Crown Jewel Colombia Huila Double Macerated Caturra

taste

Taste Analysis by Sandra Loofbourow

For pervasive sweetness and refined fruit, turn to this Colombian double macerated Caturra. The sugars taste like almond brittle, caramel, apple, honey, and vanilla. Cup profile is dynamic, varying with extraction and roast; look for juicy plum throughout, grape and passion fruit acidity, and sweet cherry and orange. For balance, this coffee presents an undertone of cinnamon, chamomile, and sometimes the simple and comforting sweetness of toasted oats.

source

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell & Chris Kornman

Released in tandem with our other new coffee from Huila, this uniquely processed microlot really blew us away at the cupping table with its cleanliness and razor sharp flavor profile. It’s from the same group of farmers as the Honey Pacamara, working under the guidance of Terra Coffee, and they’ve clearly dialed in something special.

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 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 50 producers 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 36-40 hours before depulping and then fermenting again in tanks for another 40-50 hours. After this distinct process of fermenting, the coffee was washed and moved to raised beds to gently dry for 12 to 15 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

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman

Here’s an easy green coffee to appreciate. High density, with stable water activity and good-looking moisture figures, and a screen size sorted to mostly 16-18. Despite the extra fermentation step, this coffee has undergone precision processing and drying and is ready for you load it up in your roasting hopper and fire up the burners. Keep an eye on heat absorption with this one — it’s likely to resist a little, especially early in the roast.

The selection is 100% Caturra, a dwarf mutation of Bourbon. It is a well-loved cultivar by producer and consumer alike – its short stature allows for dense planting, high per-hectare yields, and easy manual harvest. As a Bourbon descendant, it is also well regarded sensorially. The variety was first observed in Brazil in 1937 and can now be found worldwide and is commonly bred with the Timor Hybrid to produce Catimor, a line of high-yielding, disease resistant arabica trees well suited for farmers seeking hardy alternatives to delicate legacy cultivars. 

diedrich ir-5

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Chris Kornman

Armed with green coffee specs indicating a dense and slightly high moisture bean, I opted (much like Evan) to charge with a high temperature and hit the gas early. Taking a page from Doris’ Diedrich playbook, I set my starting airflow at 50% (rather than the more common closed air baffle during early roasting stage) and fully opened it just prior to color change (which was observed at a somewhat low temperature of 303F), giving the burners plenty of oxygen to work with and trapping as little steam and smoke in the drum as possible.

About half-way through the Maillard stage, I backed off the burners to idle at 30% power the coffee continued to roast on pace. Edging up to first crack, I kept a close eye on the color and Doris (who’d been roasting the coffee on our Ikawa in the other room) came over to watch the end of the roast. As we waited for first crack, which finally arrived a little later than expected and very quietly, Doris mentioned she’d observed a similar phenomenon moments earlier.

At this point, the coffee’s momentum really began to tail off, and I dropped it a few seconds before stalling, with about 80 seconds of total post crack development time and a ColorTrack reading of 53.4 (ground). When we took this coffee to the cupping table to taste blind, next to Doris’ efforts on the Ikawa, our first impression of its fragrance was that of toasted grains — not a super promising start.

However, I really warmed up to the cup as I began tasting. Loads of honey and vanilla-like sweetness, whispers of florality, and a lovely delicate pear flavor won me over. Doris was a little less impressed (her preference was for the faster sample-roast style Ikawa profile) but agreed with me that the cup cooled well and despite a few differences in flavor notes, our scores ended up nearly identical with high marks especially for its clean finish.

If I were to take this coffee for another turn in the IR-5, I’d likely charge even hotter and keep the pressure on a little bit longer during late stage Maillard. With copious built-in sweetness and a clear need for plenty of heat, I’d focus my energy on developing complex acidity and bringing out some more of the floral and fruit notes with a slightly higher ROR after first crack. The coffee seems to really crave heat at nearly every roasting stage, so don’t be afraid to give it what it wants.

bullet R1 ibts

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 CJ1461) 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.

This coffee behaved as I thought it might in the roaster, with the exception of the end of the roast. My higher charge temperature allowed the coffee to move through green / drying stage quickly, but as Chris noted, it resisted heat moving through Maillard. I kept P6 on throughout the roast, only ramping down to P5 after first crack, which came rather late at 396F. My rate of rise did increase a bit moving into first crack, but I didn’t feel quite comfortable reducing heat application instead adding fan speed to F4, and increasing to F5 just after first crack. These increases in fan speed kept the coffee from running away, but I still would have liked to temper the increase in rate of rise at the end of this roast a bit more.

Certainly not all was lost here. The percentages spent in each stage were what I had hoped for, and the cup was delicious. 36% time was spent in green / drying, 53% in Maillard, and only 9% was spent in post-crack development owing to the very high crack temperature. With an end temperature of 405.5F, I expected the finish to be smokier, but this coffee came through bright and clear. Dark chocolate and cherry, crisp and bright caramel apple, and a touch of passionfruit tartness on the finish gave this coffee incredible depth. While this coffee really blossomed in my Chemex, I could imagine that a well-extracted espresso would make this coffee positively sparkle. A very nice coffee to round out the year!

Here is a link to this roast on roast.world: https://roast.world/@egilman/roasts/3v9SM9GrTqwUlL7dV5cvn

ikawa

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Doris Garrido

After running a few analyses on this coffee, we get to cup blind alongside a few other 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 notes from the Ikawa samples, compared them, and the results were interesting!

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

And this Caturra double macerated from Huila Colombia reacts similarly to the previous Colombia also double macerated Pacamara I was working on before. And as a result, I would say that this Caturra benefits from early heat, controlled yellowing and a not-too-long post-crack development. That is the reason why I liked The Crown Inlet profile tasting notes better: balance, dried cherry, mandarin, orange, peach, and raising. The Crown Maillard, gives us cherry, floral, a little nutty and malty. The Crown Standard shows a nice cherry, orange, chocolate but some bitterness and walnut.

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 v8

brew

Brew Analysis by Colin Cahill

We’ve been spoiled in the tasting room by some beautiful coffees from this group of growers in Huila. While we’ve been playing extensively with earlier lots of their honey process Pacamara beans, this Caturra is totally new to me, so I was excited to join Kaleb in brewing it up alongside beans from a new lot of honey Pacamara. I love the unexpected qualities of honey processed coffees, but it was a joy to brew up this clean, classic, tasty Caturra with a few different brewing devices, including a couple cone brewers, a flatbed brewer, and an immersion brewer. For this analysis, I want to look closer at our brews on the Kalita Wave and on the AeroPress.

Our initial brews on a Hario v60 and on a Saint Anthony Industries C70 were yielding consistently chocolate-forward brews with citrus brightness and variations in herbal and spice notes. Moving over to the Wave, we wanted to try to explore more of the potential complexity in the coffee’s flavor range, so we altered our brewing ratio by increasing the dose to 20 grams, and slightly increasing the water dose to 320 grams. At a slightly higher dose, but with a slightly coarser grind, this brew came through in a pretty typical amount of time and within a desirable TDS range. This brew had clear, sweet fruity notes that stood out—notes of red grape and plum dominated, with the sweetness of caramel. There were subtle herbal notes in the aftertaste, but this brew really highlighted some of the potential fruit notes.

Shifting over to an immersion method with the AeroPress, working with one of our classic brew recipes, we received a slightly thinner brew with a lower TDS. This brew had dominant notes of rich chocolate and fragrant vanilla, and much more complexity in the layers of flavors. Hints of fruity qualities, with red apple emerging clearly. Dried fruit notes were present, as well as subtle hints of pipe tobacco. This is a coffee with some range for play, but generally features some classic, crowd-pleasing notes. This is the kind of coffee that is as fun to play around with as it is to savor as a classic, drinkable brew.