November, 2008

Specialty Estate Coffee of the Month - Monsooned Malabar AA

Monsooned coffees are truly one-of-a-kind in that they do not look like or taste like any other coffee from any origin. The bean size, its colour and cup characteristics are the result of a unique post harvest processing these beans undergo in India.

In olden times, coffee was shipped from India to Europe in wooden sailing vessels, taking four to six months to sail around the Cape of Good Hope before reaching their destinations. Coffee, stored below the water line and kept in a humid atmosphere by the little moisture seeping through the wood, underwent a form of treatment on its long voyage to the market. When that coffee reached Europe, it had changed its colour from bright green to pale gold, and had lost its new crop acidity. It was mellow in the cup and easy on the stomach. Europeans loved this coffee not realizing at the time just how unusual it was.

When steel ships started carrying coffee and they steamed through the Suez Canal, sailing time became shorter, the coffee stayed dry and green, and it retained its acidity. The monsooning process was later developed in India to restore the coffees’ then familiar flavour by stimulating the unique treatment coffee received en route to the European ports.

The monsooning process consists of exposing the naturally processed coffee beans in layers of four-to-six inch thickness to moisture laden monsoon winds in a well-ventilated brick or concrete floored warehouse. This process is carried out in the coastal regions of Western India making use of winds from the Arabian Sea during the Southwest monsoon months of June through to September.

One starts with top grade beans, Arabica Cherry-A that has already been processed by the dry method. To equalize moisture absorption, the beans are raked frequently, followed by bulking and re-bagging at regular intervals. At the end of the monsoon season, this coffee is re-bulked, graded again, bagged and moved to a drier region for longer-term storage.

In this 12 to 16 week process, these beans absorb moisture in stages, swell to nearly twice their original size and develop colour ranging from a pale gold to a light brown and in the process acquire a special, unique flavour. At this stage, the moisture content is 14.5%, up from the average 10.5% for regular Indian coffee, and most importantly, it has become the lowest acid coffee in the world.

In the cup, the Monsooned Malabar AA is low in acidity, high in body and has a mellow pleasant earthy flavour but without even a hint of mustiness or the mildew taste that an aged coffee typically exhibits. This coffee is also an excellent blender, helping to mute the acidity of certain African and Central American coffees without compromising the fruitiness of those beans. Perhaps its best use, however, is as a low-acid, neutral base in an espresso blend; providing the desirable body, excellent crema and its mild character not interfering with the flavour profile of the featured coffee in the blend.

ENJOY!
The Coffee Baron