PNG Elimbari, Market Leaders and Blog Followers

Sometimes you've gotta laugh. I went to buy some coffee a few weeks ago and ended up getting some PNG Elimbari that I was told was roasted by Five Senses' recently set up Melbourne branch, though it was in another bag. So I'll attribute this coffee to them!

When it comes to PNG coffee on the Australian market, there is a broker that is basically the authority and there is a roaster that is the authority. That roaster is Five Senses. Dean set up the company after working in PNG and getting to know the local farmers. They started their direct trade program years before the phrase came to be prominent. And while we're talking about direct trade, I'll take this opportunity to point out Watts' take on it, if you haven't read it already.

A better name for 'direct trade' would be 'fair trade', seeing as the former results in the exchange of a sum of money that the farmer is happy with for coffee of the quality that the purchaser is happy with, whereas the latter results in the exchange of a fixed sum of money for coffee of unspecified quality. Pity about that whole 'fair trade' movement having the 'fair trade' name - maybe we should think about calling it 'fairer trade' or 'fairest trade'!

The point is that Five Senses' direct trade relationship has enabled them to get spectacular coffee from PNG in the past and the same is true for the Elimbari.

Brewed: Good body, mid level acidity, hints of tomato.
Espresso: Decent body, long finish, clean, sweet, hints of apricot.
Cappuccino: Average ability to cut through milk, but, amazingly, on a few occasions I was able to coax the fruit flavours into the cappuccino.

To date, I haven't dabbled much in trying to score coffees on this blog, preferring to describe and get acquainted with the various numerical score systems in my own time. However, I will mention that I tasted this coffee soon after a cupping of Costa Rican Cup of Excellence coffees at BBB. The Elimbari clearly trailed behind the top two, but was up there with numbers 3 through 9. On this basis, I think that it would be fair to say that this is a mid to high eighties coffee on the SCAA cupping form, which is a bit of a rarity on the Australian market.

And Another Thing ...

I must be like - totally - the best person in history or something. My "followers" list has tripled! To three!

I guess that I should add the "followers" watchumcallit, but to do that I'd have to switch to templates ... and the last thing that I want to do is to lose all of the links on the right-hand-side that I have spent an eternity cultivating for the benefit of y'all, dear readers. Help?

Don't Turn Your Nose Up At This One: CoffeeSnobs' Colombian Volcan Galeras

Background

I gather that Colombia's coffees gained a reputation for excellence through the Juan Valdez campaign, against a backdrop of filter coffee drinkers looking for something consistent and clean. As a result, Colombian coffees are sometimes thought of as bland. Kenneth Davids writes:

At their best, the classic coffees of Latin-American manifest bright, lively acidity and a clean, straightforward cup. They provide what for a North American is a normative good coffee experience.

Of course, and as Davids goes on to mention, there are plenty of Colombian coffees that break the mould. Those that I have tasted build on the base of a solid washed coffee by adding a little something extra. For example, last year one of my favourite coffees from Veneziano was actually a supposedly generic 'Colombian Popayan Supremo' that was very sweet in the cup. This year, buyers of BBB's Colombian Bachue might be forgiven for thinking that it was from Africa.

I can't help but wonder if professional roasters consider selecting that ultimate Colombian coffee from a batch of generic samples to be a rite of passage.

Introduction

CoffeeSnobs is a unique mix of online forum, green coffee buying cooperative, marketplace and coffee roastery. In order to order from CS, you must sign up as a member. Many new sign ups to CS decide to try their hand at roasting their own coffee at home. For them, the legendary sampler pack is a must buy; a once-per member offer of four 500g samples of green coffee for $20. (CS usually sells its green coffee in multiples of 2.5kg ... and I'm sure that packaging the tonne or whatever of coffee that it distribute every month is still a huge task.) Recently, Andy decided to introduce a roasted sample pack of 4 x 250g of coffee for $30. This time around, the Volcan Galeras was the pick of the pack.

I can't say that I know much about this particular Colombian, nor was I able to google up much, beyond finding out that Volcan Galeras is in the department of Nariño, a prolific coffee producer.


Espresso: Voluminous crema, lots of body and low acidity - in that regard, it was reminiscent of the last lot of CS coffee that I blogged about. Incredible marzipan flavour. (It's been a while.) Intolerant of shots that were run too fast; marzipan turned to metallic and bitter flavours.

Cappuccino: Fine, but marzipan fades into the background. Bitter and metallic flavours in fast shots seemed to concentrate in the crema.

Brewed (filter/siphon): Oddly, marzipan did not come through strongly. Potential for bitterness.

In summary, this coffee is like a lemon zester; it does that thing very well. That thing is espresso. You will find your cappuccino fine, but you won't remeber it in a week's time. As for all CS offerings, this coffee will be of particular interest to those who have bought it to roast at home.

If you buy this as part of a sampler pack, as I did, a good tip would be to plan to use it all at once, rather than changing the grind setting whilst swapping between different beans, as I did. This coffee will punish you for being overly sloppy. Get it right and Volcan Galeras has explosive potential.