Archive – Coffee of the Week

This is a nice solid Rwandan coffee. As is typical of this origin it isn’t outrageous in any way, just a nice solid every morning coffee. Karenge is a region in eastern Rwanda. Coffee Villages is the name of the milling station where the raw coffee beans are processed. These are often named after the nearest town, but in this case that name was taken.

I am particularly fond of Rwandan coffees. They are fairly predictable, and have both a solid balance of qualities and enough difference to distinguish them. This Karenge is typical, in that it has a lot of solid coffee taste, while having enough brightness not to be in any way dull. You may notice some citrus fruit flavor here. This is definitely not an acidic coffee. Rwandas may not often be sensational, but they definitely grow on you. While I am definitely a fan of the other more outspoken East African origins, in particular, Ethiopia and Yemen, some of my very favorites, all time, have been Rwandans.

This is a middle of the road Indonesian in the cup, not too earthy and not as bright as some of the newer coffees coming out of this origin.

While brighter than the Cameroon Mifi Longberry which I ordered at the same time, this is also a sweet and bodied coffee with emphasized notes of coffee, nuts, and dark sugar. One of the terms that Sweet Maria’s uses to describe this coffee is “coffee-like”. Again, another venture into finding a mild, balanced coffee without particular extremes. And I will have more to say when it arrives and I can roast a sample.

This is definitely a nutty coffee, at the same time fairly bright. I would not call it fruity or floral in any way. Hazelnuts come to mind. Quite distinctly sweet.

They grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, as has been drummed into our psyches since at least the 50s. But most of it isn’t all that good.

Most Brazilian coffee is grown at low altitudes, which results in low density beans, which equate with not so exceptional tasting coffee. Think Maxwell House and CocaCola! But they grow so much coffee in Brazil and some portion of it at heights that there’s some pretty good coffee available from this origin.

Fazenda do Sertao is the name of the farm and roughly translates to ‘backwoods farm’ It’s decent sized, approximately 600 acres, and coffee from different parts of the farm is segregated into separate small lots. This lot would not be thought of as a super cup. Coffee cuppers rate coffees on a 100-point scale. To be considered specialty coffee, the designation used for high quality coffees, a coffee has to score at minimum in the mid 80s. Sweet Maria’s cuppers have rated this coffee at 84.8, which is firmly in the low end of the range. So why are they selling it and why am I offering it?

The rating system for coffee is designed to facilitate the buying of large quantities of coffee, tons, really, and to avoid coffee with noticeable defects. Essentially any coffee scoring in the specialty range is pretty good stuff.

The rating system is also so constructed to favor coffees with lighter flavor elements predominant. This means Kenyas and Central Americans have an inherent advantage when scored. This is fine if you tend to like the more aromatic and necessarily acidic coffees. But it means darker toned coffees, Indonesians and certain American coffees will always score lower. The more rustic Ethiopians, and Yemenis tend not to score very high, though mostly because they often are formally defective, though the “defects” in this case are really what make these coffees particularly desirable.

This coffee has prominent body and predominant nut and cocoa flavors. Very different from a highly floral, fruity Ethiopian, and not really to be compared on an equal basis. The two are really distinctly different drinks. You’ll likely find you have a preference for one or the other type, or that you enjoy the variation.

Photo by Steve Wilson. License CC BY 2.0

The resulting coffee is a good example of a Dry Processed (DP) Ethiopian, fruity and aromatic, with the complexity typically found in dry processed coffees compared to their wet process counterparts. DPs, in my experience, tend to be a bit more complex than their washed counterparts, and have a relatively muted brightness or acidity. But origin is a significant factor in both brightness and aroma, with Africans and some Central Americans tending to be both brighter and more fruity and floral than South Asian (India and Indonesian) and the typical South American coffee.

This Aricha is definitely one of those coffees with knock-your-socks-off potential!

Photo: MTC Group on flickr. License CC-BY-2.0