Sweet Maria's Roasted Coffee Pairings Sweet Maria's Small Batch, Craft-Roasted Coffee Selections A new direction for our roasted coffee offerings! In the time we have offered roasted coffee, our weekly selection became quite popular. The only problem was that it became too popular! Our primary focus is to offer green coffee and home roasters. With our subscription service in particular, we were becoming a regular roasted coffee source. We love roasting, but we want to do this in our own way, for each roast session to highlight unique differences in our greater green coffee offerings. We are now offering "coffee pairings": one pound each of two coffees chosen to highlight differences in origin, processing, or roast; to provide our customers the ability to study the flavor profiles of two coffees. This sort of comparison is what we do all the time. Tom does this formally when he cups a number of different coffee lots at the cupping table. In the warehouse we make a different coffee each time we brew a pot. Such a practice helps us focus on the flavor of the cup, to appreciate each coffee's uniqueness. We are roasting less frequently now, roughly every two weeks, and picking two "regular"coffees each time. No decaf. No espresso blends. (We might offer single origin darker roasts for dual use as brewed coffee and espresso in the future). But in general, it's regular coffee to brew up however you choose. You may want to brew them and taste them side by side, or alternate making one coffee and then the next. Taste the coffees hot, warm and cold. Taste them the same time everyday or different times, and try to notice if they seem the same. (I tend to taste coffee better in the morning, when I am less distracted). If you roast your own, you might want to cup your roasts versus those done on the gas-fired German Probat roaster, and compare the "degree of roast" we have chosen for the specific coffees to your own. If you don't roast at home, well ... here's the next best thing! We have a new Sweet Maria's Roasted Coffee Weblog where we discuss the why and how of each week's selection ... and you can make comments too. It serves as an archive for previous roast sessions, so you can go back to review our comments, versus your findings.

Mexico Organic Nayarit Dry-Process
Country:	Mexico	Grade:	Alturra	Region:	Nayarit	Mark:	Terruno Dry-Process
Processing:	Dry-processed	Crop:	July 2008 Arrival	Appearance:	.6 d/300gr, 17 Screen	Varietal:	Typica
Notes:This lot is quite unusual, not because of the region it is from or the fact it arrives later in the season than other Mexican lots. It's unusual because it is a full natural, dry-process coffee from Mexico. Actually, dry-process Mexico coffees can be found in many small markets across Mexico, since it is the cheapest way to process coffee. And those can be some of the nastiest Mexican coffees you have ever tasted, full of defect black beans, rotted fruit fermented flavors, phenolic fungus taste. Ironically, dry-process coffee, done right, is much more difficult and more costly that a more technified wet-process lot. To do it right, you need to pick ripe red coffee cherry, quickly and carefully dry it in the husk, remove that peel, and then hand-sort defective beans, requiring many hours of labor. Wet-process removes defects with machines ... under-ripe cherries float, other defects are removed on the gravity separator and screening machines. To make a really good dry-process it is all done manually, by highly experienced people. Anyway, the coffee is from the same location as the Terruno Wet-Process from earlier in the season. It is from the state of Nayarit, more specifically, west of the capital, Tepic. The 260 small-holder farms in this group are clustered around Cerro San Juan, an extinct volcano, so the soil type and altitude contribute to the cup quality. Nayarit is fairly low (the city of Tepic is 3000 feet) but the volcano immediately rises to 7000 feet, providing sloped terrain with good altitude, drainage and climate for the coffee. The aromatics of this coffee are much closer to a dry-processed Ethiopia than to any other Central America coffee; intense, rustic fruited notes, spice, and caramel sweetness. It's winey in the extreme, almost headed in the direction of oxidized wine (ie. getting vinegary!) ... but thankfully it's not. There's a hint of sourdough yeast in the dry fragrance. The cup, especially at the darker roast levels I prefer here, has a heavy chocolate character with traces of almond and (of course) a strongly fruited backdrop. Lighter roasts have an apricot brandy flavor. At both levels, the body is dense and opaque, the aftertaste extremely long. Unlike other natural coffees, I think this coffee is limited in it's espresso use, except as a component in a blend less than 20%.
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Bold intensity / Heavy body, chocolate, and almond
Roast:Full City to Full City+ to Vienna.
Compare to: Ethiopia dry-process Sidamo coffees in terms of fruited character and body, Brazil dry-process in terms of body and chocolate.

Guatemala Oriente Dry-Process
Country:	Guatemala	Grade:	SHB	Region:	Oriente	Mark:	Y Cafe Special Prep.
Processing:	Dry-Processed	Crop:	September 2007 Arrival	Appearance:	.2 d/300gr, 17-18 Screen	Varietal:	Typica, Catuai
Notes:This is about as unusual as it gets; a full natural, sun-dried coffee from Guatemala. What does this mean? Basically, that a traditional Ethiopia dry-process was performed at a traditionally wet-process origin. The ripe coffee cherry is picked from the tree when the fruit ripens to a rich, red-crimson color. Then, instead of beginning the wet-process by depulping (removing the skin) and fermenting the cherry for 12-24 hours, this ripe coffee cherry is simply laid out on the sunny patio to dry. With all the skin and fruit of the coffee fruit intact, it dries like a raisin, the mucilage turning to a sweet, chewy, dehydrated form, encoating the green seed protected by its parchment layer. Once fully dried, it is left to rest for some days, then in one step the skin, dried fruit flesh, parchment layer and all are torn from the green seed. The result is something between an Ethiopia coffee a chocolate-covered fruit bomb. I evaluated this on a table of dry-process Yemen and Ethiopian coffees and the dry-fragrance alone dominated not just the table, but the entire room. If you love this flavor profile, this level of intensity will please you greatly ... and if you dislike this type of coffee, it will drive you insane. It starts with the overwhelming power of the dry fragrance, with intense dark chocolate rounded out by fruity/red wine/balsamic vinegar scents. The wet aromatics follow suit, with the addition of strong melon and papaya notes ... these come through directly in the cup flavors. The potent chocolate flavors at FC to FC+ roast are so strong ... I don't think those who like milk chocolate are going to go for this flavor. It's for people who can down a 75% cacao dark chocolate bar with no problem, and the aftertaste has that fat, waxy bitter-to-bittersweet effect of a potent chocolate bar too. Other flavors are tobacco, hints of cedar, dry black fig, black licorice and a whiff of smoke. This coffee is all bass note, and has very, very low acidity. If you have found aged Sumatra coffees to your liking, or if you were adventurous enough to try India Anohki Liberica, you will be very happy with this cup! And those who like dry-process Ethiopians and Yemens should be pleased too. Just don't expect anything like your typical Guatemala in the cup!
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium intensity / Heavy body, fruited notes,
Roast:Full City+ has best cup for the full-body-plus-chocolate character, whereas City+ features the fruited notes.
Compare to: Fairly incomparable - similar to the pulp natural Centrals of the more rustic type. This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

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