Fermentation - Producers Experiment at the Origin
Hey guys, I am Lynn Mascarenhas from St. Margaret Estate. Few months back I was very new to the hive platform. I am very grateful for Ramesh who told me about hive and he kept asking me what I wanted to post about. Immediately I knew, I wanted to write about coffee and my little journey that I had with it.
The first thing that popped into my head was talking on the farmers perspective in the coffee industry, which is not seen often. The origin has so much to offer be it growing up plants, managing the estate, having multiple jobs for local workers, getting our hands into the trending coffee wave.
I am the fourth generation coffee planter in this family. I am often trying to strive and get connected to the end customers more and more day by day. This is because we have always had a strong relationship with traders, buying a coffee and exporting them to Europe. the species of coffee that we have is robusta which is perfect to make a bountiful espresso shot.
While we’re thrilled that our coffees reach so far and wide to make it to the customer. We want to change the outlook of the relationship to the local community. As you know, India is known for its wide ranging culture and food. India is changing the way it looks at coffee as a beverage back in the day. It used to be South Indian filter coffee, today it’s all about specialty coffee. Drinking it without sugar and milk.
The journey we as farmers go through in picking the right kind of cherries for you. The deepest red is much preferred, so that fermentation are richer, not just in flavour but also the overall body.
These are specially washed to remove any of the dirt and debris. Quality is an utmost priority at the farm. And overall game is to produce small experimental lots that we call as micro or nano lots. This gives us an edge to work with a minimum of three coffees that vary in the kind of processing that it requires.
In the olden days, the coffee yards are filled with tons of coffee on the brick made yards which allowed the heat to hit the ground and dry the cherries from either sides. But the current scenario is very different from what it used to be. Now we have a specialised poly house and is made of Solar tarpaulins, exhaust fans and humidifiers that take care of drying these coffees. Climate change has indeed changed the way we used to look at this beverage.
Drying yards
So much has changed not just climate
Coffee is often compared with wine, especially when it comes to the origin, and have a look at the fruit. 🍇 Even though there are so many similarities, what we must remember as farmers is that we use the seed in coffee, whereas in wine, the seed is thrown out. This creates a lot of difference in the way of processing.
In the picture you can see Swithin has a brix meter in the hand, which is used to see the sugar content within the fruit. There is a small scale that you can see in the eyepiece that is ranging from 0 to 30. The more the sugar, the better the ferment.
There are some unique processing ways in which we may go an extra step of adding sugars. Sugar is it already naturally available or not something that we have cooked up, something that’s already within the coffee.
As important as it is to select coffees, it’s also important to eliminate what doesn’t belong there. so what needs to be eliminated? There are few pests that eats the coffee bean, making it hollow on the inside. So to answer your question, there are some borer infected beans, black beans and beans with other defects.
The next thing I want to highlight is incooperating specific yeast strains into these coffee is specially to bring out a very distinct and desirable flavour in the cup. The kind of yeast that we used is the Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is also known as the Brewers yeast, it is commonly used in winemaking, especially in the ancient times. You would not believe it but this yeast used to be isolated just for the skin of the grapes. 🍇
Meet Pratap Kanbur, our writer who used to show the locals how the yeast has to be spread across the barrel. So that even fermentation takes place around the barrel.
From Assam, a worker from the Syed Tribe help is inoculate Chikoo or the sapota fruit into the barrel, which should ferment in a completely different way, and give an unexpected result which we would only know after cupping this coffee multiple times.
I was so proud of this coffee and I had named it Queens quest. The Queen was none other than Queenie Mascarenhas, who was my dad’s mom who had planted the Chikoo trees in our farm. She was known to be very social she would end up inviting, a lot of guests and her home-made buttermilk and coffee used to be always available.
Yes, I do a lot of fermentation and experiments with these coffees. But to tell you the truth, my grandma used to also experiment by making multiple fruit wines. She would end up using passionfruit, beetroot, wheat, rice, grapes, to keep all the guests in high spirits.
The next coffee 🤌🏼✨
The yellow sun-dried Honey coffee was Brewed as an espresso shot, which is perfect for robusta coffee. Perfect to start the day strong or end it by making it into an affogato, a delicious dessert. Considering this is a specialty coffee, there’s absolutely no need to add any sugar or honey which makes it all the more interesting.
This coffee is truly an exception when it comes to not being unique, but being within the range of how coffee used to be and staying within limits and yet having outcome that is bang on.
Affogato 🍨
Affogato 🍨
Out of all the fermentions that I have experimented with, I only wish that in the future I end up making a boozy coffee maybe not whiskey, wine, maybe not even champagne. Hopefully, I’ll use one of the local booze to ferment it. ✨
About Author
I am Lynn Mascarenhas from St. Margaret Estate, I am the youngest member of the Mascarenhas family. I got introduced to the world of coffee while doing my research on “diversity of birds in coffee plantations”.
As a qualified wild-lifer and coffee enthusiast, I have taken on a new pathway to introduce eco-friendly and sustainable practices at the estate while venturing into speciality coffee.
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Ooh this is so cool to learn about! If you ever decide to sell your coffee beans to Hivers, I'd love to try some. :) I'm sure shipping small orders internationally would be a pain, though. !BEER
Yes! I can try this 😁 and would love to send them across.
View or trade
BEER.Hey @coffeenlove, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @phoenixwren for you. Enjoy it!Do you want to win SOME BEER together with your friends and draw the
BEERKING.🍻 Perfection! Would be delighted to have it.
An interesting post that you share with us today. It shows that you have a lot of experience in this coffee business. It would be a very pleasant experience try one of your coffees.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.☕
Good day.
Thank you so much for those kind words. Would love to share my coffees with you guys! ✨😁
The entire process is amazing. Thanks for sharing this educational post with the community.
See you around:)
Thank you Milly 🍒 Producing these coffees gives me utmost satisfaction.
Another captivating post! It is amazing that you have carried on this passion with the guidance of three generations before you. It was wonderful to hear about the process of fermenting and readying this coffee that you went on to name after your grandmother! Thanks for a great read ☕️
I feel like connecting the work done previously deserves it's own special place in today's customers hearts. 🥰