Generating New Coffee Flavors with Fermentation

Did you know that coffee is a fermented product? And the bigger news is the control of coffee fermentation is actually revolutionizing coffee profiles!

Most people know that coffee beans go through a roasting process before we know them as the brown magical perk-me-up. However, the coffee fruit goes through many more processing steps as below decision chart illustrates!

You may ask what fermentation is in the first place and why do we need it?

During fermentation, tiny microorganisms in the environment (the coffee farm) metabolize some organic compounds in coffee into a variety of new taste and flavors molecules. By breaking down larger, less flavorful components into a variety of smaller molecules, these microbes may amplify existing flavors, expand the taste profile and can even create entirely new aromas.

Fermentation was traditionally used for wet processed coffees to produce “washed coffees”. It is a natural, organic process that helps to remove the sugar rich mucilage layer that surrounds the fresh coffee beans.?

In countries where water is abundant, coffee beans are stripped of their skin first and that sticky layer needs to be removed so that the coffee beans may be dried properly.

Other traditional techniques include the “dry” or “natural” process, where the whole cherry is put to dry on a patio under the sun. During the hybrid “honey” process, the mucilage is left on the beans during the drying step.

Sometimes, in those two cases, uncontrolled fermentation might happen during drying and lead to off-notes in coffee.?

Processing steps from fresh coffee to dried green coffee beans ready for export.

In recent years, coffee producers have paid a special attention to those fermentation steps, first to prevent undesired off-notes, but also as a new tool to create new and different flavors from the same ripe coffee cherries. As evidenced in the first step of the chart, some farmers may decide to let the coffee cherries ferment before proceeding with further steps. This “in-fruit fermentation” can be done in a large variety of conditions, each leading to very different flavor profiles.

Similarly, just by varying the time of the traditional, wet-process, fermentation steps, the impact on coffee flavor is huge. One can also decide to add specific microorganisms during any of those steps to influence the resulting coffee.

Recently during the World Barista Championships, specifically fermented coffees are making a splash and winning awards. For example in 2019:?Jeon Jooyeon the 2019 World Barista Champion centered her creations on beans being fermented “in-fruit” under completely anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions tend to favor specific organisms over others and thus, orient the resulting flavor profile. It is wildly used in wine making.

To sum it up, coffee fermentations is very much like in making wine. The fermentation may happen naturally, because of indigenous microorganism populations, or may be inoculated with specific preparations of microbes in controlled conditions.

Applying wine making techniques, and other special fermentation steps to coffee will be the new driver of coffee flavor advancement. It can be seen as new revolution to brewing techniques because when done correctly, fermenting coffee delivers a completely new category of aromas and flavors.

The possibilities seem endless as we are still at the beginning of this revolution!?

Mane has curated a range of fermented coffee extracts with unique fruity profiles. This will appeal to the serious coffee aficionados who love to explore the next coffee wave and create a niche specialist product positioning for the coffee RTD players.

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