Costa Rica, Red Honey, Roasted in Parchment

Change your expectations before you taste this extraordinary coffee – it doesn’t really taste like coffee.  The aromas are of incredibly sweet tropical fruit, soft floral notes and powdery perfumes.  It smells a like a tropical vacation.  The flavors are close to the fragrance: tropical fruit being the dominant taste.  Think creamy, low acidy fruits like guava and papaya.  This coffee has an extremely long finish without the high brightness one normally gets from a Central American.  There is conflict on the finish between super sweet and bitter.  This cup shines without milk in this coffee, maybe a little sugar though.

From the Importer:

“This is about as wacky as it gets; roasting coffee in it’s parchment shell, grinding it up, parchment and all, and brewing it. “Roasted In Parchment,” is a partially processed bean. After the coffee is processed at the wet mill or the pulping station, it is dried in the sun. At this stage the coffee has it’s outer parchment shell on it; it is called pergamino in Central America. After it is sun-dried down to 12% moisture content, the parchment coffee is rested in silos or bags for anywhere from 30-60 days. This allows the coffee to stabilize. In it’s parchment shell, the dried green coffee can be stored for much longer, and is more protected from temperature and humidity changes that damage cup quality. This coffee is from Juan Ramon at Brumas del Zurqui Micro Mill.  This isn’t wet-processed parchment coffee, it is Red Honey Parchment from pulped natural process. That means the fruit of the coffee cherry was left to dry on the parchment. Rather than the pale cream color of wet-processed parchment, this has a red tint to it.”