The Pacamara variety is a newer Arabica hybrid developed by the Salvadorean Coffee Research Institute(ISIC) from a cross of Pacas x Maragogype.  When grown under optimal conditions, Pacamara coffees can show intense, herbal, floral, fruity varietal character.  Also, the beans are huge.

We'll be adding two excellent Pacamaras to the menu in September.  We've been anticipating the arrival of one of these for months; La Montaña Pacamara from the Chalatenango region of El Salvador.  This one came besting our already high expectations, with a characterful, aromatic cup.  With Nekisse as the only exception, this will be the sweetest coffee on our menu, full of juicy stone-fruit notes.  

The second comes from farms surrounding the town of Esquipulas in South Eastern Guatemala.  This lot shows the more herbal, floral side of Pacamara.  When we cupped this one for the first time, we were shocked at how Kenya-like the cup became as it cooled.  Lively acidity with grapefruit and the slightest hint of currant.

Both are excellent coffees you won't want to miss.  I hate to make such sensational statements, but the Montaña has to be the best washed coffee I've had this crop year. 

-Jon

Even with these limitations, the Chemex can still brew a very nice cup with great aromatic clarity, but the extraction quality often suffers.  This results in a cup that lacks sweetness and acidity, accentuating bitter notes.  Flavors are not fully developed, and the coffee just can't show everything it has to offer.

The solution? Use the Chemex only for what it does best; filtration.  Brew the coffee in another vessel, where it can extract evenly at a constant, ideal temperature.  The resulting cup has the same brilliant clarity that the Chemex is known to produce, but has the flavor, body, and balance of a proper extraction.  Here's how I do it:

1) Preheat a thermally insulated carafe (or travel mug) with boiling water two times.  A 1.3L Zojirushi vacuum insulated steel carafe (technically not designed for hot liquids) is perfect. This will be your brew chamber.  

2)  Put a filter in the Chemex, and rinse it with oceans of boiling water.  That papery taste is persistent!

3)  Grind the proper amount of coffee.  Use a grind setting similar to what you would use for cupping (somewhat coarser than what most people use for automatic drip).

As far as strength goes, 62 grams per Liter of water is a good starting point.  I use 45 grams of coffee and 725 grams with the 1.3L Zojirushi carafe and a six cup Chemex.  You want your brew chamber to be nearly filled once the water and coffee are added. 

4)  Empty the preheat water from your brew vessel, and add your ground coffee.  Using a scale, pour the proper mass of freshly heated (205 F) filtered water directly on top.  Let the water mix and agitate the grounds as it is added.  Do not stir or mix with anything else.  Put the lid on your brew chamber, and set a timer for three minutes.

5)  When your timer beeps, open the carafe and use a spoon to break the crust that has formed, and give the entire volume a gentle stir from top to bottom.  Wait about thirty seconds so most of the grounds have a chance to settle to the bottom.

6)  Slowly and gently pour the coffee from your carafe into the filter in your Chemex.  The liquid leaving the carafe should be relatively clear, leaving most of the grounds behind.  Stop pouring when fine grounds start to leave with the liquid.  

Filtration will take about a minute.  There is little risk of over extraction now that most of the grounds have been separated from the water.  

7)  When the filtration really slows down, remove the filter along with whatever small amount of grounds and liquid remains.  Don't worry about letting every last drop of coffee come through.  I usually lose about 10 - 20 ml of liquid when I take the filter out.

8)  Enjoy a cup of coffee with great clarity of aroma and flavor, and all the sweetness that comes from a proper extraction.  I dare you to find a better Chemex method.

9)  Experiment to find the ideal grind setting, water temperature, grounds to water ratio, extraction time, etc... Do what tastes best to you, and remember that every coffee will have a different set of ideal parameters.

We first tasted a sample of the Ethiopia Nekisse a couple of months ago, and we've been anxious to get it in ever since.  This is an incredible dry processed coffee, one of the best I can remember tasting.

The aroma is unbelievable; it is one of those super distinctive coffees that smells like nothing else.  Apricot, orange, and flowers are all present, with very high intensity.  Its always nice when people several feet away can notice that you've sent something special through the grinder.

The cup is sweet and fruity, again with apricot and orange along with chocolate and berries.  Best of all, there are none of the distracting defect notes that plague almost every natural coffee (usually from improper drying or under/over-ripe cherries).  This coffee is clean.  You can taste the care that went into every stage of harvesting and processing.

It may take us a while to find the ideal roast profile, but once we do, the Nekisse will be available online and in the cafe.  Don't miss this one; you'll be talking about it for a while.

The Dominican Gold Estate is still processing a special micro-lot for us this year, but with a slightly different plan...

Cultivar separation is not going to be possible this season, so the Bourbon lot we've been talking about will have to wait for another year.  Instead, a very specific location with an ideal microclimate will be selected, and the coffee from this area will be harvested and processed separately.  The exact location has not yet been determined, but it will almost certainly be at one of the farm's highest altitudes, with good shade coverage and/or a north facing aspect to diminish sun exposure.  There are workers that have been walking the farm for years, and they know the intricacies of each area and microclimate.  Between their experience and the knowledge of the farm's agronomist, we know the ideal location will be selected for this lot.

The best pickers will harvest this coffee, and will be paid a premium to select only perfectly ripe cherries.  The coffee will be washed, dried, and milled independently, and will be sorted to a screen size 16+.  

This micro lot should be ready in early May, and I think we're really in for something special.  I'll post updates on the chosen location and the progress of the lot as soon as I know the details.

Come see us this Saturday, March 27th, to help us celebrate our first year of business by supporting this great cause!!

We are currently roasting their standard blend of Caturra, Typica, and Bourbon from last year's harvest, and it is wonderful.  Sweet and gentle with citrus, chocolate, and a very subtle vanilla / floral aroma.  I actually enjoyed a Chemex of this coffee this morning, and picked up on a delicious cherry note that I've never noticed in it before.  

Our current lot is the featured coffee in this month's edition of Coffee Review, and brought in a well-deserved 92 point rating.  We think the micro-lot from this year's harvest could be even better.  Bourbon coffees can be spectacular when handled properly, often with a distinct currant note and butterscotch-like sweetness.  Compared to the current lot, I expect the Bourbon to be even sweeter, with less citrus (I am guessing that this comes predominately from the Caturra component), with more berry/currant notes.  This will be processed using the same fermentation and washing procedures, sorted to a screen size 18, and will be packaged in Grain Pro bags.

Look for this coffee later this summer.

-Jon

Class size is limited, so sign up soon! 

When:

Sunday nights 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm from March 14th - April 11th 

(NO class will be held April 4th in honor of Easter.)

• Week 1 (March 14th): Sourcing. Learn where coffee comes from as well as the distinct flavors of different regions.
• Week 2 (March 21st): Roasting. Learn why coffee is roasted lighter or darker as well as how decaf coffee is made.
• Week 3 (March 28th): Brewing. Learn the proper way to brew coffee as well as alternative brewing methods.
• Week 4 (April 11th): Preparing and Serving. Learn about traditional Espresso drinks like the macchiato and cappuccino.

Where:

Coffea Roasterie, 2318 S. Louise Ave., Sioux Falls, SD 57106

Why:

To have a little fun, taste a little coffee, and learn a lot about coffee from seed to cup. 

Cost:

$60 for all 4 classes. Each participant will receive a complimentary drink before each class, a 1/2# of coffee every week, and a French Press upon completion of all four classes.

How to Sign Up:

Email Ty Ford at ty@coffearoasterie.com or call (605) 359-5474 to register or with any questions you may have.

"Blind Assessment: Sweet, deep-toned, balanced coffee. Chocolate, citrus, nut and a hint of flowers in the aroma. In the cup richly rounded acidity, buttery mouthfeel. The soft citrus notes are more prominent in the cup, with continued complications of chocolate, nut and a bare suggestion of flowers. The citrus in particular carries into a resonant finish."

We'll have this coffee for about another month, so be sure to give it a try!

Our friends at the Oro Dominicano estate are busy with the current harvest, and we can't wait to see what they come up with this year.

-Jon

This is something that's intrigued us for quite some time.  We're always interested in what kinds of experiments are being done in origin to produce coffees that push the envelope and stumble upon new flavor profiles in the cup, and a lot of work has been done to this end lately.  We've seen interesting experiments with fermentation procedures in Hawaii,  SL-28 plantings outside of Kenya, incredible dry-process coffees from Ethiopia, and some exciting pulped naturals coming out of Panama and elsewhere.  Finding and tasting these new coffees is perhaps my favorite part of this job.

We think we have another new idea that has some potential, and we'd love to collaborate with a producer to see what we can do.  Here's a quick run down:

It is generally accepted that the best coffees come from relatively low yielding varieties like Typica, Bourbon, Sl-28, Gesha, etc...  In 2006, at the SCAA conference, there was a discussion about an experiment designed to test for the correlation between productivity and cup quality among two common varieties of Coffea Arabica. A research team gathered beans from both Caturra (higher yielding) and Bourbon (lower yielding) plants grown on the same farm, harvested on the same day, and processed and roasted in precisely the same manner. In numerous blind cupping trials, tasters rated the Bourbon significantly higher. 

The experiment was conducted again. Only this time, researchers used flower removal to reduce the Caturra's yeild to an amount similar to that of the Bourbon's. In this cupping trial, there was no significant difference in quality. This suggests that lower yield may be the primary reason for the superior quality of the "heirloom" varieties.  This shouldn't be much of a surprise;  With many other agricultural crops it is well known and accepted that lower yield has a strong correlation with higher quality.  Why should coffee be any different?

I stumbled upon some more support for this correlation this morning when I read an article from Kenneth Davids on the Coffee Review blog.  Here, Davids discusses the controversy over the new Ruiru 11 plantings in Kenya, which many roasters and cuppers believe produces inferior coffee when compared to the  currant-laden SL-28 coffees.  It is a great article, and one part really stuck out at me:  "The more thoughtful agronomists I spoke to nuanced the situation. Essentially, they admitted the Ruiru 11 cup is sometimes simple and empty, but the reason, they say, is that farmers don’t prune these new Ruiru 11 trees aggressively enough, so they simply produce too much coffee with a diffused or empty character.  Cut the Ruiru 11 trees back so that they bear less fruit and the coffee they produce will taste just like coffee from the lower-bearing SL28 and SL34."

Here's my question:  If higher yielding varieties produce better coffee when their yield is restricted, either by pruning or flower removal, what would happen if the yield was highly restricted on an SL-28, Bourbon, or Typica plant?  Could we make an even more Kenya-like Kenya?  Could we make an even sweeter El Salvador Bourbon?  We want to find out.

We want to collaborate with a producer who can produce a small quantity of coffee from trees that have at least half of their blossoms removed at flowering time.  To anyone who is growing a high-quality, low yielding variety, has the ability to wash small batches, and the interest to give this a try;  Please contact us!  No quantity is too small, and we will, of course, be willing to pay very fairly.  We want to work with you on this!

When

5:00-6:00 p.m. each Sunday from January 10th – 31st

• Week 1 (Jan. 10th): Sourcing. Learn where coffee comes from as well as the distinct flavors of different regions.
• Week 2 (Jan. 17th): Roasting. Learn why coffee is roasted lighter or darker as well as how decaf coffee is made.
• Week 3 (Jan. 24th): Brewing. Learn the proper way to brew coffee as well as alternative brewing methods.
• Week 4 (Jan. 31st): Preparing and Serving. Learn about traditional Espresso drinks like the macchiato and cappuccino.

Where

Coffea Roasterie and Espresso Bar 2318 South Louise Ave, Sioux Falls, SD 57106

Why

To have fun while learning essential coffee knowledge. Also, each student will receive half a pound of coffee with each class, and a French press upon completion of all four.

Cost

$15 per class or $50 for all four.

How To Sign Up

Email Ty Ford at ty@coffearoasterie.com or call (605) 359-5474 to register or with any questions you may have.