sweet maria’s roasted

Raisin coffee is a term for dry-processing, where the coffee is allowed to dry (partially or wholy) on the tree, before it is picked. It is only possible in a few coffee growing areas where the weather changes dramatically, where the dry season starts when the coffee is ripe on the tree. In the past, picking dried coffee from the tree was reserved for the end of the season, when all coffee cherries, ripe or not, dried or not, are “strip-picked” off the branches indiscriminately. This is called the Repela, or Rebusca in some places, the final harvest, and the quality of this coffee is very low. But a true Raisin coffee is picked with care, choosing only uniformily “tree-dried” cherries that have a raisin-like brown appearance. The cherries are then carefully sorted to remove defect or under-ripe coffee. A true Raisin coffee takes a lot of work. We have two lots from Brazil, one that is a special project on a designated plot of a larger fazenda, the Brazil Moreninha Formosa Raisin Coffee Microlot. The other is from a very large coffee farming operation, not a micro-lot at all: Brazil Ipanema Tree-Dry Process. The fruity flavors associated with tree-dry coffee, from the longer contact the fruit and skin has with the coffee seed inside, is much more apparent in the Moreninha, but both feature heavy body, low acidity, chocolate roast taste, and a very pleasurable tasting experience.  As for the roast level, I really tried to push the Ipanema right up to the Full City+ level with a few snaps of second crack heard as the beans hit the cooling tray, this ended up being nearly 450 degrees by thermoprobe.  For the Moreninha I wanted to ensure that the fruitiness was still evident so I ended those batches safely in the Full City range at 445 degrees.  Since I was roasting slightly smaller batches than normal the roast times were right around 14 minutes.

We’re having a little bit of fun with this week’s roast pairing and you are only supposed to be reading this post if you’ve already tried both coffees.  Take a guess as to what origin you think these two coffees are from.  Both were roasted to the same level, somewhere between City+ and FC.  In coffee #1 you should notice a nice brightness in this very clean, lively cup.  There is also a lovely floral quality and great medium body out of this Wet Processed lot.  Do you know what it is?  Answer: Sulawesi AA Wet-Process Toarco.  That’s right this is a Sulawesi coffee with as much in common with a Guatemala flavor profile as other Sulawesi coffees.  Which brings us to coffee #2.  Here we have a much more robust bodied coffee with earthy qualities that should be much easier to figure out.  Can you tell where it is from?  Answer: Sulawesi Enrekang “Mt. Alla”.   We were really trying to fool you all in to thinking that the Toarco was from a different region because it is the most radically different Sulawesi we’ve ever found.  There is a striking difference between the Wet-Process that is done with the Toarco, and the Wet-Hulling that is done with the “Mt. Alla”.  The former creates a very clean, brilliant cup while the latter leads to a more brooding, rustic cup.  Hopefully you enjoy having two such different coffees from the same spot on Earth, please let us know on the RoastBlog what you think of this mystery roast idea.  It is a good way to challenge your coffee knowledge and encourages a greater understanding of how processing plays such a key role in the cup results.