I’ve only had one or two Thai coffees in my past, so I’m excited to share this one from Nebraska’s Meta Coffee Lab with you! Slurp!
Reviews in this series: Papua New Guinea Peno Lufa and Okapa District
META COFFEE LAB THAILAND ARABICA DOI PANGKHON
Meta Coffee Lab is Mike Bratty and his wife, Suzanne Seberg. The couple have turned their basement into a legitimate roastery (bribing their neighbors with coffee was certainly a smart move!) and have been supplying Lincoln, Nebraska with fresh, interesting coffees and nitro cold brew for a few years now. This morning’s coffee is an Arabica from Thailand, a country mostly known for hot weather and Robusta, rather than Arabica beans. Meta Coffee Lab sold out of this coffee a week or so ago, but I still want to share my thoughts on this coffee with you. Check out their other current selections in the link above!
Thailand is the 18th largest coffee producing country in the world, best known for it’s Robusta production in the southern part of the country. Thailand kicks out 80,000 tons of Robusta per year. In the north, however, centered around the relatively cooler city of Chiang Mai, about 500 tons of Arabica is grown per year, so specialty coffee is barely in its infancy in Thailand. Daily Coffee News has a Chiang Mai coffee guide in case you want to take a visit! This selection from Meta Coffee Lab is Caturra, Chiang Mai 80, Bourbon and Typica that was grown around Chiang Mai at 1250-1500masl. It was processed in the “Kenya” style of washing, where the beans are depulped (run through a mill that pops the skins on the cherries and removes some of the pulpy mucilage) and dry fermented for a day, then wet fermented in tanks for another day. My guess is that Meta Coffee Lab sourced this coffee from Cafe Imports, who’ve been working with young coffee farkers in the Doi Pangkhon region since the 2014-2015 harvest to bring their coffee to the international specialty coffee market.
I am using a Trinity Origin brewer with Kalita 155 filter and a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind. Meta Coffee Lab say to expect, “cocoa, fruit florals, cedar finish” from this coffee. I’ve had maybe 1-2 coffees from Thailand over the years, so this is essentially a new tasting experience for me, too!
Taking a sip I am greeted by a medium-bodied coffee that has a milky, creamy texture to it. There is a nicely sweet base of lightly caramelized sugars with lots of fruity overtones in this cup. I’m getting apple acidity and sweetness, some tangerine citrus acidity and a bit of peach and apricot, too. Really nice! There’s nice brightness here, but for me all three of these types of acidity come with lots of sweetness, too, so for as fruity as this cup is, it doesn’t read “acidic” or overly bright. It has great balance. In the second half of the sip I do get some milk chocolate hot cocoa and marshmallow reminders and the coffee has a slightly dry finish with some woody notes in the aftertaste. I like the cedar descriptor. In the time between sips my tongue feels like it has a slight cooling, minty feel (not flavor) to it. Like my skin feels like with aftershave or a cool mint opens up the pores on my palate. Very interesting!
This is a nice cup. Thailand’s specialty coffee farming industry is small, so it’s cool to see companies like Cafe Imports helping farmers break into the international exportation game. Prices are likely higher and the living to be made is probably better, and that translates to more willingness to take the time and effort to grow and process coffee to higher standards, which is good for us drinkers! I’m terribly sorry I didn’t get this review out in time for you to try this wonderful coffee from Meta Coffee Lab, but try some of their other offerings and you will not be disappointed in the least!
Mike
Thanks again for another nice review of our offerings. We really appreciate the support and feedback.