Crown Jewel Colombia Carbonic Honey Mango/Coconut Co-Ferment Pedro Nel Salazar

Taste

Taste Analysis by Chris Kornman 

An unsubtle taste-bud obliteration of tropical proportions, heavy on the coconut and a little mild on the mango, this coffee teeters on the edge of cartoonish, offering an intense and unique experience. Adventurous coffee drinkers, mixologists, and fermentation heads unite in adulation and reverence, as this is of course the work of Edwin Noreña, renowned alchemist of co-fermentation. 

We’ve had the very distinct pleasure and privilege to work with Edwin for a number of years now, and each time I ask for an offer sheet the choices seem to grow exponentially. We’ve sampled star anise and watermelon lemonade co-ferments, and of course released a swath of his coffees in recent months including apple, peach, raspberry, hoppy coffees, and many more. 

This Mango Coconut coffee caught my attention on our last round of sampling, not only because of its distinct sensory resemblance to a piña colada, but also because it was a bit of a departure from the other co-ferments we’ve featured in the past, not just in flavor profile but also in that it’s a collaboration between Edwin and his neighbor Pedro Nel Salazar. 

At any rate, the coffee is wild and silly and whimsical, as only these kinds of coffees can be. Coconut ice cream, Crème Brûlée, Almond Joy candy bars, and even Tom Kha soup have made appearances in our cupping notes. I’ll say that, for as bombastic as this coffee can be, with a nicely dialed pour-over it strikes a surprising balance of drinkability. 

As the days get longer and the weather warmer, this playful cup makes for a unique seasonal addition to cafe menus, a timely reminder that the business of making coffee should also be fun. 

Source

Source Analysis by Chris Kornman & Charlie Habegger 

Pedro Nel Salazar is a second-generation coffee farmer, with 200 hectares under his management across two family farms, Sicilia and Cerdeña, which are both located in Quimbaya, a municipality in western Quindío department. For such a naturally gifted department as Quindío, it tends to receive less recognition than others for its coffee. Quindío is Colombia’s second-smallest department by size, making up only about 0.2% of the national territory. It’s location, however, right on the central cordillera of Colombia’s vast Andes divide, and centrally between the country’s largest and most influential cities (Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali), give it a high volume of tourist traffic, coffee industry, airline commuters, and idyllic getaways in the form of brightly painted mountain towns, natural reserves, and high elevation tropical landscapes throughout. Almost the entire department is mountainous, its lowest elevations still over 1000 meters, and many parts are dense with coffee plantations, from the small to the large and ambitious. 

Largely focused on productive verities like Caturra and Castillo, the Salazar’s farms have been in the habit of producing classic central Colombian coffees for many years. This coffee, a mango and coconut co-ferment, is a massive break from that tradition. 

Salazar also happens to be the manager of Colombia’s Parque Nacional del Cafe, the National Coffee theme park, complete with the country’s longest roller coaster, bumper cars, and of course coffee cuppings. 

Quimbaya is a short drive from Circasia, where Edwin Noreña’s Finca Campo Hermoso is located, a 15-hectare farm, only a few kilometers north of Quindío’s capital city Armenia. Edwin Noreña is an agroindustrial engineer by trade with graduate-level studies in biotechnology. Edwin is a well-connected and highly aspirational coffee producer who focuses on cultivating very specific varieties paired with very specific processing methods designed to express the most surprising, memorable, and delicious coffees possible within his resources. The resulting coffees are often marketed under “El Alquimista”, Edwin’s personal brand for his microlots, which have featured in barista competitions and choosy roasters around the world (and Royal Coffee’s own inventory from time to time). 

Edwin is a third-generation coffee grower and agricultural engineer. Processing, particularly the fermentation step, always interested him because of its potential to transform raw coffee seeds into a remarkably unique sensory experience for coffee drinkers. A breakthrough moment for him was realizing that the sugary, residual liquid produced during whole cherry fermentation could be used again in subsequent fermentations to add natural sugars, and also serve as a solvent for flavoring agents. Over the years Edwin has used chilis, ginger, various fruits, and, in this case, brewers hops to develop unique flavors in his microlots. 

To process the coffee from Finca Sicilia, initial storage and “pre-fermentation” were undertaken by Pedro Nel Salazar, measuring the precise Brix (18°) of the cherries and then soaking them for 2 hours, followed by a 12-hour low-oxygen fermentation. Then, at Campo Hermoso, Edwin Noreña brought the co-fermentation to completion, first undergoing a carbonic maceration for 48 hours. The resulting must (aka mossto or backslop) was inoculated with lactic acid bacteria, and mixed with dehydrated coconut, fresh mango, and allulose sugar. Separately, the coffee cherries were ligthly depulped to a dark honey level, and then macerated with the coconut-mango lactic must solution for another 72 hours. Finally, the finished coffee was pulled from the fermentation tanks, drained but not washed, and dried in a greenhouse with dehydrated pulp for another 10 days. 

Green

Green Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano 

A very low-density coffee coming in at 670 free settled and 654 Sinar. Moisture is a little bit above average and the same can be said for water activity as well. With experimental processing, you would expect to see a stat of the chart but alas, there are no issues here. The screen size range is 18-16, which is as excepted for the Caturra cultivar.  

Caturra is a dwarf plant with elongated beans that was the result of spontaneous mutation. Its dwarf stature makes it easy to compact more plants in a farm area, and it has really great yields. It was one of the first cultivars to do really well in the country until it was later replaced by Castillo in popularity due to its susceptibility to coffee leaf rust.  

Diedrich

Diedrich IR5 Analysis by Doris Garrido 

Roasting this carbonic honey coconut mango co-ferment coffee requires a delicate touch. Because of the high intervention on the processing, the cellular structure is somewhat unconventional; this often results in a very quiet first crack that can be disorienting. If I don’t catch it on time, I risk developing the coffee further than desired. Beyond that challenge, I find co-fermented coffees fascinating to work with, and it is rewarding to experiment with different approaches to modulate the intensity of the final flavors.  

Since this coffee is a Caturra (a descendant of the Bourbon cultivar), I have decided to slow down the drying phase and the overall roast profile to highlight sweetness and smooth out the flavor 

I charged the batch with the drum preheated to 400F. I noticed the coffee was absorbing heat slightly faster than I anticipated, so I waited until the turning point began adding gas. My first adjustment was 70% just after turning point at 1:30 minutes and 100% a minute later. I began tapering the gas as I reached 280F, dropping to 45% and then furthering to 30% at 306F. From there I marked the color change at 311F and increased to full airflow to smooth out caramelization while waiting for the first crack. I identified the beginning of the first crack visually; the audible loud cracking didn’t begin until 20 seconds later. I finished with a development time of 1:41 minutes and a drop temperature of 392F. 

On the cupping table, the results are reminiscent of a dessert in a cup of coffee. It features notes of pineapple upside down cake, and coconut ice cream, with a creamy, buttery texture that highlights the caramel candy sweetness of tropical fruit flavor.  

Aillio

Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman 

We use the RoasTime app and roast.world site to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the link below.  Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing! 

Finally we can quit our bellyaching, as this coffee allows us to take the lime and the coconut, and drink them both together. Well, perhaps the mango and the coconut, but you get my drift.  

How does one approach roasting a co-fermented coffee? It’s a loaded question. Do you want to preserve as much of the co-fermented flavor as possible, or do you want to manipulate the flavor in order to create a secret third thing that’s not just coffee, adjunct, or standard admixture? In my case, I wanted that secret third thing, and I expected to get it with a gentle push and lots of airflow in the roaster.  

I started with P7 power and kept it there for the majority of the roast, only reducing to P6 a touch before first crack. As for airflow application, I started with F3, and ramped up to F4 only briefly before going with F5 well before first crack. This was more airflow than I generally use this early in the roasting process, and the result was a calming of the coconut, and a magnifying of the mango. 

This coffee would be incredibly intense (for me) as an espresso, so I recommend it as a filter drip or full immersion coffee. Rich toasted coconut came through clearly, but this more even-handed roasting style really brought out the rich dried mango notes for me, and left my palate with a resonant chocolatey finish that played very well with the fruit and nut combo. A very desserty coffee indeed!  

You can follow along with my roast here at roast.world: https://roast.world/egilman/roasts/64N1P5OyoLFWINRCfXhsi 

Brew

Brew Analysis by Katie Briggs 

So many fun co- fermented coffees have come through our tasting room this past year! From lychee to raspberry to galaxy hops, every single one is so unique, seriously fun and packed with flavor. This coffee fits right along with all the others, packed with flavor and seriously unique. Just in time for some sunny days here in Oakland, it resembles a Pina Colada in the best way possible. Let’s get into some of the brews I did! 

I started my brews with a 19-gram dose, at a grind of 10 on the V60 cone brewer. I did an initial water pulse of 50 grams and let that bloom for 40 seconds. I then brought the water up to 200 grams, and then up to 300 grams for the final pulse. Wow this coffee is sweet! This brew was overwhelmed with notes of coconut, but we also got notes of orange peel, dark chocolate, and Aperol. Although this brew was very sweet, I thought we could get more complexity out of it. I did the same brew again, but at a grind of 11 to try and soften some of the sweetness of this coffee, but it was still very sweet and overwhelmed by coconut. 

A lot of times with these co-fermented coffees, a much lower dose tends to help soften some of the crazy flavors and created a more balanced cup. So, for my next brew I did a dose of 18.5 and ground it at an 11. I stuck with the V60 cone brewer and repeated the water pulses from the previous brews. I liked this brew a lot more. It brought out more notes than just coconut; we also got notes of jasmine, sweet orange, and mango. Although I liked this brew a lot more, I thought we could get some more acidity by having an even lower dose, but making the grind finer, so that’s what we did for the last brew.  

For the last brew I did a dose of 17 grams, at a 10 grind on the V60 cone brewer, and I did the same water pulses as all the other brews. This brew turned out great! A lot more complex and tropical, with notes of grapefruit, grilled pineapple, jasmine, and of course, coconut!  

If you like fun and tropical, this coffee is definitely for you! You will get a sweet cup every time, but depending on how you brew, you can soften it up or really bring out the coconut for a fun summer beverage. I would recommend a cone brewer and a lower dose for this coffee, so the coconut does not overwhelm. But I think this would be so fun as an iced coffee in the summer, or just as an interesting coffee to share with a friend. Enjoy!  

Espresso

Espresso Analysis by Asha Wells  

What a way to ring in the warm weather! This coffee screams beachy brilliance and while I initially thought, from the smell of the beans and having tasted it on the cupping table, that this coffee would be one note and easily definable. Obviously, it’s Banana Boat, dipped in a pina colada. I was pleasantly surprised by how this coffee responded in the context of espresso. What was missing in the profile I tasted previously was the mango and boy did I find it.  

The first shot that I pulled was also the first recipe that stood out to me as special, it was balanced, and while the coconut essence was very present in the smell, what came through on my palate was all that mango I had heard so much about. In good company alongside that mango, was the subtle and rounding taste of limoncello, rich depth of butterscotch, and lingering cereal-like floral that tasted the way marigolds smell. Great shot to start off an interesting journey.  

After my first shot being perfect, i took a detour through some other profiles to see what I could see (or taste, rather) but I felt a little like Goldilocks, while other profiles offered some incite to what else this coffee could do, notes of lychee, tamarind and mojitos, I found it very difficult to find another angle that felt quite as balanced and satisfying, that felt just right. So I decided to go back to where I started and do a slight variation on my original shot. 

This was the right move, with a finer grind and a slightly smaller yield, I found what I was looking for. This shot was *possibly* more delicious than my original shot. With a 18.5g dose, 38g yield, and taking a bit longer at 35 seconds, this shot was lovely, a bit more on the savory side, which gave the coconut depth more of a buttered popcorn vibe. Also there were floaty florals spiraling around my mouth, the likes of magnolia blossoms, lime leaf and lemon verbena.  

Exploring this espresso was a journey for sure, and I ended up almost right back where I started, which sometimes is where you’re supposed to be. I think this coffee does this profile very well and I was able to find variations that were equally interesting. This coffee made me feel ready for summer and wouldn’t you know it, the sun is shining!