Ethiopia Banko Gotiti Double Washed Raised Bed Crown Jewel

Green

This is a very classic washed Ethiopian arrival by the physical specs, and should present the roaster with a dense and predictable coffee. Smaller than average in screen size, the coffee is relatively dry with a stable water activity. It should age well if longer storage is a concern.

Ethiopia’s genetic diversity of coffee is no secret, but increased attention is being paid to distinguishing cultivars and varieties, thanks in part to the work undertaken by Tim Hill and Getu Bekele. Established in the 1960s, the Jimma Agricultural Research Center was instrumental in selecting, breeding, and distributing scores of cultivars throughout the country in the decades following Haile Selassie’s downfall. These have included region-specific varieties, specialty cultivars, and hybrids and wild selections made for disease resistance.

Taste

Ikawa

This vibrant and floral Ethiopian coffee is really quite stunning. One of the first roasts that I programmed on the Ikawa was one that I had modified from a Norwegian roaster friend, Talor Browne. I was amazed by the great results that she was achieving is with such short roast times. I decided to start experimenting with my own short roast and this small dense ethiopian coffee with a slightly above average water activity seemed like the perfect opportunity.

First Crack started at 3:40 around 400F which was earlier than I expected. First Crack started with several snaps in quick succession and then there was a slight pause before picking up again. Post crack development time was a total of 1:05 minutes and finished at 409.8F. When developing a shorter roast profile, it is important to keep a significant amount of time for proper development. While the ikawa is a very efficient roaster using almost entirely convective heat, aiming for 60 seconds of post crack development is ideal.

On the cupping table this coffee was lively and vibrant. Lots of bright citrus acidity flavors like lemon and apricot complemented by floral notes like jasmine and ginger make this a stellar coffee and very clean and sweet.

Probatino

I was so excited to roast this coffee on the probatino, it was my favorite coffee on the table with the ikawa roasts. With the probatino I hoped to keep all of the amazing floral acidity that was in the ikawa roast, but I also wanted to see what kind of body this coffee would develop in a typical drum roaster environment.

In my first roast on the Probatino I started with a charge temperature of 363F which is slightly lower than my average charge temperature of 370F. At the midpoint between the rate of change peaking and the yellowing stage I applied 2.5 gas and then added more heat at 3 gas 1:00 minute later after the Maillard stage began. I reduced the heat just 18 seconds before first crack to lower my rate of change. First crack started at 395.7F and the rate of change began to reduce rapidly so I waited 50 seconds before I reduced the heat twice more to extend the post crack development time. The roast finished at 406.9F in 1:30 seconds. On the cupping table the coffee was extremely floral, with lots of cherry and black tea. The body was sticky and the finish was just a touch roasty.

I decided to throw another batch in the roaster because I knew that I could pull of a brighter and sweeter roast. I used the same charge temperature, but this time the turnaround was slightly lower than my previous roast. I decided to go straight to 3 gas at 1:51 which was only 30 seconds after the rate of change peaked at 33F/30 seconds. I did not reduce the heat until just before first crack, in this roast I wanted to shorten the post crack development time and reduce the end temperature. First crack started at 396F at minute 7 and I quickly reduced the that two more times and dropped the batch at 8:08 and 401.1F. On the cupping table this coffee was juicy and lively with all of the floral acidity that I was missing in roast (1).

Although my preference was for Roast (2), several of the Crown Team enjoyed the black tea and mature fruit flavors in Roast (1).

Quest M3s

This week I tried something a little different. Frustrated with Linux and more than ready to roast some coffee, I installed Artisan on Windows and plugged my Yocto-Thermocouple in. Lo and behold, it worked immediately without so much as a hiccup. I was able to set up a roast, log it using the BT (bean temperature) thermocouple, and save these nifty graphs showing you just how my roast panned out:

For those of you that are visually inclined (like myself), this is an incredibly handy tool, and can give you a feeling for the roast at a glance. I was overjoyed that it was so easy to set up on a system running Windows. Despite being in the Bay Area, the Raspberry Pi taught me that I am certainly not a tech genius.

For this roast, I began with a charge temperature of 365F, the back of the roaster closed, and the minimum fan speed setting. I reached turning point rather quickly at 1:15/182F, and closed the back of the roaster to start airflow at 2:30/220F. Not wanting to draw out my roast too far, I decided to use a lower fan speed for this roast. At 4:00/260F I increased fan speed to 2, and reduced amperage to 7.5A at 5:45. Immediately at first crack 6:44/309F I increased fan speed to 5. This temperature seems quite low for first crack but has been consistent, so I am continuing to use it as a reference point. After 1:16 development time, I dropped the batch and cooled it quickly.

This roast went quite well, but we tasted a bit of toastiness on the cupping table. I would have liked to have a bit more nuanced acidity expressed in this roast, and to eliminate the roasty flavor. There were good florals, and a distinctly juicy lemon note, but I wanted more.

Looking at the above graphic, I can think of a couple points to work on in future roasts. My first inclination is to try a lower charge temperature. Any scorching that may have occurred would be mitigated by including this change. Furthermore, during our tasting Jen mentioned that a longer drying time might render better flavors. One more step that I may take in future roasts is to use a low fan speed throughout, and not only after turning point.

While this coffee was perfectly delicious, there’s simply no way I’ll be satisfied with a new system right off the bat. There are always improvements to be made, and if those requirements have to be met by sampling delicious coffee, so be it.

Brew

This week there was a bit of a time time crunch; after installing a fan for our tiny office/roast space a fuse got blown in the Probatino, pushing roasting back a few days. This along with some schedule conflicts led to me brewing this delicious double-washed Ethiopian coffee just one day after roast. This may not be an ideal scenario, but anyone who’s worked in production or behind the bar can attest that it does indeed happen occasionally, and that delicious brews are still possible with super fresh coffee.

As with most delicious Ethiopian coffee, I started by brewing this Hambela on a V60 with my standard recipe. Grind size 8 on the EK 43, 25 grams of coffee in with 400g of brew water. I allowed bloom to continue for longer than usual, 00:45 seconds, as a countermeasure for the gassiness of a super-fresh coffee. Pre wetting, or blooming coffee is meant to allow some of the gasses (mostly CO2) to escape from the ground coffee so that it doesn’t cause turbulence during extraction. This is the same reason it’s best to leave coffees to rest several days before brewing – the gasses trapped inside can impede even extraction and flavor perception. By letting the bloom go on a little longer, and stirring aggressively to make sure all the coffee was properly saturated, I hoped to mitigate any effect those gases would have on my brew.

This first brew was full of classically Ethiopian flavors; pear, lemon verbena, stone fruit, and clean florals, with a base notes that tasted more like tannic cacao than like black tea. It was a real delight. Curious as to how the Banko Gotiti would taste with slightly lower extraction, I coarsened my grind a half notch on the EK to 8.5 and tried the recipe again. This round presented a little more herbal character, like chamomile and black tea, as well as slightly juicier notes of rose and hibiscus.

Then, Jen roasted one more batch of this delicious Banko Gotiti and it tasted so incredibly delicious on the table that I had no choice but to brew it again. Ironically, this new batch was also super fresh, just two days off roast. I went back to grind size 8 and a 1:16 ratio, which took 3:35 to brew completely. This was a truly spectacular brew, bursting with hibiscus, plum, white peach, peach nectar, lavender, chamomile and cocoa, it was just phenomenal.

This coffee has a lot to offer and is a great representation of some of the best coffee Gedeb has to offer this year.