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Water and coffee: Processing

To process green coffee to the stage ready for roasting, it needs to be fermented to remove all the mucilage from the bean. Mucilage is the sticky, fruity part which is between the skin and bean, it is a little like grape, but only a very thin layer between bean and skin.

Coffee is generally either processed ‘natural / sun dried’, or ‘washed’. For washed coffee, once the cherry has been picked from the tree, within 6 hours it needs to be pulped to remove the skin, and soaked in water to ferment. In that first 24 hours the mucilage is disolved, it then needs to be dried in the sun for between 5- 9 days to reduce moisture levels to between 10.5 – 11.5% which means it can safely sit for a year ready for roasting.

washed coffee ready for floaters to be removed

washed coffee ready for floaters to be removed

In countries where water is short, or for reasons which natural coffee is wanted, coffee is not water fermented, but dried in the sun in the cherry form. Once the cherry is picked from the tree, it is put straight onto raised beds to dry in the sun as a cherry, this may also take a week to dry.

Washed coffee is often dried on concrete patios, but natural coffee is usually dried on raised beds to allow air flow under beans.Image

Part of the water processing is floating the cherries in water, the good sink and the under / over ripe cherries, and sticks etc all float and are scooped off and discarded. This process removes a lot of defects, so washed coffee will inherently have a lower defect count then natural coffees, putting washed coffee in a higher quality level.

Once the coffee is washed, there is a lot of water which has all sorts of contaminants left in it from the coffee, which poison rivers, killing marine life due to changes in ph level etc.

 

Research and industry development has produced methods of cleaning the water which can be done at local processing plants with manageable installation costs. Small processing plants may be build by co-ops throughout the region of their farmers, to reduce work for farmers, give better control over quality through access to proper machinery, and to reduce their environmental impacts. These processing plants may have water cleaning facilities depending on the size.

Water treatment method used by PRODECOOP in Nicaragua:

3 steps are used here to process the water: physically, chemically and biologically.

PRODECOOP Esteli, Nicaragua 2009. Wet mill with water treatment plant under construction.

Physically: Once the coffee is washed it is removed from the water, and the water is put in tank 1 for a while to allow large particles to settle, the top of the water is then drained to tank 2 leaving the ‘scum’.  Water left in tank 1 evaporates under the clear roof , and the dry muck is scooped out and used as organic compost.

Water settling tank 1, with pipes to feed Calcium hydroxide.

Chemically: next Calcium hydroxide is used which further separate sediment from good water, and is separated again.

Biologically: finally the water is pumped to run down a rough ramp with jagged stones protruding, this agitates the water creating turbulence and mixing water with oxygen. The water is cycled over the ramp more than once to finish the cleaning, and ph levels are  acceptable, it is then reused or put back into river.

the treated water is pumped from tank 2 to run down the ramp

Pollution of rivers is a big problem in coffee producing areas, as many different coffee farmers spread for miles will be reusing the same river water as it runs down the mountain. Co-ops can play a key role in increasing production efficiencies and best practice as they hold a collective responsibility on behalf of locals, and have resources to build processing and water cleaning stations.

Another good reason to buy from co-ops.

Water and coffee: Water quality in brewing

Coffee as a drink, is mainly water, and the quality of water directly relates to the way we perceive flavours, this is important both in espresso and soft brewing.

The flavour of acidity in coffee is effected by the ph, and chemical make up of the water. High acid coffees can loose their acidic flavour because of water makeup, and espresso machines become scaled.

We all use industry standard filter kits on water for brewing, which are really just a starting point for treatment, but gets very expensive to go to next step.

lime scale build up

When you buy a Slayer, you only get a warranty when proper water treatment processing is done, in NZ this costs over $5000 to set up. This is the next step in filtration, but something which isn’t viable in a wholesale cafe market.

The new dual boiler espresso machines have flow restrictors with hot water running through them which scale up and block injectors quickly, causing regular problems in regions where water has a high TDS.

The water filters we use are Everpure 2CB-GW, which do the following:

  • Reduces fine dirt and particles
  • Carbon block filter polishes water for high quality beverage and food applications
  • Reduces chlorine, taste, odor, and other offensive contaminants
  • Reduces limescale build-up that can damage the machine

As you may know, even with these filter kits, lime scale does build up, and fast depending on your water content. So globally every espresso machine has this problem.

I wonder how water quality treatment in coffee will progress, will we see better filter kits at affordable prices, will we be running ‘bottled’ water through our espresso machines, or will we continue to need to de-scale espresso machines every year or so?

Water and coffee: the water footprint of coffee

Water plays an important role in coffee, making up most of the beverige, and there are a few big issues involved with coffee, starting at origin with growing, processing, and at the brewing stage with quality of water effecting flavours in different ways, and scaling up espresso machines..

What I wasn’t so aware of is, as I drink my V60 Harar, I am also unknowingly using 100’s of liters of their precious water!

water collection Africa

According to this study waterfootprint.org for every cup of coffee we drink, 140 liters of water is required to grow and produce it!! 99.66% of this water is for growing, with only 0.34% accounting for wet processing.

Origins like Harar, where rainfall is so scarse they don’t wash any coffee, this issue is particularly big, to think for each cup of coffee we drink, 140L of clean rain water went into coffee trees- and not to people!

When a product is exported there is resources used to produce it, ‘Virtual water’ is water used to grow a product which is then exported, depleting the origin of this resource and product.

We all consume water, The water levels on the planet will stay the same, but where it falls, how its used, and how polluted it is when we try to consume it is a different story.

This may sound a bit academic, but really we have a similer situation here in NZ with huge dairy production for milk powder export using mass water for irrigation etc, with water shortages are becoming more common. Seventy percent of New Zealand’s irrigated land is in Canterbury, where two big irrigated dairy farms can use more water than the whole city of Christchurch.

Estimates by the NZ Water Rights Trust state at least 500 litres of water is needed to produce a single litre of milk—possibly much more. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation puts the ‘water footprint’ of a dollar’s worth of milk at 1,470 litres.

Water stress is a reasonably now concept, it is when the annual water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic metres per person per year, and is occurring in many places these days when 50 years ago it was commonly believed clean water was an infinite resource.

Water Justice: as the research points out, when talking about water problems in coffee, there is a much bigger and separate topic than pollution of rivers through processing, or scale building up in espresso machines, as we are essentially exporting water out of coffee origins, at over 100L per cup of coffee.

As far as I know, small lot farmers who we buy from, the water used in growing the coffee is all rain fall. But for larger plantation, water irrigation for growing may be happening, perhaps mainly in robusta and commodity coffee, where farming is more extensive and mechanized.

What this means for coffee farmers, ‘virtual water export’ is obviously hard to quantify, this issue is common to all products, but has different effects with some many factors in different countries. But regardless it is a real issue which we play a role in.

What role can we play: perhaps part of our responsibility from the “developed world” is to promote, share and support the use of technology and its management.

This is happening through the co-op mechanism using farmers shared resources to build facilities for cleaning water. But it is still not common place among our co-ops, as many farmers have backyard micro wet mills.

So this is really quite a big picture problem, with no answer to how to change where rain falls, or where products are grow, but never the less, an interesting topic.

Are We All Just 1%-Ers

ImageBlog post

Blog discussion originally from Nick Cho from Wrecking ball coffee, commented on by James Hoffman.

Interesting reflections coming from a high end Specialty coffee roaster:

Are we all too focused on the top 1% of coffee quality,

how effective is this 1% at raising the quality of coffee as a big picture,

does the concept of ‘quality’ need go further than flavours in a cup

The roasteries who sell and preach about this top 1%, is it the bread and butter of their business? or do they actually make their profit from the 80-85 scoring coffees? How many consumers actually buy 90+ coffees? and buy them more than once?

http://www.jimseven.com/2012/12/13/response-are-we-all-just-1-ers-too/

Quality has to be an aspiration for anyone who is seriously about coffee, and specifically that the quality of ‘mainstream’ is going up progressively over time, and the ‘mainstream’ consumer can get to taste and love the ‘good’ coffees and brewing preparation some of us industry people do.

This topic closely relates to what Peoples Coffee is about, creating a market where the ‘main producers’ – 70% of the world coffee, WILL ACTUALLY BENEFIT from their trade, then the producer can use this ‘benefit’ to continue to raise their quality, so the mainstream consumer can then taste it.

As opposed to being part of the elite business circle who represent the top 1% of those who can go to the lengths required to produce 90+ coffees, and hoping the differences in production techniques will trickle down to the rest of the producers.

There is a gap in roasters’ mind who believe they just have to buy high quality, but take little responsibility in creating an environment where quality can be raised. Each year after harvest time they chose a supplier with the best blind cupping score, rather than work with 1 supplier to maintain and raise their quality.

One important thing to note here is in New Zealand, we are mainly talking about coffee being sold to cafes and onto consumers as espresso. Coffees with scores over 90 are not usually part of the wholesale espresso market, but the coffees we buy from co-ops, which have score between 80 and 88 are perfect for our espresso market, and through our buying practices we can trade in partnership with producers on quality.

Colombian CENCOIC organic production issues:

During the SCAA 2012, Justin from TAI (coffee buyer from Trade Aid Importers) and I talked with Ricardo from CENCOIC, our Colombian co-op about some issues they are having with organic production. The soil of the Cauca region is deficient in nitrogen and sulphates, (among other things) and fertilizers must be used in coffee production.

Recently the co-op went through some changes and now has quite a different member make up, because of this they lost their organic cert (as most new farmers didn’t have cert), and only can ship a very small amount of organic coffee.

Later Ewan from TAI (Ewan is coffee quality person from TAI) spoke with me to see if we would be interested in buying un-organic coffee for a time while they gain their cert again.

There is a thing called Transitional coffee, it takes 3 year to transition from chemicals to organic, starting from the day you stop using chemicals. One school of thought is it is a good thing (for a roaster) to buy transitional coffee, esp if you start working your way up to the organic premium (say an extra 5c per pound each year), as farmers have to do all the extra work (it is a LOT) without getting $ reward till 3 years is up and cert is achieved.

We need organic coffee and it is much harder to produce, we need to be helping farmers transition to meet our market.

I think organic is a big part of our brand, so wouldn’t want to be 95% organic, whats the point.

However this may mean we will stop buying for a co-op we have been trading with for years, having a big impact on them, and (arguably) reducing the incentive for them to transition.

I’m not sure where this will go, I don’t think we will change our 100% organic stance, but food for thought as this may necessitate the need to find a new co-op which meets both TAI and our requirements.

René

Do Micro Lots matter to Producers

Remarks from the SCAA lecture about ML’s

On the pannel there was a spead of industry people; co-op members, brokers, roasters, researchers.

+if you only buy a ML from a producer and not their normal harvest this is NOT seen as good practice in “relationship trade” (by some producers) its like only going out for dinner with a friend when they are shouting dinner.

+Skimming the best out, on the whole doesn’t greatly reduce the quality of the main harvest, rather- that the good quality beans are missed in the cup when left in normal harvest, so skimming can be a good way of achieving a special lot, esp when already harvested or harvest special lots at “optimum picking time”.

+Farmers (from CENFROCAFE in Peru) who attained a ML once never received it again, seemed like luck to them. This brought about big disappointment. They have often had to re-blend ML’s back into normal coffee as they had no buyers. It was mentioned that farmers (in private) like the idea of ML’s- its the co-op who mainly talk about jealousy among producers.

+In peru, ML are seen as a seperate business, requires farmer to file tax return (which the co-op would normaly do) this is also on a higher tax code and rate, and requires accountant. Also land lots which have produced ML’s are seen as more valuable so land tax and value go up too.

+everyone wants to taste samples of ML’s, but few actually buy.

+Roasters are creating (perceived) demand for ML’s, not lead by customers or market.

+ML’s can be useful for producers to develop a “new” flavour profile to meet a market, and apply these agronomic practices to main crop. (To me this seems like the best role of ML’s -develop best practice at micro level, test it on market, and roll out macro level if successful)

+There is a need to increase confidence between producers and roasters, conducting dialog and questions around adding value and ways to make ML’s work for farmers is very important as ML’s increase in trade.

Peoples Coffee has held off from pushing for ML’s from our producers due to the feedback we get when raising this topic. It is a lot of extra work for farmers and the co-op to produce, and outside of the COE auction system- it’s hard to find buyers to pay what the farmers would like to receive for all the extra work.

However some of our producers are now offering special lots which may be skimmed or ML’s, which we will be receiving later in the year !! (july 2012??)

I think it is more beneficial to raise quality of total harvest, rather than focus on ML’s which only see a few mouths. Then, when we talk about quality it is relating to our bread and butter coffee, not the ML’s which make up 0.1% of business. This issue is frustrating when other roasterys talk about buying the highest quality coffee for high prices, but it only relates to 0.1% of their business as ML’s. (Stumptown is often mentioned in this capacity)

René

Roasting coffee for black or with milk.

I have recently decided to change our approach to roasting coffee, and want to relate it specifically to whether it is going to be drunk black or with milk.

I want to bring out the best flavour in each origin but it seems clear to me now that you want very different flavours in the coffee, depending on whether it has milk or not.

Black coffee I want the flavours to be fruity sweetness– like the coffee cherry looks like it might taste. But these flavours turn sour when combined with milk, so I want caramelised sweetness to work with milk.

This mindset covers soft brewing and espresso, and I am currently developing (june2012) new roast profiles for each origin: but on the whole the Americas will be both black and white, but some Africans may be black only.

This will be presented on our new retail bags as, recommended Black, recommended White.

During June July we are now receiving our fresh harvest of most origins. These will be tasting extra good while they are fresh, and I will use these as a conduit to roll out the new roast profiles, as they will all be tasting good and this will hopfully help customers with the transition.

The first question to ask someone is buying retail bags is “do you take milk with that?”, (where it used to be “is it for plunger or stove top…”) and lead people towards origins based on white/black, then we can better explane flavours, and encourage customers to be looking for fruit sweetness in acidity for black, and bitter sweet choc for milk etc.

This partly came from knowing our coffees make great espresso, and most of our business is espresso, but trying to make single origins really good with milk and black is not poss with many origins.

What this means is we will be doing Single Origin Espresso light roasts, which (for me) is a very exciting new flavour experience which works very well with most of our coffees!!

The Don and Taddesse roasts are the lightest they have ever been (just enter second crack) and we might find it usefull to mainly recommend blends to people who like the big bold “coffee” flavour, as these taste awse with milk!!

This enables me to bring out more interesting flavours for the black coffee roasts, not having to worry if about it being drunk with milk and customer thinking we don’t produce a great product.

I will still try to keep a spread of available flavour thru our origins, bringing out certain characteristics in each origin to get a good spread, but it is a move towards emphasising fruitiness in black coffee.

René

Pour over vrs push button brewing

Auto brewers, the future of coffee again??

Interesting article saying brewing machines even bulk brewers, can and do produce a consistant brew every time- because there is no “human error”

The more work I do on soft brewing- the more I can see the importance for a soft brewing machine, just like we have for espresso. There are so many variables and controlling them in cafe setting is tough.

It should be said that this is next level stuff, what we are trying to achieve is “the best cup we can- every time” not just “good brews” and this level of difference may only be noticeable when cupped side by side, and when a good knowledge of the origin potential is contrasted with cup.

Strangely this comes from Slayer site which doesn’t have programable settings, its all manual.

Here is a machine which makes soft brewing to any brew parameter viable in busy cafe.

Bunn Trifecta

I tried every coffee available at SCAA and the best soft brew was from the Trifecta, and it is the most usable due to programable features

René