I’ve been thinking about coffee quite a bit the past two days. It’s been a dominant theme in my thoughts, spurred in part by a conversation that I had about Intelligentsia Coffee with a co-worker. Without realizing it, I haven’t had Intelligentsia coffee for a long time. In the meantime I’ve tasted a bunch of great coffees, no doubt. But there is something about Intelligentsia that really captured my imagination back when I first began getting more serious about understanding coffee.

And so while I was sipping on this cup of coffee from Gimme, I began to think about why roasters such as Stumptown, Intelligentsia, Counter Culture, and Gimme get me so excited about coffee. It’s not necessarily that their coffees are better than any other roasters’. And it’s not the cool-factor that surrounds certain of them, Stumptown perhaps the most. No, it’s neither of those.

What is so exciting about these roasters is how passionate they are about coffee and the people who grow it. If you read their websites, and follow their blogs, what jumps out of the pages is enthusiasm for finding great coffees, establishing relationships with the farmers that grow them, and enriching the exchange between grower, roaster, and the home coffee maker. This kind of enthusiasm is always compelling to me. Whether it is a brewer, a winemaker, or coffee roaster the consistent theme in the people and companies that hold my attention is their commitment to the culture in which they operate.

Gimme is a great example. Yes, they source great coffees. And yes, they do a great job of roasting them. But they also work very hard to reach out to their customers, to educate them about where the coffees come from, the lives of the people who farmed them, and why the coffees taste the way they taste. They fill in the gaps between the many stories that come together to make up the culture of coffee. Through their words you can learn so much about the tapestry of coffee.

So while other coffee roasters also produce very good, and often great, coffees, it’s the companies who make this extra effort that make me interested in coffee at all. Without them, coffee would be another faceless, colorless product.

So what is the story behind this coffee? The beans were farmed in the Amaro Mountains in the Sidamo region of Ethiopia and processed at the Amaro Gayo mill. This mill is owned by Asnakech Thomas, the only female owner of a coffee mill in all of Ethiopia. Not only that, but she’s also the only female exporter in Ethiopia, and owns 250 hectares of coffee farmland as well. The result is that she has near complete control over the coffee that she produces, from farming to exporting.

This coffee was grown organically, and is wet-processed and sun-dried, as is typical for Ethiopia.

The nose has compelling notes of vanilla, coconut, blueberries, and huckleberries. One of the most wonderfully fragrant coffees I’ve had! The palate has a warm, mellow, slightly voluptuous body with a rind of acidity. Flavors of cocoa,raspberries, and blueberries are underscored by a hint of caramel. The finish is somewhat minty, with blueberries once again prominent.

What a remarkably enjoyable cup of coffee, the kind that just brings a smile to your face first thing in the morning. The berry flavors are very reminiscent of other Ethiopian coffees I’ve had, in particular a couple from Barrington Coffee Roasters. Naturally, my mind ends up roaming back to the questions I’ve been mulling over for so long regarding the role of terroir in coffee. A subject that I’ll have to come back to another time…

Lately I haven’t been enjoying coffee at home as much as I’m used to. I’m not sure whether it’s the arrival of summer and with it warmer temperatures that make that hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning a bit less comforting. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten how to brew coffee, my measurements of water and grounds all awry. Or maybe my palate has moved on to different tastes for the time being, and I just can’t appreciate coffee right now.

Maybe I should start drinking tea…

…

Let’s not get crazy now. Fortunately, as an antidote to this coffee-malaise that I am in, I’ve opened up a new bag of Barrington Coffee Roasters Kenya AA Nyeri Kirimara Estate. I don’t think I’ve had any coffee from these folks in a while, and I was looking forward to giving their current Kenya offering a whirl. At any one time, BCR typically has just one offering from a particular country, with the current exception being their two offerings from Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. But that pair doesn’t really count, since one of them is their unique offering of the Beloya Selection Eight, a coffee produced by the Ninety Plus Coffee program and shipped directly to BCR’s offices. Generally, I appreciate their decision to not offer a boatload of coffees because that way you know the coffee will be both carefully chosen and very fresh.

This Kenyan AA is produced similar to most Kenyan coffees. The coffee cherries are first cleaned, before being wet-fermented, and then sun dried on raised beds. The coffee itself was grown on the Kirimara Estate in Nyeri and located at the foot of Mount Kenya, at an altitude of 5000+ feet. The varietals grown on this 250-acre estate include SL28 (90% of the crop) and Ruiru (10% of the crop).

The nose displays notes of carob, candied almonds, and bright red fruits. The palate has flavors of almonds, milk chocolate, and fresh currants. The coffee’s texture is soft and supple, supported by a gentle, brightening acidity. The finish is very long-lasting, with nutty, sweet flavors and textures opening up in layers.

While I still don’t think I hit the spot when making this coffee, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The flavors were warm and enticing, and the coffee was somehow very relaxing and easy to enjoy.

But at the same time I find that I end up with a big backlog of drafts where I’ve written a few notes about something while drinking it, in the hope of returning to it at a later date to actually write the post. Sometimes I don’t return to it for weeks or more, by which time the motivation for writing about the glass at hand may have long since passed. Invariably I am disappointed by having missed the moment.

The reality is that my expectations are so high for each post. I try to set a hard limit of 1000 words per post, which is of course a ton. And I typically am reluctant to sit down and work on a post until I have the time and background information to really flesh out an idea. This approach ends up being somewhat prohibitive, since I just don’t have enough time to do all of the writing that I’d like to, especially now with summer in full swing.

So anyhow, this is a long way of talking myself into writing some more brief posts, so that I can both taste and write about a glass in the moment. Never mind working towards a hard limit of 1000 words, instead in these posts I’d like to aim for 250 words. Short, sweet, and timely.

This post (from this point forwards) is my first such attempt. This pound of coffee was the third of three bags that I bought from Stumptown a little while back, and the second of the two that were from Rwanda. After the previous coffee that I’d tried from this trio, the Rwanda Kanza, I was pretty excited  about this one. It also was part of an ongoing series of African coffees that I have been very much enjoying as I try to get my head around the idea of terroir as expressed in this country’s several different coffee-producing regions.

The Muyongwe washing station is located in the province of Gakenke in northern Rwanda. This washing station earned some fame (of a sort) in 2007 when it’s coffee earned the highest price ($55/kilo) ever paid for a Rwandan coffee (at the time) after taking top honors at that year’s Golden Cup competition, Rwanda’s annual competition for coffee producers.

The washing station is part of the Tuzamure Kawa Muyongwe cooperative that is comprised of over 1200 small holder coffee farms. The cooperative first began operating in 2006, and at the Muyongwe station processes up to 297 tons of coffee each year. All of the cherries are of the bourbon varietal and is traditionally fermented in wet-tanks before being dried on 40 raised tables that are left uncovered allowing the beans to dry in the sun.

This was very much in the vein of the other Rwandan coffees that I’ve tasted thus far. The nose had scents of dark fruits, a strong, notable earthiness, and unsweetened baker’s chocolate. The palate was rich with smooth, dark bittersweet chocolate - very reminiscent of an 84% dark Ghana chocolate that I had the other day, intense chocolate with very little sweetness. This is a very softly textured coffee, held aloft  by a gentle acidity that lends a mildly astringent element to the dominant chocolate flavors. The finish is warm, with melted milk chocolate and dark cherries combining in a medium-length finish.

I think that everyone who gets hooked on a particular gastronomic delicacy can think back to that one item that opened their eyes and initiated their obsession. For instance, I remember distinctly when this “scotch” moment struck. It was a bottle of Caol Ila 12-Year. It was the first bottle that I’d purchased, and it took me a while to warm up to it. But then one day, I had a dram and it tasted different somehow. My mind had rounded the corner, my tastebuds had woken up to what was in the glass. All of a sudden I could taste nuances of scotch that I had never noticed before, and it was so exciting. The rest, as they say, is history.

I can remember that same moment with regards to coffee, and it’s why I’ve been so avidly seeking out Rwandan coffees of late. My coffee moment was a Rwandan coffee that completely woke me up to the possibilities of the flavors and nuances that a cup of joe can embody. It caught my attention in a way that no coffee had before. Several coffees have since, and they’ve come from all over the world and from several different roasters.

But lately I’ve been in this frame of mind where I’ve been interested in really mining a particular vein of coffee, in an effort to learn as much as I can about the many ways that coffee from one particular country can express itself. Specifically in terms of where it was grown in that country, what varietals were grown, at what washing station it was handled, how it was fermented, how it was packaged before being shipped to the roaster, and the choices the roaster made in producing the final roasted coffee. And so my coffee tasting of late has included a smattering of offerings from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi.

The jury is still out on what I’ve found thus far. There have been two consistent elements in all of the coffees tasted thus far: body and acidity. They’ve all featured medium-weight to velvety bodies that came across as creamy and substantial on your palate. Intrinsically related to this has been the level of acidity, which has been consistently soft and subtle, present in enough capacity to brighten up the coffee’s creamy body, but not so much as to distract from the palate of flavors and substance.

Alongside the consistent elements of body and acidity has been a relatively consistent flavor spectrum that includes dark chocolate, red berries and fruits, and earthy tones. These flavors haven’t been present in all of the coffees, but they have all borrowed something from this basic palette. The overall picture, when you combine these three elements together, has been a series of warming, rather plush coffees that have had significant depth, and expressed chocolate and fruit flavors.

The coffee at hand is a Rwanda Kanzu, produced at the Kanzu washing stations in the Nyamasheke province, located in southwestern Rwanda along the shores of Lake Kivu, the biggest body of water in the country. The coffee is grown at very high altitudes, approximately 1900 meters, with the trees perched on the slopes of the surrounding mountains. The coffee is 100% bourbon varietal, and ripens at a slow rate due to the high altitudes. Stumptown’s literature indicates their belief that this contributes notably to its unique flavors and body.

This coffee is no exception from the pattern of flavor and texture elements that I’ve found thus far. In terms of the flavor spectrum, I found this coffee to be more earthy than some of the others that I’ve tasted recently. The nose had contrasting flavors of forest mushrooms, brown sugar, and fresh baked bread. The palate had a soft and delicate body lightened somewhat by a bright acidity. While some roasters prefer a dark-roast for African coffees, Stumptown uses more of a medium-style roast for theirs, and this coffee is a good example. The roast they’ve used here allows the brighter acidity to sit alongside both fruitiness and dark sugars, and heightens the coffee’s earthiness. The palate has flavors of light red wine (think pinot noir as opposed to cabernet), peanuts, and a dry earthiness. While the coffee initially comes across sweet, it finishes very dry and spare with very little sweetness on the finish. Flavors of oak and a prickle of acidity round out the cup.

This was a good cup of coffee, and very distinct from the other African coffees that I’ve tasted recently. I’ve got one more Rwandan coffee to drink from Stumptown, a Rwanda Muyongwe, and it will be very interesting to note how these two compare to one another.

But coffees from Burundi remain a rarity. This appears to be the result of two factors. On the one hand, the country’s overall economy is in much worse shape than Rwanda to the north. This in part has led to the second factor, which is the much less developed Burundian coffee industry, relative to other African countries. The combination of these two factors has severely hampered the progress of Burundi’s entry into the specialty coffee market. But, this particular coffee is one of Stumptown’s Direct Trade offerings, and I’ve seen Burundian coffee from Counter Culture as well, which may be an indication that the country’s (coffee) fortune’s may be on the rise.

This particular coffee is from the Kayanza province in Burundi, and was grown at an elevation between 1750-1900 meters. The coffee was produced at the Bwayi washing station, which itself is located close to the Rwandan border. As part of a pilot program in 2007, this washing station was one of four that were given permission by the government to work directly with coffee buyers. The other three were Ngogomo, Teka, and Murambi. Since then, eight more washing stations have been included in this program.

One of the interesting results of Stumptown’s efforts in Rwanda and Burundi was the Bikes To Rwanda program, that has provided hundreds of bicycles to Rwandan coffee farmers. The bikes are specially designed to carry heavy loads, and have helped the farmers ensure that their freshly picked coffee gets to the washing station shortly after picking.

And now, this is the first coffee that Stumptown has sourced as part of their Direct Trade program. The varietals include Bourbon, Jackson, and SL. The coffee is produced similarly to Kenyan coffee, with multiple fermentations. The coffee is also soaked after washing, helping to raise the protein levels and acidity. This has resulted in a very nice cup of coffee, one with substantial body coupled with supple acidity.

The coffee’s nose has wood and earth tones, mingled with spicy roasted red peppers. The palate starts off sweet with lichee nuts and milk chocolate, slowly giving over to flavors of fresh grapes. The body is heavy and velvety, with soft but strong acidity prickling around the edges. The finish is ripe with caramel flavors and a creamy acidity that slowly fades.

This was a nice coffee, but not quite as dynamic as some of the Kenyan or Rwandan coffees I’ve been fortunate enough to try. I look forward to trying other Burundi coffees though, now that more and more specialty roasters are able to get their hands on them. And if the arc of progress is anything like coffee production in Rwanda, we can expect the level of quality to continue to rise.