast, although such lengthy and informative labeling is seldom seen for fear customers may nod off before buying the coffee, thus reducing sales.

Circumnavigating the Coffee Globe

To make the most of the quick tour around the coffee globe that follows make sure you understand the key tasting terms defined in Chapter 3, particularly acidity (the dry, bright sensation produced by a coffee brought to a medium roast), body (the sensation of weight and thickness imparted by a coffee), and regional or varietal distinction (the principal taste characteristics that distinguish one coffee from another at a medium to moderately dark roast).

CLASSIC COFFEES: LATIN AMERICA AND HAWAII

At their best, the classic coffees of Latin America and Hawaii manifest full body, bright acidity, and a clean, straightforward cup. They provide what for a North American is a normative good coffee experience.

The most admired of these coffees are balanced yet powerful: strong in all respects, from the rich vibrancy of the acidity through their full body and complex flavor. As a rule they are grown at high altitudes, although climatic conditions like latitude, cloud cover, and consistent moisture can mimic the effect of higher altitudes and produce a similar flavor profile.

Other classic coffees may be grown at lower altitudes or in conditions that encourage a softer, sweeter taste, with a lighter, brisker acidity rather than the powerful, vibrant acidity of the “bigger” classic coffees.

The classic Latin American/Hawaiian taste is based in part on the brightness and clarity of flavor achieved through wet processing. Almost all fine Latin American and Hawaiian coffees are washed or wet-processed, the exceptions being the better dry-processed and semidry-processed coffees of Brazil.

THE BIG CLASSICS

Generally, fine Costa Rican, Guatemalan, and Colombian coffees are “big” coffees: full-bodied, with a bracing, rich acidity.

The best Guatemalan coffees generally display a bit more intrigue and complexity than their Costa Rican counterparts, which are known for their powerful, bell-like clarity. This difference may be owing to botanical variety; most Costa Rican coffee derives from the newer Caturra variety of the arabica species while Guatemalan growers for the most part appear to have stuck with the traditional Typica and Bourbon cultivars.

Colombian coffees remain remarkably consistent, in part owing to the strong leadership of the Colombia Coffee Federation, a countrywide cooperative of tens of thousands of small coffee growers that supports one of the world’s most sophisticated coffee research operations, the world’s leading social and economic support system for growers, and (until recently) the world’s most successful coffee marketing program, featuring Juan Valdez and his ubiquitous donkey. The massive and efficient apparatus of the federation assures buyers of a coffee that is typically clean tasting and free of defects, with an acidity ranging from austerely powerful to sweetly fruity, and a body ranging from medium to full. This generic Colombia typically is sold by grade only, either as Supremo (largest beans) or Excelso (somewhat smaller beans). Despite the impressive consistency of these coffees, specific lots may differ in character and quality, depending on the taste and skill of the green-coffee dealer who buys and sells them.

Other Colombia coffees are traded by private exporters and produced either by private mills or through the federation’s specialty coffee program. These coffees, unlike the generic Supremo and Excelso grades, bear market names associated with the region, district, or mill that produces them. These Colombias work subtle variations on the cup character of the generic federation coffees, displaying cup character that may range from grandly acidy to softly fruity. Some estates or exporters may specify botanical variety in their promotional literature. Bourbon and Typica are the traditional and most prestigious Colombian varieties.

THE CARIBBEAN CLASSICS

The finest Caribbean coffees (best coffees of Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and coastal Venezuela) are also powerful but generally lower-toned, with their acidity held inside a deep, sweet, long-finishing richness.

The best Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is an intense but rounded, big, richly balanced example of the classic Caribbean taste. Unfortunately, this famous cup is difficult to turn up, as shortcut processing methods and dilution of higher-grown with lower-grown coffee has transformed most lots of standard Jamaican Blue Mountain to a rather ordinary Caribbean coffee, hardly worth prices that are triple to quadruple what one would pay for a fine coffee from another origin. However, individual lots of Jamaican Blue Mountain may display the expansive character that made this coffee famous. Some private-estate coffees, notably Old Tavern Estate and RSW Estates, typically offer a much better chance of finding a fine old-time–style Jamaican Blue Mountain than standard bulked or mill-designated versions. The most recent samples of Old Tavern Estate I cupped were extraordinary: rich, deep, sweet, and roundly full-bodied. However, at this writing the famous Wallensford Estate name is largely meaningless, since it now simply describes coffee from a mill that produces coffees similar to those produced by other government mills.

Do not pay high prices for coffees labeled “Jamaican Blue Mountain Style” or “Jamaican Blue Mountain Blend,” by the way. The former will have no Blue Mountain in it whatsoever, and the latter will have very little.

A combination of relatively high labor costs and high local consumption has turned Puerto Rico from coffee exporter to importer during recent decades. Some fine Puerto Rican coffees can be found in mainland United States, however. The most notable in recent years is that marketed under the name Clou du Mont. The best estate Puerto Rican coffees embody the classic Caribbean cup at its finest: sweet, full-bodied, round, resonant.

Excellent to outstanding Caribbean-style coffees also are produced in the Dominican Republic (often marketed as Santo Domingo) and coastal Venezuela. Haitian coffee can be a fine version of the Caribbean mode, but it is often shadowed by musty and hard taints owing to processing or drying faults.

THE GENTLE CLASSICS

Good Panamanian, El Salvadoran, Honduran, Nicaraguan, Peruvian, and Mexican coffees generally are lively rather than overpowering in acidity and rounded in flavor. Their natural sweetness makes them excellent darker roasts for espresso drinks. Their gentler acidity also makes them attractive coffees for those who like to drink their coffee black and unsweetened. They may range in body from round and almost sugary sweet (the best Perus); to full-bodied and rich (the best Nicaraguas), to light, sweet, and buoyant (Salvadors). Some may display gentle fruit and floral tones, especially fine Panamas.

THE HAWAIIAN CLASSICS

In the big picture Hawaiian coffees may be somewhat overpriced and perhaps a bit overpublicized. However, the best estate Hawaiian Konas are often powerful, richly acidy representatives of the classic taste, while generic Konas typically resemble the gentler Latin American classics, sweet, gently acidy, medium-bodied, with muted fruit and floral notes. The same warning regarding “style” and “blend” given earlier in regard to Jamaican coffees applies to Kona.

Premium coffees from the other Hawaiian islands are all lower-grown, gentler coffees in the classic styles and are often excellent. The most distinctive are the wet-processed Malulani Estate and the dry-processed Molokai Muleskinner from the Coffees of Hawaii estate on the island of Molokai, both of which display interesting variations on a flavor complex that can read as anything from spice through chocolate and pipe tobacco. Coffees sold by botanical variety from Kauai Coffee on the island of Kauai (particularly the Catuai varieties) often produce fine and intriguing, if understated, cups.

One of the great advantages of Hawaiian coffee for the aficionado is its accessibility. Growers are beginning to lavish the same attention on Hawaii coffee as vintners did a couple of decades ago on California wines. It has become relatively easy to visit the farms, and proprietors increasingly provide plentiful and detailed information on their coffees, including botanical variety and processing details. But remember, the ultimate proof is in the cup, not in the design of the four-color brochure.

THE BRAZILIAN CLASSICS

Brazil produces enormous quantities of coffee using a daunting variety of processing methods and botanical varieties. At this point, I think it is safe to divide Brazil coffees into three broad categories.

First, commercial coffees, which include cheap, mass-produced arabica coffees that are strip-picked and dried on vast patios, plus the smaller quantities of robusta species coffee grown in Brazil. Home roasters can feel safe in dismissing these coffees from their repertoires and cellars.

Second, the best Santos-style commercially traded coffees. These coffees, usually described in the trade as Santos 2/3, good to fine cup, have been picked and dry processed with more care than the lower grades of Brazilian coffees and are extraordinarily useful for the home roaster who is interested in blending, particularly for espresso. They are usually medium- to full-bodied, sweet, round, but heartier than similar wet-processed coffees from other coffee origins.

Finally, the true Brazilian specialty coffees, sold by estate name and by processing method, which can range from wet-processed or washed coffees that are light, bright, and gentle, to dry-processed or natural coffees that are rounder and fuller, to the often extraordinary semi–dry-processed or pulped natural coffees, which may glisten with subtle fruit and floral notes riding a delicate sweetness. As elsewhere in Latin America, trees of the traditional Bourbon variety produce the most sought-after and usually most complex lots of coffee, but other selected varieties like Mundo Novo and Catuai also can produce an outstanding cup.

ROMANCE COFFEES I: EAST AFRICA AND YEMEN

The coffees of Africa, Asia, and the Malay Archipelago (Indonesia, Timor, and Papua New Guinea) provide an array of romantic alternatives to the classic coffees of Latin America and Hawaii.

East Africa, together with Yemen, just across the Red Sea from Africa, produces some of the world’s most distinctive coffees, characterized by vividly exciting floral, fruit, and wine tones and rich acidity. This fundamental East African profile can range from berry-toned and wild in dry-processed Ethiopian Harrar and Yemeni Mocha, to cleanly floral- and citrus-toned in wet-processed Ethiopian coffees like Sidamo and Yirgacheffe, to dry and winelike in Kenya. Similar wine and fruit notes enliven excellent arabica coffees from Zimbabwe and Uganda. The exceptions are washed or wet-processed coffees from Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda and Malawi, which tend to be soft, full, rounded, and gently understated.

Probably the best place for home roasters to begin in their exploration of East African coffees is Kenya. The state-of-the-art Kenyan coffee industry produces a plentiful yet superb product that is relatively easy to obtain green. Kenya is a powerful example of the East African taste: intense in its dry, burgundylike acidity, medium-bodied but rich, with occasional berry tones.

Ethiopia, the original home of Coffea arabica, produces the most varied range of coffee taste experience of any country—or indeed any region—in the world.

After sampling a Kenya, I would try a sample of dry-processed Ethiopian Harrar. At this writing, the Harrar region is producing what may be the world’s most distinguished and distinctive coffees, often dominated by intense blueberry notes exploding from a rich, complex cup alive with sweet, fruity acidity. Following that, perhaps an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. In this impeccably wet-processed coffee the powerful dry fruit and wine notes of most East African coffees lift off and become buoyantly, often startlingly, floral and exhilaratingly lemony. Other southern Ethiopian washed or wet-processed coffees (Limu and washed Sidamo) offer somewhat less distinctive versions of the Yirgacheffe cup profile.

Among softer, fuller East African profiles I recommend starting with a Zambian estate coffee. As with Caribbean coffees, the pleasure here is in the sweetness and soft but resonant depth, with an occasional bonus of muted berry notes.

A last note of clarification: There are many variant spellings in English of Ethiopian and Yemeni names. Mocha may also appear as Moca, Mocca, or Moka; Harrar as Harer, Harar, or Harari; Jimma as Djimah or Jima; Gimbi as Ghimbi; Yirgacheffe as Yrgacheffe.

ROMANCE COFFEES II: INDIA, INDONESIA, NEW GUINEA

Coffees of the arabica species grown in a crescent stretching from southwestern India across the Indian Ocean and on through Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Java to New Guinea offer two kinds of romance.

The first is the intrigue of richness; heavy, resonant body; and idiosyncratic flavor notes. This character, owing in part to unorthodox processing and drying methods, reaches its peak in the traditional, peasant-processed coffees of Indonesia, Timor, and Papua New Guinea. The other version of Asian-Pacific coffee romance is the medium-bodied, sweet, occasionally brightly fruity, and floral wet-processed coffees of India, northern Sumatra, Java, and Papua New Guinea.

Processing and Asian-Pacific Coffees. There may be a wider variety of coffee-processing method in the India–Indonesia–New Guinea crescent than anywhere else in the world. Understanding the differences created by these processing methods is essential to getting what you want when you buy these coffees.

Almost every part of the Asian-Pacific region offers the option of coffees that have been simply processed by small growers and other coffees that have been classically wet-processed by large mills.

The small-holder–processed coffees, whether from Sumatra (Mandheling, Lintong), Sulawesi/Celebes (Toraja, Kalossi), East Timor, or Papua New Guinea (Y-Grade), share certain broad characteristics: heavy body, low-key acidity, and odd, unpredictable flavor notes that can range from repulsive (strong mildew or mustiness) to attractive (winey fruit, leather, sweet pipe tobacco, sweet earth). Although these small-holder coffees have been processed by a simple variant of the wet method, exporters typically describe them as “naturals” or “unwashed” to distinguish them from the standard, orthodox, wet-processed coffees from the same regions.

These standard wet-processed coffees have been prepared in large mills similar to mills in regions like Kenya and southern Ethiopia and tend to be medium-bodied, often with lovely floral and high-toned fruit tones and an acidity that can range from powerful and rich (Papua New Guinean estate coffees) to expansive and gentle (Indian washed coffees), with the washed or wet-processed coffees of northern Sumatra and Java falling somewhere between.

The confusion comes when a neophyte home roaster buys a Sumatra, for example, expecting the deep, rich tones of the traditional small-holder coffee he tasted at his local specialty store, and instead gets a wet-processed Sumatra from the big Gayo Mountain mill, with its lighter body and cleaner, brighter acidity.

Finally, to complicate the processing picture, some coffees from this region are subject to additional procedures after processing that further influence their cup character. Indian dry-processed coffees may be monsooned, a process whereby coffees are deliberately exposed to moisture-bearing winds, while some traditionally processed Indonesian coffees may be deliberately aged (See here).

Buying Traditionally Processed Asian-Pacific Coffees. Where to start? Undoubtedly with a good, traditionally processed Sumatra or Sulawesi. These are the single-malt scotches of the coffee world—rich, complex, and full of deep, surprising, ambiguous flavor notes.

After having been the private pleasure of aficionados for years, the great coffees of Sumatra have been discovered by a larger clientele and have risen in price. New Sumatran coffees have entered the market that are wet-processed and fail to display the resonant idiosyncrasies of the traditionally processed Sumatras. Nevertheless, it is possible to find good Sumatran coffee (generally marked Lintong or Mandheling) at a reasonable price.

Even more surprising and challenging in flavor are traditionally processed Sulawesis marked as Toraja or Kalossi, which often display what some call the taste of the forest floor: earth, leaf mold, and mushroom notes.

Until the disruption of its coffee industry by its recent struggle for independence from Indonesia, East Timor produced some exceptional coffees in the traditional richly low-toned, Sumatra/Sulawesi mode, though usually a bit less idiosyncratic in flavor. Hopefully these coffees again will find their way to market.

Finally, the peasant coffees of Papua New Guinea offer still another, often intriguingly fruity, variant on the traditionally processed style of Pacific cup. These coffees are marketed either as Papua New Guinea Y-Grade or as organic cooperative coffees, and are quite different in cup character from the better-known estate washed coffees (usually AA Grade) of Papua New Guinea.

Buying Washed or Wet-Processed Asian-Pacific Coffees. The Java arabica coffee industry was wiped out by leaf-rust disease in the late nineteenth century and replaced by plantings of robusta, but the Indonesian government helped revive the tradition of fine arabica coffee in Java. These revival Javan coffees are marketed as Java Estate or Java Estate Arabica. They are medium-bodied, wet-processed coffees, ranging from rather ordinary and simple to sweetly round to high-toned, complex, and floral.

Most wet-processed Sumatran coffees available in the United States come from the Gayo Mountain mill in Aceh province. These Gayo Mountain washed coffees can be pleasantly round and mid-toned but probably will disappoint those expecting the full-throated richness of a traditionally processed Sumatra.

Papua New Guinea washed coffees are perhaps the most distinguished of wet-processed South Pacific coffees, and in some years rank with the world’s finest. At best they display an echoingly resonant full body, bright acidity, and a complex high-toned intrigue that includes both floral and citrus (often grapefruit) tones.

Indian wet-processed coffees tend to be medium in body, with a sweet, low-key acidity and, at best, floral and fruit tones. The very best and rarest India estate coffees can be as fine as any in the world, with grace notes that range from Kenyalike wine to floral tones reminiscent of Ethiopian washed coffees to odd, striking spice notes that I have tasted nowhere else in the world.

ROMANCE COFFEES III: AGED AND MONSOONED COFFEES

Aged and monsooned coffees constitute still another exotic possibility for the home roaster.

If green coffee is stored in relatively cool, dry conditions, it maintains its flavor rather well. As it ages, acidity slowly decreases and body increases. Thus a given coffee drunk as new crop (first year after harvest) generally will taste brighter, slightly more acidy, and slightly lighter in body than the same coffee consumed as past or old crop (a year or more past picking and processing). However, if coffees are held in hot, humid conditions, they often fade (lose their flavor and character) or become baggy (vaguely mildewed and ropy tasting) within a few months to a year after harvest. But, unlike such old-crop coffees, aged coffees are held for at least two years, often longer, before release and roasting.

There are two kinds of aged coffees: those aged inadvertently (allowed to sit in the corner of some warehouse because, for whatever reason, the owner failed to sell them) and those aged deliberately. Few inadvertently aged coffees come to market, but there is a lively business in the deliberate aging of Sumatran (and occasionally Sulawesian) coffees. The coffees, almost always traditionally processed, are purchased by exporters and held for periods ranging from two to as many as five years in special warehouses in Singapore, well ventilated and out of direct rain or sun, with the bags periodically rotated to even out exposure to moisture.

The very best aged coffees display heavy body and pronounced sweetness, yet preserve just enough acidity to add intrigue to the heaviness. Most aged coffees also develop mild musty notes, producing a sort of spicy mildew taste that can range from unpleasantly flat and sharp to pleasingly malty and hearty. Aged coffees relatively free of musty notes can be quite attractive as a single origin, and even those that display rough, musty notes can be invaluable in blending, where they add richness, power, and body to espresso and other dark-roast blends.

A taste profile somewhat similar to that of aged coffees is achieved in considerably less time by Indian exporters who monsoon their coffees. This exotic process involves holding dry-processed coffee in special warehouses open to moist monsoon winds. In a few weeks the beans yellow, swell up in size, and transform in taste. Although these big, yellow, smoothly fat monsooned beans are dramatically different in appearance from the shriveled brown beans produced by aging, the two cup profiles are rather similar. Both are heavy on the palate, sweet, with little acidity but with (usually) musty notes that can range from chocolate, malt, or carob to a flat, hard character.

Both aged and monsooned coffees are special tastes. The fondness for them among Europeans probably derives from the Java coffees brought to Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the holds of sailing ships. In the moist darkness of the long passage these coffees sweated and transformed in flavor much like monsooned coffees.

The tradition of such coffees in Europe doubtless accounts for the fact that most aged or specially handled coffees come out of India or Indonesia, regions that provided most of northwestern Europe’s coffee during the eighteenth century. You may occasionally see aged African or Latin American coffees for sale, however.

At any rate, you may want to try an aged and a monsooned coffee, first straight, in order to understand their taste, then perhaps in a blend, where the weight and body of specially handled coffees can be used as a resonant counterpoint to brighter origins.

Buying Aged and Monsooned Coffees. Currently the most widely available specially handled coffee is Indian monsooned Malabar, which usually can be found on one of the Internet sites listed in “Resources.” A bit more persistence is required to turn up aged coffees, but they, too, usually can be sourced via the Internet.

Home roasters who live in relatively warm, moist climates have the interesting option of pursuing their own experiments with aging coffees (See here).

Blending: An Overview

The goal of blending is simple: to achieve a more complete, complex, and pleasing coffee experience than can be gotten from brewing one coffee alone.

Blending can be a very subtle procedure. Some roasters blend new-crop and old-crop beans of the same coffee to obtain a fuller, more balanced version of that particular coffee’s taste than could be obtained by roasting either new- or old-crop beans alone. In this case the goal is to make a certain coffee taste more like itself, to fulfill its inner potential, as it were.

Most often, however, the goal is to create an entirely new taste. For example, the world’s oldest and most famous blend, Mocha-Java, combines one-third acidy, fruity Yemeni Mocha with two-thirds deeper-toned Java. The Yemeni Mocha enlivens the Java while the Java balances and enriches the Mocha. A new taste is created.

In still other circumstances the goal may be to produce a coffee appropriate to certain culturally defined tastes. Italians in Milan like a subtle, sweet, yet lively espresso. Italian-Americans in San Francisco’s North Beach prefer a rougher, more bitter, pungent style. Thus, North Beach espressos are roasted darker than Milan espressos, and the blend of constituent beans is different as well. Most North Beach espresso blends combine rich, acidy coffees with a base of softer Mexican or Brazilian coffees. Most Milan blends are mainly arabicas with soft profiles, like Brazilian Santos, combined with high-quality robustas for sweetness and body, but with no sharp, acidy coffees whatsoever. In these cases the definition of “good coffee” in the respective cultures determines the goal of the blending project.

Yet, no matter what the goal of blending, the fundamental approach is the same: putting together coffees that fill in weaknesses without obscuring strengths.

BLENDING BY ROLE

The best way to begin blending is by understanding the basic roles that various categories of coffee can play in a blend. To facilitate that understanding, here is a list dividing some well-known coffees into categories according to the qualities they potentially contribute.

Category 1: Big Classic Coffees. These coffees contribute body, powerful acidity, and classic flavor and aroma to a blend. They may make too strong a statement for use as a base for blends but are excellent for strengthening and energizing coffees with softer profiles.

Guatemala: Antigua, Cobán, Huehuetenango, other high-grown Guatemalan coffees

Costa Rica: Tarrazú, Tres Rios, other high-grown Costa Rican coffees

Colombia

Category 2: Softer Classic Coffees. These are “good blenders”; they establish a solid, unobtrusive base for a blend and contribute body and acidity without competing with more individualistic coffees. When brought to a darker roast they often confer a satisfying sweetness and pleasing chocolate notes, making them favorites for espresso blends.

Mexico: Oaxaca, Coatepec, Chiapas, Tapachula

Dominican Republic (also called Santo Domingo)

Peru: Chanchamayo

Brazil: Santos

Panama

El Salvador

Nicaragua

India: wet-processed or washed arabica coffees

Category 3: Highlight and Exotic Coffees. Their often powerful fruit- and winelike acidity makes these coffees a distracting base for a blend but exciting contributors.

Ethiopia: Harrar (This wild-tasting, complex, dry-processed coffee can contribute sweetness, fruit and berry notes, and rich acidity.)

Yemen: Mocha (similar to Harrar but typically less intense)

Ethiopia: wet-processed coffees (Yirgacheffe and Sidamo add extraordinary high-toned floral and citrus notes that survive even into a dark roast.)

Kenya (adds powerful acidity and fruit, berry, and wine notes)

Zimbabwe (same as Kenya but less intense)

Uganda: Bugishu (same as Kenya but less intense)

Papua New Guinea: AA, A, X (add powerful acidity and complex citrus notes)

Category 4: Base-Note Coffees. These add richness and body to a blend, and combine well with other coffees. Their deep-toned acidity will anchor and add resonance to the lighter, brisker coffees of category 2, and balance without blunting coffees in categories 1 and 3. Don’t be put off by their occasional mildly mildewed, fermented, or earthy notes. These qualities may not please in a single-origin coffee but can contribute to a blend.

Sumatra: Mandheling, Lintong, and Aceh “natural” or traditionally processed

Sulawesi (also called Celebes)

Papua New Guinea: organic and Y grade

Timor

India: monsooned Malabar

Any aged coffee

Category 5: Robustas. Robusta, coffee from trees of the robusta or Coffea canephora species, is the notorious villain of the coffee world. It should be. The problem with robusta is twofold: the character of the coffee itself and the contemptuous way that coffee is treated once it is off the tree.

As for treatment, most robusta is strip picked and dried in piles, fruit and all, which means it often ends up both badly fermented (tastes like compost, owing to the rotting fruit) and badly musty (tastes like mildewed shoes, owing to molds that attack the half-rotting fruit).

There are, however, robustas that are both carefully picked and meticulously wet processed. These washed robustas (the best are from India) allow us to taste the essence of robusta coffee itself, free of foul tastes gotten from careless mass processing and drying.

So how does pure, clean robusta taste? Essentially, bland (no acidity and little nuance), neutral, vaguely sweet, slightly bitter, and very, very grainlike. In other words, washed robustas taste more like a coffee substitute made from nuts and grains than like coffee.

In that case, why are they included here? Because, in small percentages, say 10 to 15 percent, they add body, richness, and depth to espresso blends.

Definitely avoid dry-processed robustas, particularly Vietnamese robustas. At this writing they are almost universally foul-tasting. However, if you are blending for espresso, you may want to experiment with washed or wet-processed robustas. (Indian washed or Parchment robustas are best, Mexican washed robustas are a little sharper but still useful.)

COMPOSING YOUR PERSONAL BLENDS

There are two ways to approach blending: by system and by improvisation.

One systematic approach would be to start with a base coffee from category 2, roast and drink it long enough to really know it, then experiment with adding other coffees to it—a highlight coffee, a base coffee, etc.—keeping notes as you go along. Another approach might be to choose a coffee from each of the four categories, combine them in equal proportions, and then substitute one at a time from coffees of the same category until you achieve a combination that pleases you.

Or you can start the way professional cuppers do, by cup blending. Roast several coffees, say two from each of the four categories, then brew them all and let them sit on a table as they cool to room temperature and combine them in varying proportions, using a spoon. One spoonful of this, another of that, and so on, experimenting with various combinations until you have arrived at a formula that pleases you. Then roast the coffees that made up your preferred cup blend, combine them in the proportions that pleased you, brew up a pot, see how well you did, and adjust from there.

Although most blends are composed of coffees brought to roughly similar degrees of roast, you also can experiment blending coffees brought to dramatically different roast levels. A good way to start is by roasting the same coffee to two very different degrees—to a medium roast and to a dark, for example—then blend the two in varying proportions. If you enjoy the result, try varying the identity of the two coffees, then add a third, then perhaps a fourth. Go easy with extreme dark roasts in blends, however. Sometimes a very dark-roasted coffee simply sits on the rest of the coffees in a blend, turning them all simple and bitter.

As for blending by improvisation, no instruction is needed. Buy coffees from two or three of the categories noted above and combine them as moment and mood suggest. It probably still is a good idea to use one or two familiar coffees as a consistent base for your caprice, however.

BLENDING FOR ESPRESSO

When blending for espresso cuisine the first question to consider is how you and your guests take your espresso. If you tend to drink it without milk and with very little sugar, you should avoid the big, acidy coffees in categories 1 and 3, and rely mainly on coffees in categories 2 and 4. Italian blenders prefer a base of Brazilian Santos, whereas West Coast Americans typically rely on Mexican and Peruvian coffees. As I indicated earlier, some blenders like to use small quantities of high-quality, wet-processed robustas to smooth out and add body and richness to their straight-shot espresso blends.

On the other hand, if you drink your espresso with a good deal of hot milk and/or sugar, you may prefer a more pungent blend with some bitterness to balance the sweetness. On a base of Brazil, Peru, or Mexico, try adding a coffee or two from categories 1 and 3. Ethiopian Harrar or Yirgacheffe and New Guinean AA are particularly effective at adding complexity and energy to espresso blends. Then add a base coffee or two for milk-mastering power: Sumatra Mandheling or Lintong, for example, Papua New Guinea Y-Grade, monsooned Malabar, or an aged coffee. Finally, you may want to add a small quantity of wet-processed robusta to add even more body to your blend.

Of course how darkly you roast your espresso blend and what method you use to roast it also profoundly affects flavor. See Chapters 3 and 5.

Decaffeinated Coffees

Coffees are decaffeinated in their green state. Three principal processes are used today in specialty coffees to remove caffeine: the traditional or European process, the water-only or Swiss-water process, and the CO2 process. All are consistently successful in removing all but a trace (2 to 3 percent) of the resident caffeine.

The European or Solvent Process. There are two variants of the solvent method. The direct solvent process opens the pores of the beans by steaming them and applies the solvent directly to the beans before removing both solvent and caffeine by further steaming. The indirect solvent process first removes virtually everything, including the caffeine, from the beans by soaking them in hot water, then separates the beans and water and strips the caffeine from the flavor-laden water by means of the caffeine-attracting solvent. The solvent-laden caffeine is then skimmed from the surface of the water, and the water, now free of both caffeine and solvent, is reunited with the beans, which soak up the flavor components again.

The Swiss Water or Water-Only Process. In this commercially successful process there are two phases. In the first, start-up phase, green beans are soaked in hot water, which removes both flavor components and caffeine from the beans. This first, start-up batch of beans is then discarded, while the caffeine is stripped from the water by means of activated charcoal filters, leaving the flavor components behind in the water and producing what the Swiss water-process people call “flavor-charged water”—water with the flavor but without the caffeine. This special water becomes the medium for the decaffeination of subsequent batches of green beans.

When soaked in the flavor-charged but caffeine-free water, new batches of beans give up their caffeine but not their flavor components, which remain more or less intact in the bean. Apparently the water is so charged with flavor components that it can absorb no more of them, whereas it can absorb the villainous caffeine.

Having thus been deprived of their caffeine but not their flavor components, the beans are then dried and sold, while the flavor-charged water is cleaned of its caffeine by another run through charcoal filters and sent back to decaffeinate another batch of beans.

The CO2 Process. In the CO2 method, the green beans are bathed in highly compressed carbon dioxide (CO2), the same naturally occurring substance that plants consume and human beings produce. In its compressed form the carbon dioxide behaves partly like a gas and partly like a liquid, and has the ability to combine selectively with caffeine. The caffeine is stripped from the CO2 by means of activated charcoal filters.

CHOOSING COFFEE BY DECAFFEINATION METHOD

If you are concerned only about health issues, I suggest that you buy the decaffeinated coffee that tastes good to you, regardless of process. Given the temperature at which all currently used solvents evaporate, it does not appear likely that enough of the chemical could possibly survive the roasting and brewing processes to be anything more than the tiniest pea under the health-conscious consumer’s mattress.

If, however, you are concerned about the environment, there may be some reason to avoid coffees decaffeinated by methods using methylene chloride, which has been plausibly accused of attacking the ozone layer. Choose instead coffees decaffeinated by the Swiss water method, by solvent methods using ethyl acetate, or by CO2 processes. Coffees decaffeinated by the Swiss water method are usually (though not always) so labeled. Signs and labels typically identify CO2-decaffeinated coffees as well. When no decaffeination method is indicated, a good guess is that the coffee has been decaffeinated by a method involving use of a solvent.

DECAFFEINATION AND FLAVOR

However powerfully it may affect our nervous systems, caffeine has very little effect on flavor. Isolated, it is a bitter, almost tasteless white powder. Coffee without it should taste virtually the same as coffee with it.

Nevertheless, soaking green coffee beans in hot liquid and drying them out again is not a gentle process. It definitely affects the flavor of the abused beans. Affects how much? Depending on how careful the decaffeination process and how attentive the subsequent roasting, from a little to a lot.

If you buy decaffeinated beans to roast at home you may notice that they are no longer the common gray-green to blue-green color of unroasted coffee, but instead range from a rather sallow yellow to a light brown. This color change is due to the soaking and drying to which the beans have been subjected during decaffeination.

The result for roasting purposes is delicate beans that roast much less predictably than untreated beans. The combination of the loss of some flavor agents in the soaking process with the difficulty in roasting accounts for the fact that decaffeinated coffees purchased in the store may not taste as consistently good as coffee from untreated beans.

The main message for the home roaster is to buy green decaffeinated beans from a reliable source, and roast them carefully. See Chapter 5 (here) and the instructions following that chapter for suggestions on handling decaffeinated coffees.

You might also consider making blends of decaffeinated and untreated coffees. The untreated beans bolster the taste of the decaffeinated beans, yet still limit the amount of caffeine. Remember, however, that you may need to roast the decaffeinated beans in a separate session before blending, since they typically reach the same degree of roast 15 to 25 percent faster than untreated beans.

DECAFFEINATION METHOD AND FLAVOR

Which decaffeination method influences coffee flavor least?

My experience suggests that the Swiss water process tends to develop body while muting acidity and high notes, whereas the European, or solvent, process tends to preserve acidity, nuance, and high notes but may reduce body and dimension. As for coffees processed using the CO2 method, I have tasted some excellent samples but not enough of them to generalize.

Your Own Coffee Cellar

For food romantics, coffee cellar has a fine ring to it. It resonates with the same combined pleasure of connoisseurship and security that motivates people to keep piles of dusty wine bottles piled deep in the hearts of their houses.

Correct storage for green coffees is cool but not cold, dark, dry, and, above all, well ventilated. Rather than cellar, think pantry. The storage cupboards in the kitchens of older houses, the kind that allow air to circulate among the shelves, represent an ideal environment in which to store green coffee.

Good, high-grown green coffees (Central American, Colombian, East African) kept in such conditions will change very little over two or three years. For the first year or so they will round and sweeten in flavor, then become fuller in body but gradually lose brightness and acidity.

Lower-grown, gentler coffees may change in flavor rather drastically. Brazilian Santos, for example, may begin to lose acidity as soon as six months after harvest and after a year or so often develops an additional flat, mildewy taste professional cuppers call baggy.

Coffees that arrive dark green or brown in color and high in moisture (particular Sumatras and Sulawesis) are also likely to develop mildewed or musty notes when stored for any length of time. For some, this heavy, malty flavor is attractive; others will not like it.

SETTING UP A COFFEE CELLAR

In what kind of container should you store your coffee? Plastic bags are fine for short-term storage, but if you plan to hold a coffee for more than a month or two you should transfer it to something porous. Cloth is doubtless best, but corrugated cardboard boxes probably work as well.

Burlap bags of the kind used to construct temporary levees during periods of flood are ideal for storing coffee at home. They are sold empty; they are a convenient size (not trivially small yet still luggable when full); and they include sewn-in drawstring closures. You can find them in obscure industrial parts of cities; look in the Yellow Pages under “Bags.” Buy the cloth bags, not the plastic.

Green coffee is a living entity; it needs to breathe. Elevate the boxes or bags on a pallet or similar arrangement that allows air to circulate beneath them. Every few months shift the containers around. Turn them over, and if they are in a pile, shift the bottom containers toward the top of the pile and bring the top ones down, much as you would rotate tires on a car.

Fortunately for those of us who are weary of restaurants gotten up as tacky imitations of wine cellars, there is no symbolic architecture associated with storing coffee beyond a simple warehouse filled with burlap coffee bags piled on pallets. So when it comes to the interior design aspects of your coffee cellar (or coffee pantry), you are on your own.

Aging Coffee at Home

For the flavor impact of storing coffee, see the preceding pages. To achieve the more dramatic effect gotten by deliberate aging as it is practiced in Singapore, you need a warm, humid climate. Those in the tropics may want to store some coffee in cloth bags in the carport, rotate the bags occasionally, and taste the result after a year or two. The goal here is lots of humidity but no direct contact with rain or moist concrete, which should net you a coffee with little acidity, heavy body, and varying degrees of a leathery, roughly musty flavor.