Watch our web-hosted discussion Special Topics: Anaerobic Fermentation!
Enjoy our latest educational talk!
We held our first Special Topics on April 4th, 2023. This was our first entry into a new webinar series designed for teaching, learning, connection, and discussion. At Cafe Imports, we consider ourselves students of this dynamic plant and industry and hope these webinars provide an opportunity for continued education. In the near future, we’ll host Special Topics on all things interesting, important, timely, or nerdy, and we invite you to join the conversation!
For all those who weren’t able to attend in real time, we’ve uploaded the recording. We want to make education accessible and believe a public forum is a wonderful way of doing so. We hope you enjoy learning alongside us.
This Special Topics was about one of coffee production’s more recent processing developments – anaerobic fermentation. Its trending popularity in specialty coffee led us to produce this video, which we also recommend watching!
Our speakers were Café Import’s staff and resident experts in their fields, contributing to the conversation through their unique lens. Dr. Taya Brown is our production researcher and educator. Omar Harerra is one of our green buyers, heavily focused on Colombia. Ian Fretheim is our Director of Sensory Analysis. Educator Dylan Siemens moderates the discussion.
A few of the key talking points:
- What is anaerobic fermentation? What is it not?
- How do we speak more accurately about this step in a coffee’s process?
- What is required to produce these coffees? What are the benefits and challenges for the producer?
- What role does this processing step play in a coffee’s valuation?
- What conclusions can be drawn about the impact on the cup?
Want to sign up for our next Special Topics?
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Earlier Posts
Origin Report: Nicaragua 2018
We are in love with Nicaragua, and when we fall for a place, we fall hard. Over the past couple of years, our focus has been on the small specialty producers of Dipilto in Nueva Segovia, nurturing relationships that display huge potential, as well as a continued commitment to the cooperatives with whom we’ve enjoyed strong, stable partnerships for years. While the past few months have been especially hard on the people of this beautiful country, we have found much to celebrate in the highland farms and with the growing specialty-coffee sector: We bet that by the end of this report, you’ll be just as in love—and just as devoted—as we are.
Cafe Imports Europe Invites You to Participate in the World Coffee Research Check-Off Fund
We are pleased to invite roaster of all sizes to participate in the World Coffee Research check-off fund through their partnership with Cafe Imports Europe! Read more about how small change from you can make big change for coffee.
Colombia Best Cup 2018 – Registration now open
Colombia is a special place to us in general at Cafe Imports, but it’s also the coffee-growing country where the Best Cup competition was born: Along with our partners at Banexport, we created this regional competition to highlight the best and brightest within several of the country’s specific growing areas, beginning with Cauca and Huila. For this year’s cupping contest and auction, we are thrilled to expand our reach to the Nariño and Tolima departments in order to discover even more top-shelf lots from the world’s best smallholder producers.
Legendary Coffee Tour: Scandinavia
17 July & 19 July – Scandinavia Legendary Coffee Tour: Cultivar Caravan Cafe Imports Europe is packing up the tour bus and heading out to Scandinavia next month, bringing along a little bit of something for everyone out there. We’ll be tasting and...
Our W.O.C. Cupping Schedule
21–23 June – Amsterdam World of Coffee See you in Amsterdam! We will be exhibiting at World of Coffee 21-23 June. Find us in the Roaster’s Village at stand VL11, where we will host cuppings of our various fresh-crop coffees. See our cupping schedule below,...
Our W.O.C. Party! Bitterballen Bal with Barista Magazine
21 June – Amsterdam Bitterballen Bal with Barista Magazine Join us and Barista Magazine for a World of Coffee kick-off happy hour on Thursday, 21 June, in Amsterdam! We will be offering free food and drinks, including the greatest Bitterballen in town. (There...
OMG, It’s a Brand-New Cafe Imports Website!
It’s a little meta to write on your new website about your new website, but we’ve got a new website, and we’re feeling pretty happy about it!
Now Hiring: Sales & Sensory Analysis Assistant
Cafe Imports Europe office is looking for a new Sales & Sensory Analysis Assistant to join our small and fast-growing team. This person will have a wide range of responsibilities, supporting both the green coffee sales team and attending to the daily operations of the cupping lab and green storage/roasting room…
Previously, on “Variety: Unknown…”
Cafe Imports longtime green-coffee buyer for Colombia, Andrew Miller had seemingly stumbled on exactly the type of coffee mystery we love: He tasted something on the cupping table that he could hardly describe, let alone identify. What *are* these mystery coffee beans?
SCA Expo 2018 Flavor Station Recap: Do You Have Good Taste?
This year at SCA Expo, we wanted to have a little fun with flavor, while also gathering data about a (very) random sample of coffee professionals in order to continue asking ourselves about our competency as tasters, and how we can improve—both within our ranks at Cafe Imports, of course, but also how we can help others improve, especially the folks we work with all along the supply chain.
For the three days of SCA Expo 2018 in Seattle, we set up a Flavor Station at the Cafe Imports booth, with different things to taste each day. The idea was to offer show-goers an opportunity to stop for just a minute, taste something other than coffee for a change of pace, and maybe get a small sense of what we are doing when we taste coffee in the cupping lab—something a bit more nuanced and hopefully more constructive and practical than a simple “Loved it,” “Hated it.”
Perfect Strangers: A Sourcing Story
Every stranger might be the friend you haven’t met yet, and in coffee, the way we meet each other is sometimes simply a matter of pure chance and in unusual circumstances.
Origin Report: Mexico + Guatemala 2018
Sometimes the easiest things to overlook are those that are right under our noses-or, in the case of Mexico, perhaps right under our borders. Mexico should have everything going for it as a growing country: Its close proximity to the U.S.A. means shipping and receiving coffees is a relative breeze. It’s full of good varieties farmed sustainably, with a high percentage of certified coffees (both Fair Trade and organic). And it has huge development potential from a quality standpoint. Yet Mexico has seemed to be passed over unenthusiastically for the past few years, considered best for “bulk” or blending lots that are hard to get excited about.
Perhaps ironically, however, Mexico’s neighbor to the south, Guatemala, is one of the darlings of the Central American growing region – a reputation deservedly granted thanks to the exquisite profile and general stable productivity there, of course – but the contrast in impressions among the two countries has inspired us to ask whether the grass is really greener on the other side? What difference does a border make? How can we bridge that gap not only in our perception of the coffees, but also manage to equalize them to and with our customers?
Read more for our latest origin report from Mexico and Guatemala, coffee-growing neighbors who have been around the block a few times.