Good morning and welcome to today’s review! We’re hitting Brazil by way of Boulder, Colorado with Fresh Tracks Coffee and one of their honey process coffees, so let’s slurp!
Purchase this coffee directly for $16/12oz
FRESH TRACKS COFFEE BRAZIL FAZENDA SENHOR NIQUINHO
The trend I’ve been noticing with a lot of the roasters I’ve been covering recently is that they don’t have a ton of info about themselves on their websites, and in a way that’s cool because it allows me to focus on the coffee, but I think this is also an era of storytelling and people like to try to connect with the companies they buy things from through the story they tell and their journey. In some cases that can go way too far, too, so I guess I’d rather have it this way! What I can tell you is that Fresh Tracks Coffee is a Boulder, CO based “nanoroaster” specializing in natural process and honey process coffees. This type of specialization isn’t something I’ve seen a lot of in coffee yet, so I’ll be interested to see if this idea of a roaster specializing in a region or process or type of roast will pick up traction. It looks like Fresh Tracks really got their start selling coffee around November 2018, judging by their Instagram posts.
If you’re new to specialty coffee and/or KC Coffee Geek, please allow me a second to explain “naturals” and “honey” coffees to you, and there is no honey in honey process coffees! Coffee is a fruit that grows on small trees or large shrubs, and the fruit is about the size of a cherry. In fact, coffee fruit is referred to as coffee “cherries.” Usually there are two seeds inside each cherry, and even though these are seeds, they are popularly referred to as “beans.” These seeds will eventually turn into the roasted coffee we love to drink. Before that, though, coffee has to be processed to remove the fruit and separate, clean and dry these seeds. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this, with the two main methods being dry process (aka natural) and wet process (aka washed). Natural coffees are sorted and then laid out to dry on raised mesh beds. Like big raisins, the fruit starts to dry out, shrink and inside the fruits, the sticky mucilage breaks down and ferments. This fermentation process imparts a lot of fruitiness and body and sweetness to the coffee seeds, and this will be revealed at the hands of an expert roaster, eventually. In wet processing, the cherries are run through a type of mill that breaks open their skins and removes a lot of the pulp/mucilage inside. This sticky mess goes into a tank of water that has bacteria inside that eat the sugary pulp that is remaining, also a fermentation process. Washed coffees tend to be “cleaner” in flavor and have fewer fermentation notes. Honey process coffees land in between washed and natural processes. These coffees are depulped in the type of mill that the washed coffees are, but the sticky mucilage (aka “honey”) is not removed. Instead, the sticky coffee seeds are laid out on raised beds to dry. This process tends to give coffees a cleaner vibe like a washed coffee, but with more sweetness, fruitiness and body like a natural.
In my opinion, Brazilian coffees like the one we have today do well with natural and honey processing because they tend to be a little… boring… at times. That’s no fault of the coffee, the farmers, or anything other than the fact that Brazilian coffee tends to grow in pretty nice weather conditions, which is not ideal for interesting flavors. Brazil’s coffee growing regions suffer from relatively low elevation. What that means, very generally, is that the temperatures are pretty stable and coffee grows relatively fast and easy. Coffees tend to get more interesting with harsher growing conditions, and high altitudes come with daily cycles of hot days and cold nights. This slows the growth of the coffee so it develops more on the tree, and creates more flavors and complexity. So, for me, Brazilian coffees can be quite mild (though still enjoyable), and using natural or honey processing can kick them up a notch or two.
This morning’s coffee a Yellow Bourbon variety grown around 1100-1300 meters above sea level at Fazneda Senhor Niquinho. This fazenda, or farm, is located in Carmo de Minas, a municipality in the far south of Minas Gerais, the large coffee growing state in southern Brazil. This is a honey process coffee and Fresh Tracks describes it as, “Lemon, citrus, fruity.” Fazenda Senhor Niquinho is owned by Carmo Coffees co-founder and 4th generation coffee grower, Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira and was named after his grandfather. They do their own processing at another farm they own, Fazenda Irmas Pereira. Sales of this coffee benefit Cria Carmo, a project started by Carmo Coffee that provides swimming, soccer, karate, chess and other opportunities to children in Carmo de Minas. Cria Carmo provide these services to about 230 kids between the ages of 7 and 17. It’s amazing what adding a 10 cents per pound premium to this coffee can provide in countries where it’s grown!
Taking my first sip at about 112 degrees F, which I’ve found is about as warm as I would recommend drinking coffee if you’re trying to get all those flavors out of it, I’m greeted by a medium bodied coffee with a silky, slick texture not unlike an oatmeal stout (although with less body as we’re drinking coffee, not beer, this morning!). As far as aroma, I’m not picking up a ton from this cup, but I am getting something that reminds me a little of raisin and some graham cracker. Back to the sip, I’m hit with a nice honey or light caramel sweetness up front with lots of fruit in the second half of the sip. Parsing things out some more, the first half of my sip is sweet like honey or a light caramel, then I’m getting a lot of citrus and other fruitiness in the back half. There is nice brightness and acidity to this cup, but it’s soft and round and not harsh at all. I’m definitely getting some lemon peel or lemon candy flavors here and in the mid-sip I’m picking up hints of coriander, too. Going back to another beer reference, if you’ve had Blue Moon then you’ve tasted coriander in the context of beer. It’s a much more subtle note in this Fazenda Senhor Niquinho, but very much still there in short flashes. I’m getting some cranberry and a bit of raisin from this cup, too. The fruitiness has a crisp tartness that balances the sweetness nicely and that reads “cranberry” to me. This coffee finishes sweet and has a nice, lingering aftertaste of lemon and cranberry, creating a bit of a “tingle” in the sides of my tongue and cheeks. This coffee is clean and fresh, nicely balanced and super easy-drinking. I couldn’t ask for more from a Brazilian coffee or an introduction to Fresh Tracks’ roasting! YUM!