We’ve just had a new drop of some fancy die-cut vinyl stickers highlighting the various characters portrayed on our retail packs. If you weren’t aware the very clever @omgidrawedit illustrated some of the main characters in the supply chain that bring a delicious cup of goodness to you.
Here's a little descriptor of each of these significant characters and the role they play.
The producer/picker: We know the best coffees come when the cherries (yes, we call them cherries but they’re coffee fruits.. not actual cherries) are just the right level of ripeness. Underripe and they haven’t had time to develop the necessary ‘good’ flavour pre-cursors and can create astringent and unpleasant compounds. Overripe and the’ve begun to ‘spoil’ with microbes importing some ‘off’ flavours.. farm yard, silage, rotten fruit, alcohol.
Typically the hardest workers taking the greatest risk, and yet the least remunerated of all the players (certainly in the case of the 12.5 Million small-holder farmers with less than 3Ha).
The post-harvest processor: Controlled fermentation is key to developing good and sometimes extraordinary flavour characteristics. Whether it’s a super clean washed coffee, or a tropical and boozy anaerobic natural, this stage can make or break the flavour potential and longevity of the coffee.
This is micro-biology at work.
The experimenter/scientist: Without science what do we have ? Just a bunch of experiences and stories passed along that get embellished and mis-quoted until we have total confusion. Coffee has been shown to be one of the most complex consumed products in existence. The total number of organic and non-organic compounds that contribute to ‘coffee’ are extraordinary, only a relative few of which we humans are able to detect and therefore interpret into ‘flavour’.
Logistics and milling: Before the coffee is considered ‘green’ and ready for transportation to its destination (ie Crankhouse), it goes through many hands from the farm and processing facility. Coffee needs to be hulled (the final protective layer removed) sorted for size, colour, density and quality before being bagged and laoded into containers. Mostly these are loaded onto large container ships that take anywhere from 1-3 months to travel from the origin port to the destination post. Once the container is unloaded into a dry-goods storage depot and is ready for ‘release’ to a roastery. The significance of this step is often overlooked.
Roasting: Yeh.. if you know.. you know. It’s a cooking process. Turning green to brown and enabling and controlling (well.. that’s debatable.. really we’re just guiding) a multitude of chemical reactions to take place at various temperatures over a certain timeframe. Cook something too fast and you get dry astringent flavours without a balance of sweetness. Cook something too slow and you get something pretty homogeneous and bla.. It’s a skill.. based on some loosely understood science (most coffee roasters do not have a degree or higher in chemistry).
The barista/brewer. The best brewer’s can execute a carefully curated brew and understand the complexities of extraction and can highlight certain characteristics of the coffee . The best barista’s in a commercial environment provide a service of which delivering a tasty cup with a welcoming and friendly attitude is a key part. We all remember those places with the best service. We might not recall those places with the best coffee.
Finally, the consumer. They might be at home, sitting reading a novel having just brewed a delicious Gesha from Panama or in their favourite cafe having a piece of cake alongside the ‘house’ Flat White. Every step prior to this culminates in this. The final cup.