Posted on January 9, 2008 - by deCadmus
Sumatra Mandheling — Age Defying Coffee?
After a bit of a hiatus I’m back at the roaster in the garage. Why the break? It’s been chilly lately — it’s winter in Vermont, after all — and besides, my roaster doesn’t perform so well when the ambient temperature is anything less than 40 degrees. Neither do I fare all too well hanging around waiting for it to get its heat on. Oh sure, I know there’s hard-core roasters who don their parkas and mittens to roast outdoors all times of the year. That kind of insane and slavish devotion I save for barbecue alone, thanks.
I haven’t ordered any new green coffee of late (see the bit about it being cold) and so what I have left is really remnants of seasons past… in some cases, several seasons past. 
Some Ethiopian coffees from the last eCafe competition, Guatemalan greens from the spring before, and some Sumatra from — gosh, I really can’t be sure — maybe two years ago?
And so I roasted some of just about everything.
The Ethiopian coffee is quite decent, really. For a day or two, anyway; and then the cup just sort of… winds down. Aromatics are fleeting, flavors fading. It’s not a tragic thing, really. It’s just tired.
The Guatemalan beans have a similar tale to tell. Notably, they roast dry and hot — they’ve apparently lost a lot of moisture — and the cup quality is not only faded, but also bitter. Very much so.
The Sumatran beans — the oldest of the lot — well they’re something of a different story. They roast well within parameters I might expect of new crop beans. Fresh from the roaster the cup is quite nice (if a bit sharp.) In a day or two, they’re still quite good; caramel and cocoa aromas, turf and bittersweet chocolate flavors, long and mellow finish. And enough so that I suspect they could keep this up a week more (though I don’t know that they’ll last that long… herselfis a big fan of the coffees of Sumatra.)
Is it something about how Sumatran coffees are processed at the mill that lends them more staying power? Not necessarily… the eCafe Ethopian I sampled was a dry-process (or natural) too.
Was there perhaps more moisture in these beans to begin with, so that they’ve retained more over time? I don’t know… but if there was *that* much moisture I’d wonder that there hadn’t been something icky growing in the bag with them. And besides — they’re more than twice as old as the other beans I’d roasted of late.
Is it something about Sumatra? After all, there’s lots of beans that are marketed as Aged Sumatra… how many other origins actively market aged beans? On purpose? Um… I’m thinking. And coming up empty.
Maybe it’s really about the characteristics the coffee started with. The Ethiopian and Guatemalan beans were both bright, acidy, fruit-forward cups; the Sumatran earthy and dark-toned even when it was young. Perhaps fruit and floral esters are more delicate, more prone to age, while dusky chocolate just gets… mellow.
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Bloggle is the online playground of Doug Cadmus, a usability guy, writer, photographer and sometime dramatist who moved to Vermont for the coffee. When not writing, reading or walking his old, blind golden retriever, he roasts coffee in his garage and is the Web Guy for Green Mountain Coffee in Waterbury, VT.Flickr Photos
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January 10, 2008
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Doug,
When coffees age, assuming there is no cross contamination and the coffee is no longer in jute… Florals fade off first and then fruit/sweetness. This is a big part of why I think so many don’t get washed Yirgs but that’s another debate.
I don’t value Sumatra coffees because the dry stale woody cocoa characters and the earthy, often musty flavors are just not high on my desirables list. I interpret those flavors as molds(defects), dirt(geosmine or other ground contaminants), and age(sometimes jute flavors too). If the same coffee was produced in central, south america, or Kenya, it would be rubbish.
But… Sumatra are easy easy to roast because they are drier to begin with, so you don’t have to spend time learning how to deal with the excess moisture and removing the grassiness or the resulting acidity of the common fast roast profile. At origin, the heat and humidity just gets in those coffees immediately. You don’t have to worry about erasing the florals or baking the fruit characters away because it was likely they were long gone.
-Jaime
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January 10, 2008
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Thanks, Jaime, for the confirmation floral and fruit characteristics are the first to wick away… I’d suspected they might behave similarly in the bean even as they do in the cup.
As to Sumatran coffees, it’s precisely those earth, wood, turf and mulch notes that make Sumatran coffees a happy departure from the crisp, clean acid of a Central American coffee, or washed African. And, they invariably remind me of autumn, and — a bit morbidly, perhaps — make me contemplate our mortality (…and to mulch thou shalt return.) ;)
Sumatran coffees are more dry than others? This is news! I’m wonder, then, if I should doubt my hypothesis that the Guat had changed its characteristics so because it had shed more moisture over time.
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January 11, 2008
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Let’s also not forget Sulawesi (it’s also sold as “aged” on occasion). There are others, but those two are the most often sold that way.
I’m inclined to agree with Jaime on this one.
What gives (most) Sumatran coffee its musty flavor is.. well.. dirt, defects, etc..
In short, you’re not really tasting the coffee. If you took any other coffee, and processed it the same way (dried on dirt patios, stored under less-than-idea conditions, and so on) I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t find TOO much different between the cups. Sure, there will be some, but they would be minimal since the dominating flavors don’t come from the coffee itself.
It’s interesting, really. I never accept a cup of sumatran, unless it’s from someone I really trust.
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January 11, 2008
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In terms of flavor being the result of (peculiar) processing practices, the only coffee that has yet given me pause is Monsooned Malabar, which — I have to admit — makes me wonder for a few days whether or not I’ll grow a brain fungus as a result of consuming it. Which is why I have a now five year old tradition of roasting and brewing it for Halloween. Zombie make-up is optional.
Then there was the sample of triaged floor sweepings while at origin in Guatemala. To be fair, it was a motley bunch of ragged beans put together as a sample of defective coffee. Fermenty, wild, uncontrolled… it coulda been a decent Yemen. ;)