New Coffees

26 January, 2007

I have been playing around with a new lot of Papua New Guinea lately. This lot is roasted a little darker than the previous lot, but that sample at the cupping table was just incredible. Deep, full body with amazing sweetness. If you get the coffee right out of the cooling bin, you won't have that sweetness right away. After about four hours, it has a nice, full body and a hint of dark roast carbony flavor. Good, but not great. Leave it for about a day, though, and the carbon flavor is masked, the sweetness really comes out, the balance is improved, and the cup complexity goes crazy. That only happens with this lot in a very narrow range, so home roasters are advised to stay away from this one. You will not be able to bring out the full potential in this bean. In blends, the coffee behaves comparably to the previous lot. For example, Big Island Blend only changed from having 50% Papua New Guinea to having 55% Papua New Guinea.

Yesterday I ordered coffees. Some are things we had recently run out of but were not yet in the last time I ordered coffee. Some are things we have had in the past, but not recently. One is an origin we have never had here. Over the next couple weeks, I should have on our shelves Yemen (and Mocha Java Blend), Timor (this time a Fair Trade Certified peaberry), Peru Norte (once again Fair Trade Certified), and a Fair Trade Certified Bolivian coffee. New lots of Flores and Sulawesi will become available as I run out of the old lots, and when I run out of the old lot of Panama Panamaria, that will change to Panama SHB Maunier. I have not yet decided if I will put SHB on the label. I was also considering a coffee from Honduras, but this was described as, "not very good," so I'll look at it again when the next crop comes in. This is something that I have always been happy about when dealing with Royal Coffee. I can call them up, ask about a coffee, and if they don't think what they have will meet our quality expectations, they won't waste my time with it. Sales people who cup the coffee and know what it tastes like? Imagine that.

I have something that almost resembles an update on our Ethiopian coffee. Some of the lots have left Ethiopia and the one we are getting may or may not be among them. Those that have not left, are expected to leave soon, so in another month or two we should have Ethiopian back on our shelves. At this point, I'll believe that when the truck gets here. Expect lots of hype about this coffee when it gets here. I'll want to move it in a few months less time than I had originally planned. Green coffee, while considerably more stable than roasted, still fades over time and I want to get rid of it while it is still worth the price I will have to charge. That said, it is a really good coffee.