from Tom Owen of Sweet Maria’s, about the 2008 crop but we think the 2009 crop seems to be like it? Go to Sweet Maria’s for the whole review and to cupping notes on our site for our excerpt of the full review from which this came.
“If this drying is done on patios, it is a bit slower than “raised bed” or screen-drying, and the result is a much more rustic cup.
The coffee is then collected and transported to the dry mill to be hulled out of parchment and graded.
With a traditional Indonesia, this happens before the coffee has been fully dried down to 11% moisture.
And they don’t let the coffee “rest” in parchment that long … it happens largely in the shipping container on the way over to the US!
Hence the coffee has a dark, opal-jade color. Okay, all that backstory is fine, but what about the cup?
You know right away from the dry fragrance this is an earthy, full-body, intense cup. There are woody notes in the aroma too,
wet forest bark, cocoa-chocolate. In the cup there is a syrupy, heavy body, low acidity; a thick, tenor-to-bass range flavor profile.
There’s a dark cocoa powder flavor from start to finish. It’s not that complex, and might strike those who like bright, clean coffee as “wrong.”
But for some this is the bullseye for deep, thick, intense flavor profiles.”