Myanmar – Green Land Estate – SL34 Natural Processed

Description

Direct trade micro-lots from Myanmar! We partnered up with our local buddy David from Green Bean Asia to source these wonderful estate coffees. Not often do we see stellar offerings from Myanmar, a great addition to our list.

SL34 is was originally a Kenyan strain of coffee, now grown in many different places. Known for its great balance and depth of flavors.

Green Land Estate lies on the road between Pyin Oo Lwin and Mogok, in Thatkan village, near the border of Mandalay Division and Northern Shan State. The land was acquired in 1998 and coffee was planted the following year over 400 acres. The coffee plants are intercropped with silver oak and macadamia trees for shade. At Green Land Estate,  you can see several experiments with different spacing between shade tree species, fertilization, solar water pump and drip irrigation system.

An onsite mill was installed with a washer-separator, eco-super pulper, rotary screener, and demucilager. Selectively harvested, only fully ripe cherries are sent to the wet mill and depulped within 20 hours after harvest. Any remaining floaters are removed before soaking in tiled tanks, where fermentation takes place for 20-25 hours. After washing, parchment is dried and turned hourly in the day and covered at night to prevent dew from reintroducing moisture. After about 7-10 days drying, parchment has reached 12% moisture content. Throughout all processing, daily lots are separated. Parchment is stored in the farm warehouse for resting after the harvest until a buyer is found, then sent to MCG for dry milling, final sorting and export.

Tasting Notes:
A wonderfully clean natural coffee! Best at the light to medium roast levels. A sweet cup with a little higher acidity, not quite sizzling but stronger citric and floral tones that will leave your tongue jazzed and a little on the dryer side. This is not a fruit bomb coffee, delicate natural, has a little fruity sparkle comingling with the citric/floral tones, balancing with a little herbal spice and chocolate like darker tone. Most picked it out as an “orange” like fruitiness in our tastings, but a couple had more traditional stone fruit notes. 

Roasting Notes:
Fairly easy to roast – a bit higher chaff but a lovely clean natural. Even roasting and a decent cup from light to dark. Shines at the lighter roast points but there were no roast points to avoid. Setup can reduce the citric and floral tones at lighter roasts, so for some, waiting 3-5 days before drinking could be a perk. We loved it after 24 hours of resting.