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.

Ethiopia Organic DP Bonko "Black Sun"
Country:	Ethiopia	Grade:	3	Region:	Bonko, Dara Woreda, SNNP-Sidamo	Mark:	Bonko farmer's group, ABO Black Sun mark
Processing:	Dry-Processed	Crop:	December 2008 Arrival	Appearance:	1.4 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen	Varietal:	Longberry and shortberry Ethiopia cultivars
Notes:Bonko is a 300 member cooperative of small farmers, averaging about 1 Hecatare each. It's in the Sidamo region, Dara subdistrict. This is a special lot we selected, hence the Black Sun designation from the export mark. It's a natural coffee, another way of saying dry-process. This means whole ripe coffee cherries are picked from the tree and laid out to dry on raised screens (sometimes called African Bed drying). This is a great method for dry-process coffees since fermented flavors emerge if the fruit takes too long to dry, and a raised bed means that convective air currents dry the coffee from above and below. Good drying is really evident in the cup here, as well as the fact that only red-ripe cherry went into the lot. This was part of a program called "Operation Cherry Red" designated to pay higher prices to the farmer coops for better-quality harvesting. This shows in the quality of the roast and the clean sweetness of the cup. Ripe fruit and rustic sweet syrup dominate the dry fragrance. There is ample strawberry and "apricot preserves" in the sweetness too. The cup has the same jammy flavors, strawberry, stone fruits - apricot, peach and plum. It has a hazelnut roast tone behind the fruited notes at City+ roast, and mild milk chocolate begins to show itself at Full City. It's a rare natural Ethiopia that can take a lighter roast and not have some sort of odd cup flavor emerge. Again, it's a testament to the fact that this lot is well-picked and well-prepared at the mill. If you can keep this to a City or City+ roast, you will be rewarded with a fantastic cup!
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium-Bold intensity / Super sweet, jammy fruit at the lighter roast levels.
Roast:City to City+ is ideal, lighter that is recommended for most Ethiopia natural coffees.
Compare to: Elevated ripe fruit flavors, syrupy sweet. This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

Indonesia Flores Organic Manggarai
Country:	Flores	Grade:	AWP Grade 1	Region:	Flores, Manggarai region	Mark:	Organic Certified, Lion Lestari Exporter
Processing:	Giling Basah (Wet-hulled)	Crop:	November 2008 Arrival	Appearance:	.8 d/300gr, 18+ screen	Varietal:	Ateng, Djember, TimTim
Notes:Flores is a small island (360 km from tip to tip) in the Indonesian archipelago around 200 nautical miles East of Bali. Flores was known as Pulau Nipa (Snake Island) before the Portuguese arrived and they renamed it Flores (Flower Island). A very long thin Mountainous land with incredibly diverse terrain, and numerous active and inactive volcanic peaks. Manggarai is a district in the more central part of the island with several high volcanic cratar mountains. The coffee is grown between 1150 and 1400 meters, which is actually quite respectable altitude for Indonesian coffee farming. This is not the first time I have cupped coffee from Flores, but it is the first time I found it so fruited and full-bodied, very "Indonesian" in cup character. The reason is because this is processed using the method peculiar to Sumatra and Sulawesi, called locally Giling Basah, or wet-hulled. Unlike other coffee origins, the wet-hull means the green coffee bean is removed from the parchment shell when the coffee is only partially dried, and the result is that cup character that many seek in Indonesian coffees: full body, lower acidity, and funky flavors from drying the coffee without the protection of the fruit or parchment layers. The dry fragrance is very sweetly fruited, ripe tropical fruit (rambutan) with a winey hint. There's also a caramelly scent, dark rye bread, and aromatic wood. The wet aroma has a syrupy sweetness, melon fruited character and articulate chocolate notes. The cup flavors have and intense, rustic, foresty character, finishing with fruity aftertaste and chocolate bittersweetness. It is surprising that the cup flavors have a more intense and bittersweet demeanor than the aromatics forecast, but it lends interest to the cup overall. The finish sweetens a bit; I get dark Italian plum and chocolate-covered raisin in the finish, with a winey, fruited effect in the long aftertaste. There's a pulpy mouthfeel, and it matches the ripe "stone fruit" character; Syrah-like, intensifying as it sits on the palate.
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium-Bold intensity / Fruited sweetness, rustic notes, body
Roast:My review notes are based on a City+ and Full City roast. Full City has much more chocolate in the roast flavor.
Compare to: A low acid, high body coffee like a Sumatra or Sulawesi, with fruited sweetness.

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