Description
A beautiful, fresh, top rated and semi-exotic bean for Sumatra. A very fun coffee for any boutique coffee head.
Washed processed, large beans, almost 0 defects. A rare gem for Indonesia. Usually they wet-hull coffees which gives them some pretty unique appearances and tastes, most folks have a love/hate relationship with them. This offering however is a large bean screen, virtually defect free coffee (also rare for Indonesia), that will have a much broader appeal, even to non-Indonesia fans. It still holds a little terroir for Indonesia but could easily be mistaken for an awesome other African or South American offering.
A great replacement for the Washed Sulawesi Toarco coffees of yonder years, which unfortunately is out of production.
This coffee comes from a small mill in the Pegasing district of Takengon, in Sumatra’s coffee-famous Aceh region ran by Cup of Excellence winner Asman Arianto. The Asman Gayo mill serves several small coffee producers within the Pantan Musara villages. Several years ago, these producers were dislocated from their homes and land because of a natural disaster, and they have rebuilt their lives and farms with a new focus on coffee. Unlike the vast majority of other Sumatran coffee, this mill is producing beautiful washed processed coffees.
Tasting Notes:
Good from light to dark although we thought it best at a nice medium roast. Crisp tones, slight citrus/fruit note and a fuller bodied rustic chocolaty factor to balance it off. Sweet and clean, this is a stronger cup of a coffee! Just a bit of the classic Indo earthiness, I might link this coffee closer to an exotic Colombian than an Indo (which is way cool). Very nice rich chocolate tones (a little sweet malt/caramel as it cools) adds to the mix of delicate flavors present in this cup. A slight smoky aftertaste can be picked up at the darker roast points. This is a must try for anyone who likes a real full bodied complex cup of joe!
Roasting Notes:
We enjoyed this Sumatra at a medium roast, still nicely complex and balanced but mutes a little acidity and promotes more chocolaty than earthy notes. Darker roast will promote that very thick and creamy cup but will mute most of the brightness which is pretty cool to have in the flavor profile.
Sumatran coffees have long been distinct for their earthy, savory, somewhat vegetal or herbaceous characteristics, in part contributed by the climate and the mix of varieties grown, but also due to a specific post-harvest processing style called Wet-Hulling, or locally known as Giling Basah, which imparts much of the unique qualities these coffees have.
Before the 1970s, coffees in Sumatra were processed in the two most commonly found methods worldwide: washed and natural. In the 1970s, Japanese interest in Sumatran coffees led to the introduction of the Wet-Hulled process, a unique style of handling and drying that is largely responsible for Sumatran coffees’ unmistakable flavor characteristics, but also their normally greenish-blue hue.
In Sumatra, coffee farmers will typically harvest their coffee cherry and depulp them by hand at their farm or home. The coffee then dries for a very short time and is brought either to a coffee marketplace or to a “collector,” or collection point, where the beans are purchased at anywhere from 30–50% moisture, with their mucilage still partially intact. The coffee is then combined and hulled (has its parchment removed) while it is still in this high-moisture state. The coffee is then dried to the more commonly globally accepted 11–13% moisture in order to prepare for export.
While there is some experimentation currently being done with large-scale Washed coffee for export, most of the Washed coffee produced is for local consumption. The Wet-Hulled process was developed specifically to speed up drying and efficiency in a climate that sees heavy rain and clouds most of the year. Removing the parchment layer allows the coffee to dry much faster on patios or tarps even in these conditions.
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