July 2015 - New roasting system for mycuppa

Date Posted:1 July 2015 

              blu batak coffee beans

Sumatra Blue Batak

There are a couple of spectacular coffee origins that I have been deliberately holding back from featuring in our monthly article. The reasons for this are simple - relative scarcity (difficulty) in sourcing raw coffee at decent volumes.
We have seen tremendous uptake from the coffees featured in our monthly newsletters, so it's only reasonable to expect that we hold enough raw to cover higher ordering volumes during the weeks following the release of the article.
Just like the Monsoon Malabar, Sumatran coffees are unique in the world of coffee. They are unlike all other coffees because of the method used to process the picked/harvested cherries and the varietals grown in the region. Its a process that is only performed in the Indonesian (Sumatran) farms - wet hulling. If you can imagine a tub, some water and a baseball bat to pulp the coffee and then allowed to ferment overnight........you pretty much have it.
Sumatran coffees evoke a mysterious and romantic notion. They are complex in ways no other origin can match - spice, fruit, flavour, deep body, aromatics and decadent richness - Sumatrans are surely the equivalent of Willy Wonka's Never Ending Gobstopper.
The 3-step drying process and heavy ferment result in what is generally regarded as the ugliest raw coffee. It's a dense, heavy bean with a smell from many raw Sumatran coffees pungent and unpleasant - a forest-floor-like funky aroma. The physical appearance of Sumatran coffee in the raw green state is somewhat off-putting, mottled and inconsistent with lots of chaff and skins.
Sumatran coffees have the highest moisture content of any coffee bean and therefore require significantly more energy to roast. Once roasted, Sumatran coffees don't smell sweet or traditional but instead emit an earthy aroma.
Grind and brew or extract Sumatran coffees and this is when the magic transformation occurs - from ugly duckling into beautiful swan.
Throw some Sumatran beans into your espresso grinder and be prepared for a revolution. They require a much finer grind and once you nail the espresso shot there is literally nothing that can match a great Sumatran - tons of low acid, thick syrupy body, complex spice, lemony fruit and a long, long buttery finish.
In milk-based espresso, they give off nice chocolate notes but its the wonderful silky-smooth buttery body that is exquisitely balanced.
Another interesting fact about Sumatran coffees is that once roasted they need a lot of rest before they peak - sometimes this is 10 days, sometimes longer. Trying to drink a wet-hulled Sumatran coffee that is just a few days off the roaster can result in a cup that is not "clean" - the bean is still developing. There will be a distinct lack of sweetness and flavour until it has developed. At that point there will be a major "turn" in the coffee and you would swear the coffee you had yesterday was different to the coffee you had today.
Sumatran coffees deliver a punch of flavor and finish that is difficult to match from other origins.
Up until 3 years ago I used tons and tons of Sumatrans in all my blends to add body, length and balance. These were what I regard as the "golden age" of our espresso coffee journey as it was back then possible to source clean Sumatrans at a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, over the last few years we have seen the price of Sumatran coffees skyrocket and supply shrink considerably. This is primarily due to the excessive wet seasons and the lower crop yields - with plenty of damaged crops from rain at the fermentation or drying stages.
Another factor affecting the price of Sumatran coffees has been the increasing demand from around the world. Whereas once the US and Europeans were only small buyers of Sumatran coffees, now they compete for the best lots and this pressure pushes up the pricing.
It's not unusual for the large US coffee companies such as Starbucks and Green Mountain to buy entire farms and plantations to lock in their supply chain for the future seasons.
In terms of the different offerings that fill the market, you tend to see Mandheling and Lintongs as the most common products - these are typically Grade 1 in our market as the Australian coffee drinker has high standards and won't accept a taint coffee such as a grade 2 or lower. Many of the higher grade Sumatrans are double or triple sorted (picked). The sorting process performed at origin is perhaps the most critical contributor to quality as there can be a lot of really bad Sumatran coffee that has ferment taints mixed in with the good stuff.
We buy quality from the Volcafe Blue Batak and Lake Tawar along with our FAIRTRADE Organic offering from Bennets called Gayo Supreme. In between we also grabbed quite a few lots of the various Wahana Estate coffees - some of these natural Sumatrans were insanely nice, but alas they are not easily available.
Two seasons ago we jumped from the eponymous and rather famous Sumatra Kuda Mas used in our blends to the highly regarded Lumika before discovering the amazing Blue Batak.
In Sumatra Blue Batak we found a superb, intense and satisfying coffee - clean, buttery, rich and complex - everything a great Sumatran should be. It's a Lintong from the Bayan Farmer Group grown at 1,400m above sea level.

Grab yourself something very special.....

These beans have since sold out, but we have other great Sumatran Coffee Beans for sale here.

                                

New Roasting Platform

It's been a pretty tough 4 month slog out at the new Centre Way facility.
Last week we finally commissioned the new roasting plant - a journey we started in September 2014.
We are yet to migrate across our current operational roasting plants.
This new roasting platform is highly customized and unique amongst the roasting operations installed in Australia.
With more than 980 brands of coffee being sold in Australia, we felt it was critically important to develop a unique flavour stamp to differentiate our offering.
The easy choice would have been to go with one of the popular or common roasting platforms but inevitably we would end up with coffee that was similar to everyone else.
Instead, we have gone down a path that we believe will enable us to develop and leverage more from the humble coffee bean than our competitors.
Many years ago we installed a roasting platform that ensured a clean, reliable cup - free of bitterness and harshness. This platform relies upon hot air and we developed our reputation and reliability by producing many hundreds of tons of quality, defect-free coffee.
The new platform uses an old-fashion roasting technique applying greater levels of conduction to enhance the native flavour of coffee. We then coupled the new architecture with the most advanced control software available on the market. In effect, we have moved from a large single package burner to 72 fully modulating atmospheric burners - providing greater precision and control.
Now that we have 3 different roasting platforms operational, you may notice a subtle series of changes evolving over the next 4 months. From time to time we may roast certain coffees on a platform and then change to another platform. This transition is something we will manage but ultimately we are trying to consolidate the majority of our roasting onto a single platform.
As part of the new plant we also installed a new dual channel afterburner system which has been designed for double the effective capacity of our plant to ensure our impact on the environment and our emissions are effectively eliminated. In early 2016 we will be undertaking a program of implementing sustainable energy sources.
Ultimately, you can be assured of one very important thing - it's always going to be me that roasts every batch of coffee - nobody is allowed to touch my shiny toys. 

This is our other key differentiation in the market - no learner drivers, no experiments and no disenchanted, distracted or disconnected staff turning green stuff brown.

And now we sell organic coffee capsules too.