At a small roasting company with a one-day-a-week cafe operation in Moscow, Idaho, I ordered a pour-over of one of their “reserve” options, a strawberry co-ferment from the Huila region of Colombia. The aromas were full-on fruity, and I got a noseful of pretty much the same smell you get from strawberry bubble tape (™). Sugary sweet, surprising unless you already knew what you were getting into (as I did). I enjoyed the cup. I bought a bag.
Co-ferments are a relatively new addition to the list of ways to process coffee. Fermentation is an important and high-impact step of post-harvest processing; this is when complexity develops in the still-raw coffee seed that we will eventually roast. One fermentation variation is “anaerobic,” essentially taking place in a closed tank away from oxygen. Natural or “dry” processing leaves the cherry skin intact on the seed throughout fermentation, and longer fruit contact results in more intensified sweetness and deep cherry-berry notes. Introduce another intensely-flavored food product into the mix (generally another fruit, though I’ve seen spices used as well), and you’ve got a recipe for some very interesting flavor profiles in the final product.
Generally, introducing a co-ferment is only reasonable for small batch production; it’s not super scalable. The notion of tossing another fruit in the fermentation tank and dealing with that unpredictable variable would also sound cuckoo bananas to most small scale coffee producers, who are already expending pretty much all of their available resources just to get their coffee out into the hands (and cups) of a buyer. But those farmers who are already well connected to the world of specialty coffee, who have had opportunities to rub shoulders with intrepid world-traveling coffee adventurers and learn about how coffee is treated and enjoyed in high-end cafes across the U.S. and Europe, might already be equipped to spend some time and energy augmenting their systems to accommodate the ever-shifting tastes of the Western specialty consumer. Maybe they’re lucky enough to have learned English in school; maybe they have received training in the nuances of coffee production systems, unlike most who have simply inherited farms and equipment and basic knowledge from the previous generation, isolated for most of their lives far away from more developed city centers and educational resources like agronomists and technical assistance.
Investing in the infrastructure necessary to pull off a batch of co-fermented coffee can definitely pay off for a farmer. Coffees like this, when tended carefully, can score highly in a competition and receive high praise, and therefore high prices, from roasters looking to differentiate themselves with unique offerings. To be honest, I love tasting them myself and can completely understand why other curious coffee drinkers like them too. But my feelings about co-ferments, and other experimental processes, are two-sided.
On one hand, coffee is so interesting and amazing, and its flavor potential is astounding, especially when you add in some innovation. And any time a farmer has the chance to make more money, I’m for it. Coffee is undervalued in the consuming market; we should be celebrating the expertise and skills of coffee producers and be paying them more across the board.
On the other hand, what happens when a farmer invests in the additional materials and infrastructure to produce the precise green coffee that an excited importer or roaster is asking for, maybe sells one or two batches, and then the buyer gets bored and again wants something different? The buyer says jump! and the farmer says how high? for a few harvests, and by the time the farmer is all in on perfecting the new process, the buyer has moved on to the next trendy experiment. Where’s the benefit to the farmer now?
Of course, not all buyers are that fickle. Many, like Cooperative Coffees, are focused on long-term partnerships with farmers. Instead of bending with the winds of temporary trends, a good buying partner will listen to the farmers’ needs and make long-term buying commitments. Even within those partnerships, there’s room for special projects and microlots, with the expectation that if those don’t work out or change year-to-year, the buying partner will still be there to buy the larger lots of more traditional coffee that are the bread and butter for most producers.
As for me, I will absolutely savor my little bag of this Colombian co-ferment, with its bubble tape aromatics and juicy-sweet character. And with every sip, I’ll hope that the farmer of this coffee has a robust and sustainable relationship with a buyer (or several) who are committed to work with them for the long haul, long after our strawberry whims have morphed into the next big thing.