Crown Jewel Colombia Huila Double Macerated Honey Pacamara

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Overview

This is an experimental double-macerated honey coffee from Huila, Colombia, produced by a small group of farmers organized around Terra Coffee. This is a distinct lot from the same source as a recently released CJ1452.

The flavor profile is clean, juicy, and surprisingly delicate. We tasted blackberry jam, applesauce, honey sweetness, and jasmine-like floral notes.

Our roasters found an occasional tendency to race at or around first crack, though noted that wildly different roast profiles resulted in great tasting coffee regardless of approach.

When brewed as a pour-over, our baristas felt the coffee’s best attributes tended to shine at slightly coarser grind settings.

Taste Analysis by Sandra Loofbourow

For a clean and surprisingly delicate honey processed coffee, look no further than this Pacamara. At its most juicy, we found notes of blackberry jam, raspberry jelly, honeydew melon, and applesauce. The body was creamy, comforting, and clean throughout all extractions, the finish included jasmine florals and a canned pear aftertaste, and the fruity profile was balanced by honey and hard candy sweetness. Yum.

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell & Chris Kornman

We released a Crown Jewel not long ago with the same name, and we’re thrilled to have more of Terra Coffee’s uniquely processed honey Pacamara on the offering sheet. This is a distinct lot from the same supplier and growing group as the previous CJ1452, which sold out quickly and made a brief appearance as a Pour-over, Light Roast Batch Brew, and Cold Brew at the Crown. If you slept on the previous lot and missed out, here’s your second chance.

Ever stop to think about all the variables that factor into creating a distinct, complex, clean and consistent community blend? Here is one you will want to dissect. With one-part terroir (from the coveted department of Huila), one part variety (Pacamara), one part processing innovation (double fermented), and one part farmer collaboration (the backbone of Colombian production).

This community blend with a vibrant regional profile and unique processing character was produced by 8 farmers committed to following a specific processing protocol (double fermented) to draw-out a pronounced fruit forward profile. Using their own micro-mill, each producer fermented their carefully harvested cherries for 40 hours before depulping and then fermenting again in tanks for another 12 hours. After this distinct process of fermenting, the coffee with mucilage still attached was moved to raised beds to gently dry for 25 days.

This is the hallmark influence of Terra Coffee SAS, which has been stepping in with innovative post-harvest strategies and cupping expertise throughout Huila and Nariño. Then Mastercol adds crucial logistical support for things like warehousing and milling so this lot can reach the international market.

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman

Pacamara’s renown for large bean size precedes it, and we have here a relatively long but not oversized offering with a wide screen distribution. The unique maceration and honey processing method has also left a residual reddish hue to the silverskin of the coffee.

It’s also characteristically high density (as Southern Colombian coffees often are), despite the large, oblong bean shape. Moisture is solid and water activity is just a little higher than average but nowhere near the danger zone.

With a coffee like this, roasting approach can be a bit of a gamble. On the one hand, high density and moderate moisture might indicate high resistance to heat in the roaster. On the other, wide distribution, large screen size, and honey processing might suggest the coffee would prefer a gentler approach to heat. Fortunately for you, you don’t have to do all the guesswork: we took a few stabs at roasting, be sure to check out our notes from the Diedrich, Bullet, and Ikawa roasts.

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Chris Kornman & Doris Garrido

Doris and I both took turns on the roaster this week with this coffee, which brought a little of the unexpected despite having been pretty familiar with a Macerated Honey Pacamara predecessor lot during its run as a batch brew option for The Crown’s Tasting Room.

Doris’ first roast (in blue) came at the coffee with a lot of energy, starting with a high charge temperature and ramping the gas up to 100% burner power at the 1:00 mark. She made a few incremental drops in burner throughout the course of the Maillard stage but still ended up with a lot of momentum at the end of the roast, and a short and hot development stage yielded a coffee with a pretty light color score at 51 on the ColorTrack (ground).

Worried in our first cupping that it tasted a little underdeveloped, I took the remaining sample and tried an approach a little closer to our old production roast with the prior lot, which extended the total roast time but ended up with similar looking stage percentages. A couple of other key differences include the steady rate of rise during Maillard, a rogue burner profile (yikes), and a longer, gentler after-crack development. For whatever reason, with this roast approach I had the opposite experience as both Doris and Evan, where I actually had to pour additional heat into the coffee to keep its momentum going as I approached first crack.

At a no-ego fully blind cupping (with a few Ikawa roasts included to keep us on our toes) Doris and I agreed that her first roast was superior (especially given a few extra days rest). It emphasized acidity and balance with a fruity flavor profile and hard candy sweetness. On the other hand, my attempt wasn’t a complete failure, as its fragrance was intense and pleasant, and the roast retained a nice creamy sweetness despite coming across as a little less complex.

Anyway, with two very different roasts undertaken our results at the cupping table and on the brew bar were different, but not that different, and I think this should give you some confidence walking into your first roast, especially given the unique processing and odd bean cultivar. You’ll want to be careful with the coffee at the end, of course, but most decent looking profiles should give you a starting point that’s totally servable. From there, tweaking and experimenting a bit on your own to dial in the final profile should be fairly simple work with rewarding results. Enjoy!

 

Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman

Unless otherwise noted, we use both the roast.world site and Artisan software to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below, by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the Artisan links below.

Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing!

Every year, I seem to forget how much I enjoy Colombian coffees, especially from Huila. Luckily, every year I’m reminded in the most delicious way possible. This coffee was easy to roast, easy to drink, and easy to take flavor notes on as well.

With this week’s roasts, I decided to take the charge temperature a little higher than before, to 410F. I wanted to complete my roasts a bit more quickly, and to spend the majority of my time in Maillard since these (the companion lot being CJ1462) are such fresh and sugary coffees. I didn’t want to change too much about the way I roast these two lots, so I did start with P6 heat application, F2 fan, drum speed at D6, and a 500g batch size.

For my roast of this coffee, I kept heat application at P6 until a little before first crack, only altering the fan speed throughout the roast to temper the rate of rise. Starting at F2 as usual, I increased fan speed to F3 as yellowing started, then further to F4 at first crack. I’m used to seeing rate of rise begin to increase a bit before first crack, but this coffee just wouldn’t quit! My reduction of heat to P5 before first crack helped keep it under wraps, but this coffee just wanted to keep cooking.

Luckily I was able to achieve what I was after with 40% of time spent in green / drying, 47% in Maillard, and 11% in post-crack development. At an end temperature of 406.6F, there was a tinge of roastiness to the finish, but the main notes here were deep molasses, canned pear, lime candy, and cherry juice. An incredibly juicy coffee with plenty of room for expression in the roaster, I’d suggest using a filter drip, though I’m sure nearly any preparation method would bring out deliciousness in this cup.

Here is a link to this roast on roast.world: https://roast.world/@egilman/roasts/FYHBSna9vidkNEeFekm_i

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Doris Garrido

After running a few analyses on this coffee, we get to cupped blind among a few other roasted coffees from the same green batch but on different machines, an excellent exercise to taste how the different profiles affect the taste on the cupping table.

I took the notes from the ikawas samples, compared them, and the results were great!

I use three different profiles, The Crown Standard, The Crown Maillard, and this time I have spent some time adjusting a previous “The Crown Inlet” profile that Chris Korman started building a couple of months ago. This last profile, basically was built on the “inlet temp probe” to design the roasting curve, instead of using the “bean temp probe”

Surprisingly, the Inlet profile took the lead. With a shorter development phase, this Colombia Pacamara resulted in sweet, juicy, light, clean, with cherry, green apple, and plum. There was also bitter chocolate, and grapefruit not my best tasting notes but did not lower the first impression because its qualities remained there after cooling down.

Maillard profiles show us a nice cantaloupe, nectarine, dry fruits, and sweet citrus. I would say that this coffee loves Maillard, so I will recommend working on that phase, mostly because as my last experiences roasting this coffee it may want to fly. Standard profile did bring great orange, caramel, and honey, but slightly flat and toasty.

 

You can download the profile to your Ikawa Pro app here:

Roast 1: Crown Standard sr 1.0

Roast 2: Crown Maillard +30 sr

Roast 3: Crown Inlet SR1.4 +DG v5

Brew Analysis by Kaleb Ede

With this second lot of Honey processed Pacamara, I knew it would be just as juicy and enjoyable as the first. Pacamara is a fabulous variety and is usually packed full of flavor, so with the added honey process and double maceration it makes this cup crushable. I went ahead and brewed this coffee on two different devices to see the variances in each.

First, I used Fellow’s Stag brewer with 18g of coffee and 300g of water. I did a 50g bloom with 5 stirs to add a little more agitation. At 40 seconds I started the first pulse and poured to 150g total, at 1:10 I poured to 200g, and then to 300g by 2:00. This cup was sweet, with notes of oolong, white honey, and chocolate. This coffee was balanced but I did feel like it was missing body.

Since I felt like I was missing acidity and some of those prominent fruit notes that I recall in the previous lot, for my second brew I used the V60. My recipe was yet again 18g of coffee to 300g of water with a similar pour pattern. My first round was ground at #8 on our EK-43, which was sweet and juicy. I did feel it had more to give, so I brewed it a second time at #9 on our EK. This cup was by far my favorite, with the nuanced flavors I knew existed in this coffee. The results provided a creamy mouthfeel with notes of ripe honeydew, red apple, cotton candy grape, and Jasmine. The multiple processes this coffee has gone through will shine in any brew method you choose.