It’s October… changing leaves, crisp air, noticeably shorter days (cue severely downtuned open power chord now) and the return of Folk City’s Devil’s Altar!! \m/
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Article about anaerobic processing
FOLK CITY ROASTERS DEVIL’S ALTAR 2018
Folk City Roasters was founded by James Arnold toward the end of 2016. Folk City is strictly a roasting operation (no tasting room or cafe) located near Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania in the Upper Bucks region of the state (north of Philly and NW of Trenton, NJ). Folk City has a constantly rotating selection of high quality coffees and James collaborates a lot with his friend, artist Josh Myers (@arguablyhuman on Instagram). Last October, James celebrated Halloween with his Devil’s Altar blend. Last year’s was a mix of Guatemalan and Ethiopian coffees while the 2018 version is an anaerobic coffee from Costa Rica. The label again features a creepy skull drawn by Josh, and you can pick up a pin with the same artwork on it for your Devil’s Altar collection!
The label challenges you to, “Cheat death, drink coffee” and proclaims this year’s Devil’s Altar as, “an offering of fruity coffees brought upon the altar and sacrificed to the dark arts.” I know this sort of imagery isn’t for everyone, but I love it. Halloween is my favorite time of year and my dark, heavy metal art loves this sort of stuff! It’s all in good fun. I mean, how Satanic can fruity coffees really be?
This year’s version of Devil’s Altar is a Costa Rican coffee from the Tarrazu region. It is Caturra from the Cordillera del Fuego, the farm of Luis Eduardo Campos. Cordillera del Fuego roughly translates to “mountain range of fire” and that fits the Devil’s Altar imagery quite nicely, if you ask me! Luis grows coffee in the 1600-1700masl and he is a pioneer in the use of anaerobic fermentation in Costa Rica, a country that is not afraid to experiment when it comes to growing and processing coffee. I linked an excellent, short article from a coffee importer that discusses the type of fermentation that Campos is doing at Cordillera del Fuego. His coffee is depulped and the seeds (what we call coffee beans) are placed in stainless steel tanks. The fruity, goopy mucilage from the fruit of the coffee cherries is tightly packed into a gel-like substance and added to these stainless steel tanks until it covers the coffee completely. This is where the flavors we love in coffee comes from. The tank is sealed and the CO2 that is created displaces the oxygen in the tank, hence the name “anaerobioc” or “without oxygen.” Campos carefully monitors the sugars, pressure, pH and time and the process takes 18-23 hours. Enough to ferment and get some interesting flavors from lactic and malic acids that thrive in anaerobic environments. Campos’s coffees are particularly heavy on the cinnamon notes from this process, and malic acid is associated with apple flavors, so that’s a match made in heaven if they come through in this coffee!
I’m using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper. Grinder is a Knock Aergrind. This coffe runs a little fast as my usual grinder setting, coming in at 2:40 (not including a 30 second bloom). I pulled a bunch of espresso shots before I drank this coffee on filter and those were good, too, but filter is definitely the way to go with this coffee…
This coffee has a nice aroma… warm, a little toasty and with some dark fruits. I get a little red wine vibe from the aroma, too. Taking a sip, this is a medium-bodied coffee with a creamy mouthfeel. Up front I am getting red fruits… a little cherry, a little berry. There is an apple sweetness to the cup, too. I’m getting a brown sugar sweetness to the base of the cup, too. This is a fruity cup, but it reads as “dark” to me in the sense that I’m not getting any bright citrus or those sorts of high notes. The fruits in this coffee are darker, redder, more devilish! Toward the mid-sip the cherry note ramps up and there is a hint of roastiness, as well as a cinnamon note that works really well with the apple sweetness of the cup. This is just a “warm” tasting coffee, from the red fruits, cinnamon, apples… All these flavors and nuances are warm and spicy, very appropriate for the seasonal change. The cinnamon note along with that apple acidity is perfect in this cup and really reads like a not-too-sweet apple pie, which is the devil’s favorite.
This is a cool processing method. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve only had one anaerobic coffee from Costa Rica. Unlike the lactic acid-heavy fermentations I’ve had from La Palma y El Tucan’s Colombian coffees, this is a completely different animal. Whereas that style of lactic fermentation creates a delightful tartness in the cup, I’m not getting any of that with this cup. It’s unique but so familiar and easy drinking at the same time. As a side note, I did pull about 50% of this bag as espresso, and it’s pretty good that way using a 1:2’ish ratio in about 30-35 seconds with 20g in the portafilter. Very bright, lots of cherry. But when I drank this for the first time as a filter cup, I realized that is definitely the way to go for this coffee.
This is awesome. What a coffee! Absolutely perfect for the season from the fruits in the cup to the roast level. It’s warm, toasty, delicious, super familiar and with a lot of complexity for nerds. For the “regular” folks this is a fruity but easy-drinking coffee and no one is going to call it “sour” or “too bright.” It’s a gem! Hail Satan, and get yourself a bag of Devil’s Altar because it’ll be gone before you know it!