Crown Jewel Bolivia San Lorenzo Yulissa Chambi Raised Bed Washed CJ1526 – 30246 – SPOT RCWHSE

taste

Taste Analysis by Chris Kornman 

Yulissa Chambi’s coffees stunned us at first glance last year at this time, and we’ve eagerly awaited their arrival this season. A first-time producer yielding extraordinary cup quality is an extreme rarity. Having repeated the performance, Chambi proves it was no fluke. This is the beginning of an epic coffee career from a storied region, with a family legacy behind her. 

This semi-traditional, fully washed coffee brings subtlety and grace to the cupping table, mild-mannered with exceptional harmony. While butter and butterscotch, caramel, and molasses all made multiple mentions in our tastings, the coffee is delicate in body, but unrivalled in sweetness. Its black tea-like character accompanied by more subtle fruit notes of lemon, orange, and strawberry make it an exquisitely refreshing offering for spring. 

source

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell 

Coffee has been in Bolivia for hundreds of years, but now a new generation of coffee farmers dedicated to producing high-quality coffee are taking the stage in Bolivia. For the first time in the country’s history, green coffee production has funding and support from the federal government, fueling the search for knowledge among dedicated young coffee professionals.  

The epicenter in the rise of Bolivian specialty coffee is in the los Yungas region, where most farms were first established after a wave of migration to the region caused by Bolivia’s Agrarian Revolution in the 1950s. And nearly a century later this lot emerges from a single 10-acre farm belonging to Yulissa Chambi and her family. Yulissa is just 22 years old and working on her university degree but also comes with a family that has been growing coffee in the Yungas region of Bolivia for over 60 years. Yulissa carefully harvests the cherry, depulps, ferments the coffee in sealed tanks, washes, and dries the coffee on patios and raised beds.  

Since Bolivia is a landlocked coffee producing country, farmers need help getting their coffee to the international market. Felix Chambi Garcia through his leadership role at the San Juan cooperative has become an important figure, helping producers with the logistics of moving coffee to the dry-mill where quality and traceability are protected during the preparation for export. 

green

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman 

Yulissa Chambi’s second year of harvesting produced exceptional results, her precision processing creating an exciting encore performance to last year’s crop. The green is clean, graded to 16+, high in density, and quite low and stable in moisture and water activity. Our roaster Doris Garrido is in frequent communication with Yulissa’s brother, Felix, who is both our exporter and a leading voice in Bolivia’s emergent specialty coffee scene. 

Felix communicated some interesting nuances about the processing style that are worth repeating here. This year, Yulissa held her cherry for about 24-36 hours in a sealed tank prior to pulping, fermenting, washing and channel grading, and ultimately drying. This “anaerobic/carbonic maceration” step was one they elected to leave off the naming of the coffee, since otherwise both in process and flavor everything remains quite “traditionally” washed, and we decided to honor that naming and reflect similar verbiage for our Crown Jewels. Felix emphasized that while Yulissa is obviously taking methodical, precise steps during the whole process, for them the most important step is drying; a note reflected in the exceptional moisture figures. 

We’re accustomed to seeing long-berry type seed appearance from Bolivia, Typica trees grow here in abundance and are well known for their elongated shape to both the leaf and cherry. In addition, Yulissa Chambi is growing the short-stature arabica hybrid Catuai.  

diedrich ir-5

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Doris Garrido. 

This is the second year I got to roast Bolivia Yulissa Chambi coffees. Her two coffees are becoming Crown Jewels, and this year I wanted to get a deeper look into these two on my sample roasts to be able to shape the roast profile in a way that shows what these coffees have to offer. These are the same varieties, but one is washed and the other natural process.  

I started with a 150 gram sample on the Proaster, I did two roasts of each coffee, one slightly underdeveloped and a second a little more extended. I got the idea of this coffee showing its fruitiness on the first roast, and on the second I wanted to know how to make the sweetness it has work well in the cup. 

This worked the way I intended. On both coffees, the acidity tasted great, with berries and fruitiness in the natural, and a touch of florals and juiciness in the washed.  

Here is my roast of the washed on the 5-kilo Diedrich roaster. First, I took in mind that Yulissa’s coffees have been processed in some sort of anaerobic environment before de-pulping, which gives us interesting flavors that I wanted to carefully maintain.  

Because of that, I started warming the roaster to let it reach quite hot temperatures and then used 100% air to bring it down. Then I used 50% air to reach my desired charge temperature, in this case 445F. This  way I was also warming the air because I wanted to start my roast with a high environmental temperature. 

This roast started at 445F, 50% air, and 70% gas before the turning point, and a little after I added 100% gas. At this point, I closed the air because I wanted all the energy on raising the curve and saved it for Maillard. At 245F I lowered gas to 45% then marked color change and lowered gas again to 30%. I got great energy and I was running quickly during Maillard. I slowed down around 355F by adding 50% air again and dropping air to 0. The coffee started cracking at 383F, and I added full airflow and set the gas back to 30% to allow me to run post-development for 1:13 seconds. I dropped the coffee at 387.4F. 

This roast was juicy, clean, with the touch of florals I was looking for. Fresh fruits, key lime, balanced, and sweet. Overall, the roast worked great, little over an 8-minutes. It was a little fast at the beginning and I used the air to keep the florals. This will become the next drip coffee offering here at the Crown.  

aillio bullet r1

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.  

Generally, we have good results starting our 500g roasts with 428F preheating, P6 power, F2 fan, and d6 drum speed. Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing! 

I never dreamed I’d be roasting so many different coffees from Bolivia, but after a number of years it seems that their specialty coffee production is making more of its way to us here at Royal and the US in general, with consistently stunning results. Seeing that the younger generation is just as interested in coffee is heartening, even though saying that makes me feel old. One of the best ways we can support that interest as roasters is to do the coffee justice in the roaster, and communicate our experience so that others may do so as well! So, away we go.  

Upon taking a gander at the green metrics, I knew I’d need to handle this coffee just a little differently in the roaster. High density accompanied by low moisture content and a decent spread of sizes in the 16+ range meant that on one hand I’d need to use plenty of heat from the outset, and on the other manage my late-roast handling of the coffee gently.  

Starting the 500g batch with 446F for both this roast and the natural accompaniment, CJ1527, was my plan. They’re equally dry and heavy, but as you can see the natural was handled very different late in roast due to well… being a natural coffee. I used D6 drum speed as usual, with P8 power and F2 airflow from charge. At peak Rate of Rise, I introduced F3 fan, and reduced heat to P7 shortly afterward. This coffee really held heat well due to its density, and I was able to introduce F4 fan just after yellowing without a dip in RoR. In fact, it just kept chugging right along and I made the decision to hit it with F5 fan, the highest setting I usually employ. As RoR began to creep up before first crack as it normally does, I reduced heat to P6 but it just kept climbing. I am honestly not sure if this was a glitch of some sort, because after an extreme drop, RoR continued on its prior trajectory as if nothing had happened. After crack, I reduced fan to F4 and lowered heat to P5. I finished at 9:16 and a final temperature of 395F. 

Would this extreme spike in RoR show in the cup? Was it just a glitch? Dear reader, I was on tenterhooks.  

It turns out that a little roast did show through, but it was overshadowed thoroughly by the incredible sparkling acidity and syrupy sweetness of this coffee. Sugarcane sweetness was my initial note, followed by a pillowy lemon curd note, butterscotchy caramelized sugars, and a super creamy and thick body. I could imagine only taking this coffee to 393F might have brought some of the acidity to the front, but I was happy with all the sugars expressed in this roast. This is a desserty coffee that will go incredibly well with a nice pastry either in the morning or at night.  

Follow along with my roast at roast.world: https://roast.world/@egilman/roasts/m-_cd1mzkuC-krrEgl1IV 

ikawa pro v3

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano 

Our current Ikawa practice compares two sample roast profiles, originally designed for different densities of green coffee. The two roasts differ slightly in total length, charge temperature, and time spent between color change in first crack. You can learn more about the profiles here. 

Yulissa Chambi is back and better than ever for our spring menu. We had the opportunity to give a sneak peek of her arrivals at SCA EXPO in Portland a week prior to their release. The coffeegoers of the busy weekend would sip this accompanied by a sharp eyebrow raise and something along the lines of “that’s really good”. Often bringing along other folks back to the booth to try a taste of this washed Bolivian coffee. It may be shocking to the attendees at EXPO but at Royal we are unsurprised by the quality Yulissa has produced for a second year in a row.  

Cupping the low-density profile to start I got some flavors like flora, jasmine, and oolong. This cup was extremely delicate and lovely with a slightly quick finish. The high-density roast on the other hand was fantastic on the aroma, with flavors of apricot, jam, orange blossom, apple butter, caramel and honeycomb. The clear winner here is the high-density roast. The sweetness and body were so delicious, and I was shocked how the complexity held up as it cooled and revealed more facets and interesting layers. Both Bolivian coffees are headed to the bar in our Tasting Room at The Crown which is a testament to how much the whole team enjoys these coffees (and you will too!).  

You can roast your own by linking to our profiles in the Ikawa Pro app here: 

Roast 1: Low Density Sample Roast 

Roast 2: High Density Sample Roast   

brew

Brew Analysis by Grace Newcomb 

As a young farmer, Yulissa Chambi’s love and knowledge of the land and coffee is extensive and generational, as her family has maintained a farm in the Los Yungas region for nearly a century. I’m so very inspired by her passion, and so excited to try her very first harvest! 

I have a love for washed coffees for their clarity, bold body, and complex, yet somehow still delicate profile.  For this gem grown on Yulissa’s 10 acres of trees, I knew right away that I wanted to start the first brew using a V60 with a dose of 19 grams, a medium-coarse grind of 9, and a standard 40 second bloom. I chose the grind setting because of the full-bodied quality that washed coffees already carry, and my goal was to produce something just a little softer. This first brew was actually quite good! It had lovely spiced orange, honey, and caramelly notes, along with a hint of black tea and tobacco. There was certainly a lot there, but I still felt like it would really shine with just a little less richness. 

For the second brew, I decided to dose down to 18 grams, and use a coarser grind of 9.5, still using a V60 as my device with a 40 second bloom. This attempt produced an under-extracted coffee that still carried those nice molasses, black tea and tobacco notes, but less delicate citrus and fruit to balance them out, and the body was a little thin.    

My goal for the third brew was to try to meet somewhere in the middle between the first and the second. I wanted to maintain those toasty flavors, but this coffee has the potential to taste so much brighter and cleaner. I decided to use the Kalita Wave as my brew device, a medium-coarse grind of 9, a dose of 18, and an extended bloom of 60 second in hopes it would unveil the fruit that I knew was there.  More tropical notes like cherry, lemon, and banana did appear in this cup, but it was still unbalanced and under-extracted. I felt like we were getting close, so I decided for the fourth brew to only change the grind setting to a medium-fine grind of 8.5 and the bloom to 40 seconds. This brew was more acidic and cleaner, with notes of strawberry and citrus alongside caramel and marshmallow. This was a lovely cup of coffee, but I knew there was room for more exploration.   

For my fifth and final brew, I decided to go back to using the V60 as my device, the same fine-medium grind of 8.5, 19 grams of coffee, and a bloom of 40 seconds. What we got from this was everything we’d been trying to find from the very beginning. A juicy, yet delicate body with a tropical softness that’s reminiscent of Earl Grey tea, a fresh picked strawberry note that’s almost nostalgic, and a whisper of sweetness that is molasses, caramel, and honey. When we first started this journey, the bold profile and body of this coffee made me imagine it as a dark roast batch brew, but now I imagine it as a cup that is complex, yet airy and clean.  So, after a few hours of changing grind settings, brew devices, dosing, and lots of sipping, I would recommend brewing this coffee using a V60 (though any pour over device will do), while using 19 grams of coffee, and a medium grind setting.  I also imagine this coffee (at just the right dose) delivering the same soft complexity when brewed at home in a standard batch brewer. 

espresso

Espresso Analysis by Joshua Wismans 

Recipe 1:
Dose: 18 grams, Output Weight: 38 grams Brew Time: 24 seconds
Recipe 2: 
Dose: 20 grams, Output Weight: 40 grams, Brew Time: 27 seconds 

While we’ve served Yulissa Chambi’s coffee before, this legacy coffee hasn’t been given the espresso analysis treatment yet. Overall, it was a joy to explore all it had to offer on espresso, digging into the various expressions of this beautiful washed coffee.  

For my initial recipe, I went with a lower dose of 18g of coffee and a moderate yield of 38 grams. My brew time was 24 seconds. At these lower doses, and with faster brews, expect notes of lingonberry alongside some delicate fudgy sweetness. The faster you go, the more lemon you’ll pull out of the coffee.

For my second recommended recipe, I increased the dose to 20g, with a brew yield of 40g. This shot pulled at 27 seconds. The delicate lingonberry of the previous shot transformed to a richer, darker plum and blackberry, with some pleasant black tea and caramel to round out the bitterness and sweetness.     

You’ll have a blast exploring the different iterations of this espresso, but if I had to choose a recipe, I’d go with the second. At a higher dose and yield, and with a moderate brew time, you’ll find a sweet spot between crisp acidity, deep sweetness and nuanced bitterness. Overall, I can’t recommend this coffee as an espresso enough!