Sometimes you taste a coffee and its flavour is so intense, outspoken and unnatural that you question where the line between ok and not ok is in the context of crazy tasting specialty coffee.
Some swear it’s all natural, just a new technique in fermentation or a lucky coincidence. Others blow the whistle on producers saying they are adding flavouring to the fermenting coffee cherries.
We taste a fair amount of coffee and this one is on the line, maybe crossing it into the land of not ok.
Why do we have it? Well…. if you never try you will never know right.
They create this flavour with a two phase fermentation and “thermal shock” process. This is their process:
First the coffee is washed with ‘ozonized’ water to reduce microbial load, then it is fermented aerobically for 60 hours at a temperature of 18 degrees. Next, it is de-pulped and then the second phase of fermentation begins - this time - anaerobic for 36 hours at 18 degrees. It is then washed, using thermal shock in order to “transfer and fix the secondary aromas developed in the fermentation phases of the culture medium”. It is first washed at 35 degrees celsius and then at 12 degree celsius. It is dried for 29 hours with a recirculating air of 35 degrees and a relative humidity of 25% until the bean comes down to between 10% and 11% humidity. It is bagged and stabilized for 15 days.
Enjoy it, or not…