When you think of the truely memorable coffees, what was it that made those coffees taste great?
Was it the skilled hand of a barista? Or was it the farmer who toiled so hard to raise quality coffee trees in a foreign land?
Does the atmosphere and overall experience of the cafe spring to mind – or do you just think about the flavour in the cup?
We humans tend to be rather susceptible to suggestion, and so there are any number of external factors which may influence how we perceive a coffee to taste. But fortunately, there are common factors in the life cycle of coffee which always influence flavour in the cup.
Pedigree and origin
Like a racehorse bred to run, good coffee owes its roots to not just the variety of coffee tree at the farm, but the location and micro-climate or terroir. While a geisha variety for example will impart loads of florality and sweetness, at the end of the day the soil, weather and other factors related to the terroir will impart flavour too. So a geisha from one farm may taste somewhat different to those sourced from other farms. And a farm’s practices will greatly influence flavour too.
Geisha coffee in Grain-pro bags
Processing green coffee beans
Green coffee processing methods vary so much in different coffee producing nations that it can be difficult to really understand the impact on the end result in the cup. What we do know is that washed coffees tend to taste cleaner, and have a more transparent flavour profile – although there are always no shortage of exceptions to these rules! Natural processed coffee can often have a more complex sweetness and bigger body.
Green coffee freshness
Green coffee freshness, which was once considered almost a non-issue, is now better understood. Freshness not only has an impact on the roasting profile that must be used (green coffee loses moisture content as it ages, especially if stored in sacks), but also on the end flavour. Many believe that the fragile flavour nuances of each coffee origin are the first to disappear as coffee ages. Eventually, green coffee acquires a woody taste. And so while some once believed that green coffee lasts forever, and didn’t degrade over time, unfortunately this is not the case.
Brazil Daterra coffee in boxes
Storing green coffee
So we’ve got our fresh green specialty coffee from a great farm, what do we do with it? How do we store it and how do we tackle the challenge of roasting it? While expensive green coffee may come in vacuum sealed packaging, many great coffees are still shipped in sacks. Some have likened this to shipping wine in open vats, but that is an extreme analogy. While coffee sacks can introduce other challenges in the process, such as the introduction of baggy flavour, they are still widely used and if shipped fresh and roasted/used within at most 6 – 12 months, then we can still end up with amazing coffee. No doubt the instances of vacuum packaged specialty coffee will increase over the years, but for now it is somewhat cost prohibitive. George Howell is even experimenting with deep-freezing green coffee, but this may not be practical for everyone.
Grain-pro bag helps keep green coffee fresh during transport
Roasting the coffee for consumption
The final big step in the process in the roasting. Here’s where another set of variables are introduced. It takes skill, knowledge, experience and a good palette to roast coffee in a way that will taste great for a particular brew method, and not roast away all those flavour nuances that so many people have worked so hard to preserve along the line. Once the coffee hits a grinder, it is over to the barista to take it from there and turn great roasted coffee beans into a spectacular beverage!
