Specialty coffee · Worth knowing

James Hoffmann and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis have created The Fermentation Project, a global tasting that isolates fermentation as a single variable to demonstrate its impact on flavor. Four coffees from the same Caturra lot in Antigua, Guatemala are processed identically except for fermentation methods: mechanically demucilaged (control), wild fermentation, Lactobacillus-inoculated fermentation, and yeast-inoculated fermentation, each using a precise 48-hour window. Pre-order kits include four 100g samples roasting in mid-September for a global tasting event on October 3rd, with local in-person cupping available at the roastery, demonstrating how microbial fermentation choices affect acidity, body, and flavor complexity while origin, variety, and harvest remain constant.

Typica Mejorado is the variety that established Ecuador as a specialty coffee origin, winning the country's first Cup of Excellence in 2021 and dominating subsequent competitions. Despite its name suggesting it's an improved Typica, DNA fingerprinting by World Coffee Research reveals it's actually a hybrid of Bourbon crossed with an Ethiopian landrace—genetically unrelated to Typica despite resembling it in appearance and flavor profile. The variety originated in a 1990s Nestlé breeding facility in Pichincha province, where a field technician named Don Olger Rogel identified the two best-cupping seeds and distributed them to Ecuadorian farmers including José Pepe Jijón and Juan Peña, whose mother plants still supply most specialty lots reaching roasters today. The coffee expresses jasmine, stone fruit, citric acidity, and syrupy body, responding well to experimental fermentation techniques like the tyoxidator method used at Finca Soledad. However, Typica Mejorado remains a micro-lot coffee due to its low yields, weak root system, sensitivity to rain and sun, and uneven bean sizing within single lots—challenges that require growers to sell at premium prices and roasters to adjust profiles for bean variation. Small plantings now exist in Colombia and Costa Rica, though Ecuador's Loja and Pichincha provinces remain the primary source, with optimal results above 1,800 meters altitude where slow equatorial ripening develops complexity.

Espresso quality depends fundamentally on bean selection, and the article emphasizes that density, solubility, and roast development are the three factors that separate beans suitable for espresso from those that fail under nine bars of pressure. Roast level is the most critical decision: medium roasts highlight origin character for straight shots, while medium-dark to dark roasts provide the body and boldness needed to stand up in milk drinks, with proper roast development taking beans slightly further into first crack than drip roasts to ensure a forgiving extraction window. Freshness is unusually sensitive in espresso—the sweet spot is 7–21 days post-roast, as beans under 4 days release excess CO2 causing gushing shots, while beans past 28 days oxidize and lose brightness—making roast date the key information to verify before purchase. Well-built espresso blends outperform single origins for most home brewers because they balance what individual origins lack, though beginners should start with blends for their forgiving nature before advancing to single origins once their grind and dose are dialed in.