Decaf is often the unfortunate stepchild in any coffee roasting operation. Most roasters offer only one decaf coffee and if there are two, then the other decaf is usually referred to as the organic decaf. Decaf is mistreated at roasting facilities around the world every morning as the first batch of the day. I admit […]
An undervalued, understudied coefficient in our series about analyzing green coffee (Part I – Moisture and Water Activity, Part II – Screen Size, Part III – Visual Defects) is density. The fact of the matter is that we don’t have a complete understanding of the myriad factors influencing green coffee density (elevation, cultivar, nutrients) or […]
One of the big pieces of recent news at Royal is that we’ve elected to cease contracting Methylene Chloride decaf. The reasons are nuanced, but a recent conversation with founder Bob Fulmer made it clear to me that the decision was made at least in part in principle. While the impact of Royal Coffee avoiding […]
We have been observing and collecting data in Santa Elena as part of the Catracha Quality Project to improve upon green coffee processing strategies. (See related Catracha articles here). But once the coffee is ready to ship from Honduras, we cannot ride along in the container as it makes its ocean journey to Oakland, California. […]
For the last several weeks, members of the Catracha Quality Project have been presenting results of a data survey conducted during the 2016 harvest season in Santa Elena, Honduras. To go back and read some of that work — which includes detailed process maps and an analysis of correlation between cherry selection and cup score […]
When the Catracha Quality Project began, Catracha organizers encouraged producers to focus on the quality of the coffee by selecting ripe cherry. In the Royal Blog last week, Arvin Juan presented a post-harvest process map, the result of two years of observing practices and interviewing producers. It’s a visual tool for identifying best practices with […]
When we started the Catracha Quality Project (CQP), our first goal was to create a map to visualize how the Catracha producers were processing coffee from cherry to dried parchment. Over the last two harvests in Santa Elena, we interviewed producers and observed their practices to create a post-harvest process map. This map outlines current […]
Once a coffee cherry is picked from the branch, every step it takes until it’s brewed is a desperate act of preservation, a struggle against the entropy that will inevitably degrade the dying seed. In a perfect world, short distances traveled in stable environments would contribute to that preservation… but the coffee drinking world isn’t […]
Let’s cut to the chase: I need to issue a few corrections. Lucia Solis, of Scott Labs (not to be confused with the similarly named entity that helped develop the SL-28 variety in Kenya, for example. That Scott Labs no longer exists as such, but is now the National Agricultural Laboratories, a part of the larger […]
This week we’re back on the grading table, this time focusing our attention on visual defects in green coffee. In many ways, green coffee defects share some similarities with screen size. They both impact the way coffee roasts and tastes and equally can have financial ramifications in terms of contract approvals and the value of […]
