Roaster's Tasting Notes: Pineapple / Banana Confections / Plum / Date Sugar / Tarragon
Process: Honey Labu
Varieties: Ateng / Jembar / Tim Tim / Typica
Roast Date: march 6th
340g / 12oz
duck-rabbit is located in Cleveland, Ohio
From duck-rabbit
This coffee comes from a co-op of farmers in high elevation areas around Mount Kerinci. Mount Kerinci is an active stratovolcano. It's the highest peak on the island of Sumatra and the highest volcano in Indonesia. Surrounded by lush forest that is home to several endangered species including the Sumatran tiger, Kerinci continues to spew clouds of smoke since an eruption in 2004 with eruptions also happening in 2009 and 2013. Farms in the area are planted in older Typica types. Elevations range from 1400-1500 meters above sea level.
"Honey Labu" is a hybrid of honey and wet-hulled processes. Wet-hulled, or "giling basah", is the traditional way to process coffee in Sumatra. It involves removing the hull, or parchment, from the seed when the coffee is at a high moisture content. Typically, coffee is hulled after it is dry. Removing the hull at a higher moisture content (30%-ish compared to 12%-ish) results in green coffee that is dark opal green in color and a cup that is earth toned, heavier in body, and lower in acidity compared to washed coffees. With this lot, the coffee was first pulped (pulping removes the skin and some of the fruit), and then instead fermenting it overnight and washing it as would be the usual route for a wet-hulled coffee, the coffee was instead laid out to dry with mucilage and some fruit intact, which is inline with honey process. At approximately 30% moisture content the coffee was wet-hulled and dried the rest of the way.
The cup is a beautiful marriage of both processes. It is fruited, sweet, bodied, and complex with earth tones. Fruited notes come off like pineapple, plum, and banana confections, sweetness is like date sugar, and earth tones range from herbaceous tarragon-like notes to aromatic cedar and pipe tobacco hues.
