Crown Jewel Yemen Washed Sharqi Haraz Cooperative

Taste

Taste Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano 

A whimsical take on an articulate expression of what’s possible in Yemeni coffee. Because of the drought in the country that has been going on for many years, natural processing is the default processing method. It’s extremely rare to find a washed coffee and one from our trusted suppliers is even more rare. 

On the nose you’ll find this coffee is very aromatic with botanicals and sweet berries. This coffee has a strong presence. It has notes of black tea, honeycomb, coconut butter and a rustic quality. If you had the chance to try the Yemen anaerobic coffee, it has the quality of deep spices and high florality – like something out of a fantasy novel. The Yemeni anaerobic coffee is highly distinct in every way and the same could be said about this coffee as well. Melon, green grape and almond butter are in the cup along with a recognizable cinnamon or allspice note. It has less depth than the anaerobic version of this coffee in a way that makes the florality of this coffee all the more present. Orange blossom was a note that was used multiple times, and mixed in with a menthol and oak quality, it really is the most distinct coffee I’ve ever tried.  

Yemen has a long history and relationship with coffee cultivation and while much of it is through hardship, it’s coffees like these that display the resilience of folks that arguably have the most laborious job along the supply chain. Royal is extremely grateful to be working with Pearl of Tehama (the miller and exporter) as well as the contributing producer and pickers. 

It’s hard to say when a coffee like this will come on our radar again. I’ve been saying this more frequently in these write ups but it still remains true. Thanks to the hard work of our sourcing team, Royal has the chance to showcase coffee that’s some of the most exclusive lots from folks that we trust. With only 300kg total of this coffee, this is a highly limited release. Be sure to grab it while you can.  

Source

Analysis by Chris Kornman, with Charlie Habegger 

Among the most venerated of Royal’s stories passed by word of mouth, is that of cofounder Bob Fulmer’s favorite coffee. Various iterations of the story make their way around the office, likely stemming from an interview, lost to the archives of a pre-digital age, when a reporter apparently asked him what coffee he would be, if reincarnated as a beverage. In his own words, circa 2016 (around the time I started bothering him for stories around the cupping table) he wrote, “To this day, all things being equal, given a choice of every origin supplying their best coffee, with a gun to my head, and having to pick only one to drink forever, Yemen Mocca Sanani would be my choice.” 

Bob, and by extension Royal, have a deep and time-honored relationship, not just commercially with coffee from Yemen, but with the Muslot family. Bob’s recollections of the introduction to the country, the business, and the Muslots ought to be required reading for all of our customers. 

The Muslot family, like Royal, have entered a new generation of coffee trading and continue to adapt to the shifting landscape that is specialty coffee. Fatoum Muslot, Abi Hibah Muslot’s daughter, now runs the export business we continue to secure small quantities of coffee through.  

When Max Nicholas-Fulmer, Bob’s son, texted me not long ago asking me what the most expensive coffee we’ve sourced for Crown Jewels in recent years, I shot back “why, trying to break a record?” and imagined we’d be staring down the barrel at an auction lot Panama or a clandestine Ethiopian coffee grown in Haile Selassie’s heretofore undiscovered private garden. 

I did not expect it to be of Yemeni origin. 

Yemen & Harazi Coffee 

This coffee is produced by legacy farmers of various sizes in the mountains of Eastern Haraz, a large natural preserve and agricultural area in Yemen’s Sana’a Governorate. Coffee-growing families in this part of Yemen, similar to many others across the country, tend parcels of terraced land passed through many generations. Haraz’s people have had coffee in the ground for six hundred years, producing and enjoying it about two centuries before Europeans even knew what coffee was. 

Though Yemen has always represented a kind of living antiquity of coffee, producers here are just as capable of modern methods. Case in point is this microlot. Only 600 pounds of coffee, washed, vacuum packed and air-shipped to Oakland expressly to be a Crown Jewel. The depulping, fermentation, and washing process are extremely unusual. When layered on top of centuries of tradition, and the result gives us a good glimpse into both the enduring and the inspired. 

Our most reliable histories indicate that it would be Sufi imams who would bring coffee into popular use during late night vigils in Yemen’s port of Aden, incontrovertibly no later than the mid-15th century. Arabia Felix, as the region was known at the time, became cultivated coffee’s homeland. For about two centuries, the tiny sliver of the Arabian Peninsula maintained a commercial monopoly on the globe’s supply of green coffee. That Ethiopia, not the Arabian Peninsula, is the origin of our favorite coffee species was a mystery lost upon the first Europeans to encounter the stuff. The Linnaean taxonomic name—arabica—nods to the mistaken provenance. Yemen and parts beyond under the Ottoman Empire embraced coffee, cultivated it, and successfully monetized it. 

One of the modern era’s most thrilling coffee discoveries is the existence of an aptly named Yemenia mother population, reported as recently as 2020 by noted coffee geneticist and former World Coffee Research Chief Scientific Officer Christophe Montagnon, et al. These trees exhibit genetic distinction from the rest of the globe, their uncharted lineages altered and reinforced by centuries of adaptation, isolation, and traditional practices. 

Maintaining coffee trees in a climate as harsh and uniquely challenging as Yemen’s western and northern ranges requires the kind of proven techniques that only generations of farming can figure out. Coffee farms are iconically terraced on arid, incredibly steep slopes. Where irrigation is not available, bore holes are dug manually into the rock to access individual water reserves for each tree wherever rain is scarce. Coffee trees are spaced generously, about 1000 per hectare (compared to 4000-6000 common in Latin America), both by necessity on the narrow terraces, as well as for better groundwater access and erosion control. Raising young coffee trees is a matter of hardening them for a lifetime of mountainous elements and water scarcity. Older coffee trees become very spacious and tall, and often end up hanging their branches over the terrace edge, known locally as “hanging gardens”. Above the coffee, shade trees are carefully selected and positioned for how well they block water evaporation. As can be imagined, productivity is very low in such conditions. And still, over one million people work in Yemen’s coffee trade, from farm to export. 

“Harazi” is a term of terroir distinction, similar to “Kona”, that refers to high-quality heirloom coffee varieties produced in the unique climate and soil of this part of Sana’a, where subtropical conditions and available water springs allow coffee farmers to irrigate—something almost unheard of in the majority of coffee-producing areas in Yemen.  

All Haraz coffee, as traditionally everywhere in Yemen, is typically processed as a natural: hand-picked, sorted for consistency, and dried in a single layer in full sun on raised beds or rooftops. Due to the arid climate and slow maturation patterns, coffee is picked almost year-round.  

The fact that this lot was processed a washed coffee from Yemen is truly extraordinary. 

Pearl of Tehama & Processing 

Pearl of Tehama, a miller and exporter, is a family business founded in 1970. For many years, all coffee was exported under the name of the family patriarch and founder, Ali Hiba Muslot. After his death in 1980 his three sons continued using the family name until 2012, when the family business, including other trades and retail, was split up. The coffee export business was reborn as Pearl of Tehama for Import, Export, and C.A.S, and is still owned by Ms. Fatoum Muslot, the late Muslot’s daughter. Fatoum’s eldest son, Yasser Al-Khaderi, is the company’s general manager. 

This particular lot of coffee from Haraz was carefully curated by Pearl of Tehama from 200 of their partner farmers. Breaking from tradition, however, it was processed centrally, in very small installments. Cherries otherwise destined for families’ rooftops or raised screens were instead delivered to the Muslot’s central processing site where they were depulped, fermented, and washed with clean water. After this, the clean parchment was moved directly to raised beds to dry in the sun, a process that took 15-20 days. Fully dried parchment was then stored in climate-controlled facilities to allow moisture to equilibrate, before sampling for quality control. 

Final Thoughts 

Getting Yemeni coffee out of the country, to the US, has never been easy. But the current political landscape makes it nearly impossible.  

Yemen’s decades-long civil conflict rages on, its people and politics besieged by warring factions seemingly incapable of setting aside differences to mend deep societal wounds of poverty, hunger, and the effects of climate change. Recently, a Houthi solidarity campaign for the atrocities continuing to unfold along the Gaza strip successfully disrupted international shipping lanes, reminding even the most capitalist among us that complicity has consequences. But the recent relative shipping stability in the Red Sea has taken a human toll in the form of indiscriminate bombing of Yemen by U.S., Israeli, and UK forces, and further disruptions in global supply chains are compounding as the U.S. and Iran blockade the nearby Strait of Hormuz. For anyone with the luxury of a 10,000-foot view, the cost of shipping coffees from Yemen, as measured in human lives, has been difficult to stomach.  

Years ago, I wrote an article for Daily Coffee News about low prices and displacement in coffeelands across the world. In it, I asked my coworker Haile about the sustainability of coffee production in such circumstances. “He directly challenged my long-held belief that supporting farmers through times of crises necessarily provides a measure of stability.” I reported. “‘Coffee growing can’t give any stability or security to the people,’ he said.” 

“The stories we tell about the social benefit we provide by simply engaging in commercial activity have always rung hollow,” I wrote on. “Whether marketing or self-reassuring, the truth is that growing coffee has little meaningful correlation to the larger human struggle of survival, particularly when extreme poverty or violence is involved. Furthermore, the fair payment for specialty coffee — or any crop, for that matter — shouldn’t be dependent upon a contrived narrative.” 

Where does this leave us? As I sip this coffee, steeped with equal parts tragedy and triumph, infused with deep history and modern problems, I think there’s probably something worthwhile in acknowledging that we don’t have to, nay, shouldn’t deign to save the world with our coffee purchases, but that we are unequivocally obligated to be ethical in our practice. And, maybe, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating the diamond, born of unimaginable pressure, while recognizing that there is also so much more work to be done so that coffees like this—and more importantly, the people responsible for their existence—may survive the present, and thrive in the future. 

Green

Green Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano 

These beans from Yemen are adorably small and have ideal readings across the board. Density is in the below average range at 670 g/L for the Sinar reading. Moisture content and water activity are both a little bit above average ranges. The lot contains a few heirloom cultivars that are known for their distinct flavor profiles, but little research has been done to distinctly separate these cultivars and determine traceability.  

With only 300kg bought in total, this is an extremely small lot size from a producer to buy. This coupled with origin, processing and shipped via air freight, this is one of the more exclusive offerings on our Crown Jewel menu. Grab it while you can and check out the roasting notes for more details on ideal roasting methods.  

Diedrich

Diedrich IR5 Analysis by Doris Garrido 

We are back with another Yemeni coffee, this time a wash version. The greens look so unique; they come in shades of yellow and are incredibly small and cute.  

Following the line Chris Kornman traced on the first roast he did of our previous Yemen coffee, I use his profile to guide this roast. That previous coffee was an anaerobic natural, being this one a wash I started with the same baseline keeping the same starting parameters but keep and eye on how the beans were actually behaving.  

I charged the drum at 406F on the lowest gas setting. The turning point was a touch higher, so I held off adding the gas. However, during the second half of the drying I noticed the beans were demanding more energy as my roast started to slow down, so I pushed all the gas and ended up taking 5:36 minutes to reach the color change. Right after the color change, I dropped the gas to zero (bringing it back to a baseline 30% after about a minute) and opened the airflow 50%. First crack hit at 389.7F, and there I opened the airflow all the way and developed the coffee for 1:33 minutes.  

So, to recap, coffee roasted is a bit different, first drying will use extra push to reach Maillard, then slow the roast to caramelize. Development tried to run away, as natural coffees usually do, but I got enough time to develop, and the end temperature worked great on the coffee.  

On the taste, this coffee is very soft and creamy. Yemen offers such unique flavors, dates, dry fruits, and a tangy sweet tamarind. But what stands out the most is its incredible, round elegant sweetness. This cup truly showcases the craftsmanship of the people behind it, from the agricultural practices all the way through processing, drying, and milling. It definitely shows in the cup, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to roast it. 

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! 

An incredibly rare and phenomenal coffee like this doesn’t come around so often. When it does, sometimes we’re flabbergasted and aren’t entirely sure how to handle it. Having recently roasted a Yemeni anaerobic coffee, I was ready for an adventure. Looking at and smelling the green only reconfirmed my assessment.  

This doesn’t look like a typical washed coffee; it might even look closer to a natural. The smell of the green has distinctive fruit notes, but not ones I’d normally find in a natural coffee – this is clearly a special coffee. So I treated it like one.  

Starting with a very low charge temperature of 428F (about as low as I go on a batch of 500g), I even allowed for a 1-minute ‘soak’, leaving heat application at P4 and fan speed at F2 from the outset. Then I adjusted to P8 and F3 to really get this coffee cooking. A little before yellowing, I decreased power to P7 and increased airflow to F4 shortly afterwards. I kept this up until late in roast, opting to let the coffee do the work. Before first crack, I adjusted down to P6 but kept airflow at F4. After first crack, I ramped down further to P5, and finally increased fan speed to F5 to finish off the roast at 10:32 and 403.4F. 

This is absolutely a confectionary sort of coffee. My longer roast style focused on the super sugary notes in this coffee, and my cup was replete with orange creamsicle flavors, bright pink and purple candy notes (starburst and runts, anyone?) and a super sweet birthday-cakey texture/flavor in the finish.  

Dare I say that this coffee is completely agnostic to preparation method? Perhaps.. The first time I tasted this coffee, I honestly didn’t know what to think, and I wasn’t convinced. Upon second roast and Doris’ production roast, this coffee blew me away. Just like some great albums, you may need to give this coffee more than one ‘listen’ to pick up what it’s putting down. Stick with it, this is an amazing entry into the halls of Crown Jewels. 

You can follow along with my roast here at roast.world: https://roast.world/egilman/roasts/pg7aM-4jxwE2iwnmuB2fZ 

IKAWA

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. 

This Yemeni washed is a gold mine in find and in flavor. On the high density roast, the coffee was botanical with sweet florals and a complex body. The low density roast had deeper notes of cherry, sweet chocolate and orange juice. Both profiles are delicious and have very different expressions of this coffee. If you are interested in bringing out those lilac and sweet floral notes, I recommend trying the high density roast. Happy cupping!  

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 Meri Jane 

This is truly one of the tastiest coffees I’ve had in a long time, and I’m not just saying that because I’m obsessed with coffees from Yemen either… It’s rare to get a washed coffee from Yemen due to the lack of available water for the washing process, so I was really excited to get started on this brew analysis! Something I’ve noticed about Yemeni coffees, based on the three Yemeni Crown Jewels we’ve had over the past year, is that they can be exceptionally sweet, but in a slightly different way that I’m not used to tasting in coffee. In the naturals that we’ve received, I can always taste just a tiny bit of ripe banana, which I absolutely love. This washed process, however, was like a peaches n’ cream marshmallow dream wallahi. Now, how about we get into these brews?? 

The first brew I want to mention was actually my last brew of the day. I thought I had tasted enough, but something inside told me to try just one more brew with a lower dose, and on a different brew device. The first few brews I made were on the V60, and they were tasting great, but for this brew I switched to the Wave and dropped the dose down to 18g. I kept the grind the same, at 11, and ended up with a brew time of 3:10. Despite the lower dose, the Wave gave this brew a nice well-rounded body that the previous brews were lacking. I don’t know if this is a widely enjoyed treat, but when I was growing up, we would always have peanut butter & marshmallow “fluff” sandwiches (adorably named “fluffernutters”), and this brew took me right back to those sandwiches. It also reminded me a lot of Honeycombs cereal. Some other notes I picked up were basbousa, Cara Cara orange, white peach, green grape, and orange blossom. Some notes from the rest of the team include dark chocolate, rice crispies, cooked peaches, and roasted almonds.  

The next brew I want to highlight was made on the V60, with a dose of 19g and a grind size of 11, finishing at 3:30. This brew was so delicious and almost my favorite of the day, but it was a little bit lighter in body than I personally prefer. This was the brew that I was referring to in my introduction, the “peaches n’ cream marshmallow dream” one… It really did taste like toasted marshmallows and peaches n’ cream! Some other notes I found were toasted almond, honeysuckle, and spiced orange. The rest of the team agreed with the note about peaches and marshmallows, and they also tasted some red wine, orange peel, cinnamon, and magnolia flowers.  

All in all, this is truly an exceptional coffee that I think coffee drinkers of all kinds will enjoy. It’s the perfect combination of sweet, fruity, and floral, in a way that is unusual for a washed process coffee. I can’t recommend it enough, to be honest. As for brew suggestions, I really liked it at both 18g and 19g, so I guess it depends on the brew device you’re using. If it’s a cone shape, go with 19, but if it’s a flat bottom, go ahead and bump it down to 18. Beyond that, this is a super flexible coffee because of how delicious it is, so don’t be shy to experiment with it! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!