Every time our community comes through our doors & fills our retail floor, we can't help but love what we do a whole lot more.
We were energized by our friends' warm welcome of our first Southeast Asian producing partner, Enzo Sauqi of Central Sumatera Coffee, 2023 Indonesia Cup of Excellence Top 5 Winner for a natural-processed lot of Typica, Abyssinia, and Bourbon.
We were also invigorated by the palpable mutual enthusiasm of our community, not only to explore the sensory possibilities of Indonesian specialty coffees as a result of the optimal alignment of variety, terroir, and process but to engage in candid, constructive conversation initiated by Enzo and our Frederick Bejo.
We cupped in two rounds. The first got us more familiar with the integral cup character of traditionally processed lots — Wet-hulled, Dry-hulled, Honey, Natural — alongside prudently innovative lots following CSC’s take on the processing pathways within the 4th wave of coffee, like Hydro-Natural, Anaerobic Natural, and Age-dried Natural. Here, innovation lay in fine-tuning parameters for harvesting cherries (example, based on ripeness level or even time of day), controlled exposure to oxygen, and adjusting fermentation times.
Encouraging further comparison to enrich our sensory knowledge base, the second round acquainted our community with the attributes co-fermented coffees tend to acquire, according to CSC's perspective on what coffee’s 5th wave means and can offer.
The discussions that ensued prompted us to think through the diverse viewpoints on pathfinding appropriate approaches at the producing side to serve yet potentially unmet preferences among very particular pockets of specialty coffee-curious and already coffee-loving communities, and to revisit our own preferences as well.
As this iteration of Cup & Connect naturally wound down into more relaxed chatter, it was clear our community had again been brought closer by the new insights, even new questions, we uncovered together.