Fermenty Experimenty: Processing, Cupping and Roasting New Fermentation Styles

Are you a “funky coffee lover”? We are! And thanks to the Nordic Approach team, we all can enjoy these tutti fruity cups. How are the special processed coffees sourced and how to roast these - read more about it from Misako:

Written by Misako Imada from Nordic Approach

I remember looking at the Nordic Approach offer list before I joined the company. It was almost exclusively clean, clear, fruit-driven washed processed coffees. Now in 2021, looking at that same list, you will see loads of naturals and special preparation coffees from a variety of countries and producers.

“Fermenty Experimenty!”

As you might have seen, we recently created the video series called Fermenty Experimenty. These videos explore all the new (and sometimes not so new) styles of processing that create coffees we consider to be on the funky side, like anaerobic and extended fermentation. 

This project started from a simple question: “What is Skin Contact processing? And what impact does it have on the cup?” My colleagues at the lab all had a different take on it, and so did our followers on our social media. It was interesting to me, and somehow a relief, that so many other people had similar questions. 

I started by asking one of our buyers, Jamie, who is currently in charge of buying the origins where these “funky” processes have taken hold, like Uganda, Indonesia, and El Salvador. He is the so-called “Mr. Fermenty Experimenty” at Nordic Approach: a funkster, a funk-lover, and very knowledgeable about fermentation. He also has first hand experience with many of the processing experiments our partners are working on at origin.  As the conversation went deeper, we developed a plan for some educational videos that would be as funky as our special prep coffees. 

Awesome team of the Fermenty Experimenty project. Misako, Jamie and Miren.

If it’s funky, they will come

The first few episodes were like a beacon to all funky coffee lovers, and sample requests started rolling into the lab. We started to see more and more requests for  “only funky processes”, and “any funky-flavoured coffee.”  Wow! We seem to have found our tribe. Roasters are clearly looking for new flavours, new styles, and new stories to tell their customers. Producers are also taking notice of this trend in the market, and investing in different fermentation processes to add value to their coffee. 

Funk = Risk

We don’t have a crystal ball, but we did see this trend coming. Several years ago our buyers (self-avowed clean coffee purists at the time) recognized the potential of special preps for creating unique flavour profiles which in turn could improve farmer incomes. Our approach however, was very cautious. Special processing methods can be very risky for the producer. This includes natural processed coffees in origins that normally produce washed. If something goes wrong, it’s the producer who could lose a significant chunk of their yearly income. 

For this reason, we are careful in choosing partners for any kind of processing experiment. We want to ensure they have both the infrastructure, and the mindset for rigorous scientific research which involves careful attention to detail and stringent data collection. We always pre-contract these coffees and in many cases we pre-finance them too. The emergence of more natural coffees from smallholders in Latin America, where coffees are traditionally washed, is the result of years of experimentation which has led to more stable and replicable methods. Nothing is ever certain when it comes to processing coffee, but we won’t ask a smallholder to take this risk unless we are close to 100% sure they will succeed. 

What is the impact on the cup?

Each processing method has its own flavour attributes which, combined with the terroir, variety, temperature, and half a dozen other factors, creates a unique cup each time. Take the Anaerobic Natural from Brazil produced by Rosimeire on her farm, Sitio Vargem Grande, as an example. It is very boozy and banana-y with a beautiful lactic acidity and sweetness to balance the funk. The Indonesian lactic anaerobic from Frinsa from the 2020 harvest was completely process driven, presenting a “crazy funky” intense lactic acidity which was on the vinegary side, but great.  If you want to know more details of each process and the attributes they can create, check out the Fermenty Experimenty series.

“ROEST the essential element in the LAB. No ROEST, No LAB!”

- Espen, QC Lab Manager at Nordic Approach

How we roast special preps

This is the profile we developed for all the funky processing methods including natural, honey, anaerobic, skin contact, lactic fermentation, and extended fermentation. From here out we will just refer to them as naturals. 

We usually have over 400 different coffees in stock, and we roast over 7000 samples on our ROEST in a year. While roasting these volumes, we developed this profile which is flexible enough to cover a variety of origins and processing styles, without too many changes to power or airflow during the roasting. We roast quite light (Scandinavian roast), but we can showcase the full potential of the coffee’s acidity, sweetness, and mouthfeel with this profile.

Caption of the Fermenty experimenty profile from ROEST Webportal for profiling.

From our experience of roasting so many of these styles of coffee, we realized that naturals tend to easily burn on the surface, but with very little flavour development. Most of our failed experiences were because the drying phase went too quick. In this profile we are aiming for a slower drying phase and a longer development time to caramelize the sugars properly to enhance the sweetness and retain the beautiful fermentation attributes, without getting darker.

Here you can see after 6:00, the graph is slowly going down. This is to develop the inside of beans more with a longer development time using airflow, instead of applying more heat, so that we can avoid burning the beans and enhance the aromas and sweetness. We take the beans out when they are stretched/expanded into a good shape. 

Our average roasting duration for naturals is around 7:30. The first crack starts around 6:30 (depending on the origin), and the average development time is 50-60 seconds for any origin.

Lab at Nordic Approach is equipped with three ROEST roasters to roast 300 batches of 100g green bean samples per week.

Currently many of our East African lots are flowing into the warehouse, and this profile works very well for these high density coffees. If you are roasting lower density coffee, like Brazil or Honduras, we would recommend adjusting this profile to a slightly higher power during the drying stage. 

As we mentioned, this is a very general optimized profile developed by a coffee importer, not an ultimate profile for production roasting. Use this profile as your reference to kick-start your new roasting journey with ROEST. Then play around and make it your own!