Crown Jewel Mexico San Agustín Loxicha Fully Washed Typica Pluma

taste

Taste Analysis by Sandra Loofbourow

I continue to be impressed with Mexico’s coffee potential; each year I find new coffees form this origin to fall in love with. Typically. I’ve associated Oaxaca with high volumes, but not necessarily high quality. Let this coffee from San Agustin challenge these preconceptions! An incredibly sweet cup with pineapple acidity and a pleasant lemongrass finish, this coffee is held together with a foundation of complex developed sugars – think caramel, sugar cookie, and marzipan. With a myriad of fruit flavors, overwhelming sweetness, and a buttery body, it’s the kind of coffee that disappeared from my cup much faster than I would have liked!

source

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell and Chris Kornman

This coffee came to us via Galguera Gómez S.A. De C.V., and thirty-seven surrounding family-owned farms located within the municipality of San Agustín Loxicha in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Coffee producers use their own micro-mill to process harvested cherries, which allows for meticulous care in depulping, fermenting, and drying the coffee. Coffee is cultivated on farms that average 10 to 24 acres in size. The Galguera Gomez company aims to organize and support producers with access to the best agricultural practices and consequently pay high prices for higher quality coffee production.

Often referred to as Pluma Hidalgo, the coffee type is named for the region in which it was popularized, which in turn honors revolutionary hero Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. The plume refers to a whisp of cloud that appears on a local mountain. Despite the homage to local geography and history, and despite the cultivar’s near-exclusive distribution in Mexico, it is believed to have naturally mutated in Sumatra before its introduction to the Americas.

green

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman

This Oaxacan offering showcases precision sorting by nearly every available metric. Clean and polished green coffee sorted to European Preparation (EP) standards (16+) with a denser-than-average distribution for this prep type. The coffee is in the pocket with moisture and water activity, and is accompanied by a much higher than expected density given the growing elevation. The coffee is unlikely to present too many surprises in roasting or green storage.

diedrich ir-5

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Candice Madison

I have never roasted as many Mexican coffees as I have over the past 2 years. What a boon! The coffee quality coming out of Mexico has been getting exponentially better year on year and this coffee is of the same ilk. A wonderfully approachable offering from San Agustin Loxicha. Usually, I can’t bear that word when it comes to describing coffee. The descriptor makes the coffee sound boring and bland, but it’s not – at least not in this case!

With decent green coffee metrics in hand, fairly even screen size spread, ideal moisture readings (percentage and water activity), and a higher-than-expected density levels, I felt good to go on this one. Still, employing the method we did for the previous Crown Jewel, Doris and I opted for me to go in, devil may care fashion, and she would roast the second batch after discussing the first.

I decided to go in hot and fast, trying to make up for my mistake of overly abundant caution from the last Crown Jewel roast. Starting the roast at 380F, gas at 90%, I reduced this significantly to 75% at the turning point. Hoping those two gas settings, coupled with 100% airflow would give the beans the thermal energy they needed to carry through to the color change, I left the gas alone, turning it down once at the advent of stage 2 and then again, a minute or so before 1st crack.

Reviewing the data from the roast, I noted a couple of things – I wanted to eke out more from stage 2. The coffees we have had in year on year from Mexico have had several great things in common, one of them being how sweet they are. We needed to float for longer in Stage 2 and eke out a little more from stage 3, post-crack, to really develop the complexity from all the sugars that we knew were in the bean. The other important thing to note with this coffee is how quiet its crack is – we can tell that it is cracking for quite a few seconds before it is audible. And yes, at that point it is *very* audible! If the batch isn’t cracking, it is certainly giving off a lot of heat and vapor, which you should deal with via air flow and gas changes, so be ready for that.

Because I was looking at the return air and drum thermocouple data points, I was able to anticipate first crack somewhat, and my turning the gas down to our minimum (30%) was in response to that. However, a lot was taking place in the drum and it would have been wise to open the airflow sooner. The rate of change (rise) plateaued and then crashed. I don’t love that from a scientific standpoint, but the coffee didn’t seem to suffer that crash landing.

Going back in after our discussion, Doris chose to reverse the heat application at the beginning of the roast. Taking a chance and going in with a heat soak, she mitigated any cooling effects by making the soak 75% of our maximum gas, turning it up to 90% at the turn, before lowering it to 50% before the color change. Staying at this gas percentage, and not having loaded the coffee with too much heat up front, Doris was able to ride through stage 2, gaining almost 30 more seconds in this roast. She also managed to spend a little more time in stage 3, while finishing only a couple of degrees lower than my end temperature. We were pleased and I was proud!

In the end, our roast curves looked incredibly similar, but delivered the results we expected. The first roast was yummy, but the second roast hit the mark! Moving from simpler flavors of milk chocolate, almond and prune notes with salted caramel, the second roast showed us butterscotch, roasted almonds, plum and raisin notes. But we were also blessed with vanilla, candied pecan and a hint of cream. The body was creamy and coating with a nice weight to it. Approachable may not be my favorite descriptor, but this coffee is eminently approachable and delightfully delicious in its complexity. Enjoy!

quest m3s

Quest M3s Analysis by Evan Gilman

Unless otherwise noted, I follow a set standard of operations for all my Quest roasts. Generally, I’ll allow the machine to warm up for 15 minutes until my environmental temperature reading is at least 250F, weigh out 200g batch size, and begin roasting when I’ve reached my desired charge temperature.  Read my initial post here and my updated post here.

Another fine coffee from Mexico this year. The San Agustín Loxicha was an easy roast and even easier on the palate. With density, screen size distribution, moisture content, and water activity very much in the middle of the distribution curve, I wasn’t expecting a wild ride from this coffee. Smooth sailing, and smooth drinking!

I started my roast off on the low end of the spectrum in terms of Environmental Temperature, right at 250F. I had let the machine warm up so that my charge temperature was nice and even at 390F at the Bean Temperature probe, but the ET was still on the low side, leaving less heat for the coffee to soak up from its surroundings in the beginning of the roast. With 10A and full fan at charge, I knew that I’d need to turn off airflow a bit earlier in order to not lose momentum, and decided to cut the fan before turning point.

After waiting until 255F / 3:00, I reintroduced fan, just as the Rate of Rise peaked. A touch later at 280F / 3:40, I reduced heat application to 7.5A on a solid but steadily declining Rate of Rise, then 5A at 330F / 5:00. After this, I didn’t make too many moves until very late in the roast – this coffee was very easy to work with. At 365F / 6:20 I turned fan speed up to full and rode out the rest of the roast for 16% post-crack development and a drop temperature of 392F. I have been enjoying lower final temperatures roasting on the Quest M3s, and this coffee delivered well with this roast style as well.

The cup here was easy drinking and nostalgic. Sweet cane sugar, marzipan, lemon, and chocolate covered pretzels were my standout notes. There’s absolutely nothing to keep me from drinking 3 or 4 cups of this coffee in the morning other than my conscience. Eminently quaffable and very easygoing!

ikawa

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Nate Lumpkin

As of September 2020 we are running all Crown Jewel Analysis roasts on an Ikawa Pro V3, using the most recent app and firmware version on “closed loop” setting.

I put this washed coffee from Mexico through our standard three profiles on the Ikawa V3 and found a light, delicate, and juicy cup that tasted fairly similar on each of the profiles.

Our hot and quick standard profile produced a cup with a pleasant lime acidity and notes of peach, apple juice, fresh green apple, honeysuckle, and simple white sugar. It was extremely sweet with a pleasant coasting mouth-feel, and behaved very well in the Ikawa itself.

Our extended Maillard profile produced a cup that was just a touch heavier, with notes of caramel, as well as those familiar tart green apple, apricot, and sweet apple juice notes. Our longer, cooler profile produced a light and delicate cup, with notes of white peach, green apple candy, and peach candy. This roast was a touch astringent and a little too quick for my tastes, so I would probably recommend using a hot and fast profile like our first, and be sure to take a look at Evan and Candice’s roast notes for further advice.

You can download the profile to your Ikawa Pro app here:

Roast 1: Crown Standard SR 1.0          

Roast 2: Crown Maillard +30 SR 1.0           

Roast 3: Crown 7m SR LowAF 2      

brew

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Nate Lumpkin

As of September 2020 we are running all Crown Jewel Analysis roasts on an Ikawa Pro V3, using the most recent app and firmware version on “closed loop” setting.

I put this washed coffee from Mexico through our standard three profiles on the Ikawa V3 and found a light, delicate, and juicy cup that tasted fairly similar on each of the profiles.

Our hot and quick standard profile produced a cup with a pleasant lime acidity and notes of peach, apple juice, fresh green apple, honeysuckle, and simple white sugar. It was extremely sweet with a pleasant coasting mouth-feel, and behaved very well in the Ikawa itself.

Our extended Maillard profile produced a cup that was just a touch heavier, with notes of caramel, as well as those familiar tart green apple, apricot, and sweet apple juice notes. Our longer, cooler profile produced a light and delicate cup, with notes of white peach, green apple candy, and peach candy. This roast was a touch astringent and a little too quick for my tastes, so I would probably recommend using a hot and fast profile like our first, and be sure to take a look at Evan and Candice’s roast notes for further advice.

You can download the profile to your Ikawa Pro app here:

Roast 1: Crown Standard SR 1.0          

Roast 2: Crown Maillard +30 SR 1.0           

Roast 3: Crown 7m SR LowAF 2