Dry = natural. They pick the fruits and lay them out in the sun to dry, then remove the cherry once that process is finished. It leads to some internal fermentation and a profile that’s different from washed coffee. Specifically, some people (like me) describe the natural profile as boozy, but others hate it and describe it as fermenty or vinegary. It’s my favorite processing type hands down because the best ones remind me of fine wine, but it seems to be quite polarizing. One problem is that natural processing is difficult and leaves a lot to chance, so it’s possible to get some really awful ones if the roaster you’re buying from sucks and sells you one of those coffees. I suspect that’s where a lot of the hate is coming from.
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Another thing about naturals (and the types of coffees I drink in general) is that I’m only sipping about 10.5 oz of coffee each day. Would not recommend gulping any of these from a mug, which is what I expect many people are doing. These are more like sipping bourbons.
That’s my reaction to 95% of lawnmower man’s posts in this thread.
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So what does the 2nd one mean? Mixed of dried on tree and pulped
Pulped = semi-washed = wet-hulled
Those are all generally the same term, and it means that the outer skin of the cherry is peeled off leaving the mucilage/pulp in place over the green bean.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen tree-dried before, but it’s explained here and story checks out:
https://library.sweetmarias.com/glossary/tree-dry-natural/
I don’t order many Brazilians which is probably why I haven’t noticed it before. So it sounds like this particular coffee is left on the tree longer to partially dry and then pulped or wet-hulled. I’ll explain why I think they might be doing this, but first you need to know two things:
(1) Traditional dry / natural processing is labor intensive.
(2) Traditional wet / washed processing uses a ton of water.
I’m inclined to think they are using partial tree-drying to reduce labor, and then pulping (semi-washing) it because it requires less water. That would at least make sense to me. Again, I don’t order many Brazilians. When I see the term wet-hulled I immediately associate it with Indonesian coffee, and it can have a negative connotation in that regard since some people think it produces funky flavors.
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I haven’t tried a lot of anaerobics but I haven’t yet had one that I really liked.
a couple of recent ones:
https://manhattancoffeeroasters.com/catalog/coffee/diego-bermudez
Pretty decent, a lot chocolate and black tea notes, probably the most consistent out of this batch of anaerobics.
https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/collections/frontpage/products/gasharu-natural-72hr-anaerobic-1
Never got a great cup out of this, but it wasn’t terrible either, very lemony/acidic but not necessarily sour, just hard to pin down and not really what I like.
https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/products/el-vergel-guava-banana-3?_pos=2&_sid=54726aafb&_ss=r
This one is probably the best of the bunch, I opened it up about a month after roasting and it was VERY gassy, and very hard to dial in. Big swings between sour and bitter, but I got a handful of very enjoyable cups.
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Same. I guess what I failed to imply in that post was that I’m not completely sold on the anaerobic boom yet. I think B&W had an anaerobic gesha that was good but I’ve found them pretty underwhelming otherwise. What are you drinking now?
Do we think the places charging ~40% more than B&W are worth the price? It’s not clear to me where the extra money is going. I mean they are just cupping to dial in these roasts, right? They aren’t swapping water chemistries or running it across all different grind sizes, ratios, temps, etc., as far as I know. The stuff I’ve ordered from those places didn’t strike me as being particularly better or more consistent, so not sure what I’m paying for other than some bros probably thinking “hey maybe we should just charge more.” I know some people swear by the Nordics and Luna in Canada but haven’t had those.
The problem with the tasting note models is there’s nothing to distinguish how intense they are, how separated the cup is, if there are any off flavors or deficiencies. If you just read the notes on these sites, every coffee sounds delicious and obviously that isn’t the case. There are sites like Coffee Review which seem to be solely centered around taking ad money from roasters. This is all compounded by the fact that only rarely will someone provide you with an exact recipe to reproduce a cup they’ve rated.
LOL
I read a comment somewhere awhile back that said it best though: a lot of the U.S. roasters seem to be imitating Nordics (Tim W, La Cabra) on super light roasts due to popularity, except they don’t actually know what they’re doing and end up producing a lot of grassy underdeveloped roasts and selling them for similarly high prices. I’ve had a ton of these that were basically just super acidic with horrible vegetal undertones that wouldn’t brew out. So I don’t really trust anyone based on name / reputation because I don’t think they’re actually getting into the actual brew process the same way I am. I don’t want to be too critical because roasting is super, super hard, but if you’re charging more then B&W then you should be crushing every lot.
I seriously doubt it, I haven’t had a ton of their stuff yet but I’m definitely bullish on them and will be getting more.
I’m still subscribed to Sey, they’ve very good and I’ve never had a bag from them that I felt was even mediocre (definitely some I didn’t personally love but it was obviously more my personal tastes than their skill at selecting beans and roasting them) but I’m probably going to drop from 2 bags/month to just 1.
I’ve also got a 1bag/month subscription to Dayglow which is nice just because I literally have no fucking idea what I’m going to get and it’s mostly overseas roasters that are prohibitively expensive to buy from directly.
I’ve been buying oddball bags from a bunch of other small US roasters as needed to keep enough beans in my cupboard (probably going through 1-1.25 kg/month). I may just drop Sey completely and do 2 bags each from BW and Dayglow.
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I’ve got about 25g of a BW colombian gesha left, it’s been very nice and I’ll miss it.
It’s been very floral and I’ve occasionally caught some cola and citrus notes, it dialed in fairly quickly and in the middle of the bag I had a killer run of like 4 cups that were all just about perfect. As I’ve gotten to the end of the bag I’ve picked up a couple of earthy notes but nothing too distracting. Really fantastic.
Up next:
Both of these were roasted in early July so I’ll probably just flip a coin tomorrow.
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Yeah I’ve considered Dayglow but the 250g bags irritate the shit out of me. That’s why I’ve mostly avoided these ultra light roasters. Maybe I’ll order a full kilo from Luna and see if it’s as good as everyone raves about. The discount is substantial over a 250g bag, and there’s a 0% chance it goes stale.
I ended up grabbing a washed and a natural from B&W just to have coffee on hand, but couldn’t get a profile I really wanted (floral). Traditionals are very much in the minority now, and I’m not really digging all of this anaerobic process they’re offering. They just seem to have a weird uncanny valley and my success rate has been low. I wanna say none of them were awful yet none were great.
Tip on this that @blackize and I were discussing off forum: you can grind a few hours before brewing or possibly even the night before to get some rapid off-gassing. Probably want to keep it in a bag or can with a CO2 escape.
Forgot to mention that I’ve seen a number of people claim that SEY is underdeveloped compared to the true Nordics and int’l ultra lights. It’s some of the more highly opinionated drinkers of Tim W / Collective / Luna / LaCabra on HB and r/coffee seem to hold this belief, not just about SEY but really about American roasters doing “ultra light” in general.
I just finished a bag of April coffee. I had Covid for about half of it with diminished/no sense of smell.
Grinding with my commandante, using the April brewer, their recipe for this bag, and plain tap water. Results since I’ve got my smell back have been ok it’s balanced with good acidity but not really getting any flavor notes. I imagine it would be even better with my forte and third wave water, but those are still in a box that I’m reluctant to unpack since I hope to move again soon.
I’ve got an April subscription for now so hopefully I get some great results soon. As for now I have a gesha from Brandywine that I’m about to dig into for the first time.
This is it https://www.brandywinecoffeeroasters.com/collections/all-coffee-1/products/panama-ccd-lot-23-intrinsic-cherry-gesha-miir-bunndle-6oz-presale I like the art, my wife LOVES it and she’s also been really enjoying the included mug for her teas.
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First cup of the gesha was solid. Using the same settings and method I’ve been using for my last bag it looked like it ground quite fine compared to April. But drawdown time was even a bit faster.
It had a hint of raspberry which was quite nice but I think there’s room for more extraction. I’ll probably go a click finer tomorrow and see how that comes out. Then depending how that goes I might break out a v60 and see about dialing that in.
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What does their shipping cost look like? Covid sucks 
, hope you get taste / smell back completely. Didn’t seem to affect me at all in that way but my SIL lost both for months.
I think my taste and smell are back completely now, thanks.
I’m set up to ship a 250g bag twice a month and cost for each shipment is about 21 bucks. Breakdown is 120kr for the coffee and then 75kr for the shipping. On the whole it actually seems pretty cheap.
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And people thought my two doubles per day was a lot
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Kalita Clean Cut
This is another one that had a Jericho USA version which is sort of an odd find. I’d probably buy either just out of pure curiosity if I saw for a good price.
I dunno anything about how they grind but they look dope AF, expecially the Jericho. I think these are Kalita’s commercial espresso grinder:
https://www.chiphell.com/thread-2388240-1-1.html
I believe everyone is familiar with coffee peripherals such as Kalita’s entry-level bean grinder and filter cup. However, because the commercial electric grinder is only sold in Japan and does not support 220v, there are basically no reviews on the Internet. And the Clean Cut Italian condensed version out of the box this time has few Japanese introductions on the Internet, which is even more niche than the ek and various single doses that are several times more expensive.
As for why I chose Kalita, I still have no money… 80mm flat-knife Italian grinder, produced by the Niigata Tsubame Sanjo Factory, the original price is less than 65,000 yen after a discount of 95,000. Today, when the commander sells for more than 40,000, what kind of bicycle do you need?
Obviously something lost in translation here but this is about the most information I can find on the thing. Took some searching to actually find it on the official site.
Meet your 2022 United States Barista Champion:
In May 2020, Eckroth was attacked with bear mace at their job after a customer became angry about the coffee shop’s temporary no-cash policy during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.