sweet maria’s roasted

Roast Coffee Pairings #3: Africanized: Taste the Future.
Wet-process coffees from Africa can be surprisingly different: Kenyas are over-the-top acidic, while Rwandas have clean and balanced flavor profiles. The Burundi Kayanza Bwayi No.7 lot is quite similar to the latter: it is sweet, faultless, and has the beautiful aroma you might find in Rwandan Bourbon coffees. Ugandas are something quite different; generally available as large, homogenized lots, Ugandas have a rustic fruity sweetness. I happened to find this large lot (Uganda Organic Bugisu) with really nice lemony cup character, a rarity in Uganda. For this pairing, I thought it would be interesting to look at these two, very different lots side-by-side to compare the cup flavors, and to see a bit of the future. Within the next few years I think we will see micro-regional Uganda offerings, as we have this year for the first time from Burundi, and as we did beginning several years ago from Rwanda. While these are both wet-processed coffees, roasted to the same City+ level (424 f bean temp measure on Probat roaster), they are quite different. The Uganda is a nice cup, and more typical of East African coffees. It’s a little funky, has heavier body, fruit and a slight herbal quality. The Burundi really shows the potential of East Africa; it’s a bourbon cultivar (like much of Rwanda coffee) and a very dense bean. It has zero defects (the Uganda had some under-ripes, some quakers, which we manually removed to some degree), and a refined cup. It reminds me more of a wet-process Central than an African coffee, with clean crisp brightness, raisin fruit note, lighter body. I wouldn’t score one of these higher than the other because in their own right, each cup is excellent. But the Uganda tastes more like a dry-process coffee with it’s definite fruitiness, and the Burundi is a very well prepared wet-process from a great varietal. – Tom

I was looking at Google Earth and pondering the relationship between the excellent coffees of Northern Peru and the odd absence of Ecuadorean coffee in the United States. We have a really nice lot from Ecuador now, the Puyamgo Loja, so things are changing indeed; but the potential of Ecuador coffee, at least in terms of small lots from particular regions, has not been fully developed. From the north of Peru, we have the Peru FTO San Ignacio Cajamarca region coffee. Geographically these coffees are not that far from each other, and are grown in similar terrain. But the differences in flavor offer 2 interesting interpretations of an Andean coffee appellation.  The Peru has a wonderful candy-like sweetness when kept in the City+ range and that’s what we were shooting for here, final roast times were around the 14:30 minute mark with final thermoprobe temperatures right around 427 degrees.  The Ecuador is a more balanced cup at City+ with a wide range of flavors harmoniously working together to satisfy–again we went for City+ with roast times in the 14-15 minute range and final thermoprobe temperatures of 428 degrees.  Checking back two days after roasting I am very impressed with the Ecuador lot we just brewed up here in the warehouse.  Yesterday on barely 24 hours rest the cup was a little bitter, and not quite as developed as it is today.  As I take my last sip I can taste the wonderful combination of bright alto notes and the nice body that makes this a really great “drinking” coffee.  What do you mean, all coffee is for drinking isn’t it?  Well, yes, however some origins excel at producing great mild coffees that have the right touch of both sweetness and heft.  Hope you enjoy two great lots from  these Andean neighbors, we already new Peru could produce stellar lots to rival pricey Colombian coffees, now we must recognize the potential for Ecuador to join the party!