What the @#$& is this bean?

[tisri]

Hi all,

I mentioned in a previous thread that a work colleague went to Jamaica and brought me back some coffee. It looks like green coffee but has a few beans that are closer to the colour of green Monsoon Malabar but the same size as the other beans.

Anyway, I just finished roasting some and it is Weird Weird Weird. 250g of the beans took up about the same space as 250g of just about anything else. In the Hottop they went to over 20 minutes before first crack started and by the time the Hottop refused to give me any more Pluses they were at 24 minutes and first crack was still very slow. The roasted beans are fairly light brown and very irregular.

A few of the beans also have a coating similar to chaff but much tougher. It crumbles in my fingers but is definitely thicker and stronger than chaff.

I'm assuming this stuff has been sun dried, does anyone else have any ideas what it might be?

Cheers
John

[ivdp]

A very fresh coffee, just picked, not well dried?
High moisture content will extend roasting time..
Since it was not delivered to you in a barrel, quality below the top qualities.


Ivo

[tisri]

It was delivered to me in a polythene bag, just under 1kg of it. The beans look very irregular, especially when I compare them to the almost perfectly regular green Blue Mountain I recently ordered. It's possible it's freshly picked - I've asked the guy to try and find out what they do to it after harvesting it so a definitive answer might be forthcoming.

[Beanie]

Pictures?

[tisri]

Good Idea... watch this space...

[tisri]

Here are the pictures, before roasting and after 24 minutes in the Hottop.

It's worth mentioning that the roasted coffee smells nice enough, just curious to know what the deal is with it.

[tisri]

Oh yes, also worth mentioning that the weight dropped from 250g pre-roast to 200g post-roast. There's a lot of moisture in them thar beans.

[Beanie]

Sounds like Ivo might have hit the nail on the head.

Not that I've seen many green beans in my life, but jeezz, they DO look strange... even almost pre-under-roasted! Do the greens smell like the other greens?

[tisri]

Could well be. They smell much like other green beans and, when roasted, smell similar to many other roasted beans although not as rich. The not as rich is probably due to first crack barely getting started.

I'm going to try drying them out, perhaps under a very low heat in the grill, and then roast them. I could do with something vaguely positive to say about them when the guy that brought them back asks how it was.

[Beanie]

Vaguely positive: I've never had/seen coffee beans like this before?

Instead of grill where there might be a slight chance of cooking them, how about a hair dryer?

[anette]

Hi tisri! Looks like you got allsorts in there, robusta and arabica, and a fairly low grade of them... The colour of the greens remind be if a very bad indian robusta we sometimes serve up to scare people! The coating you mentioned that isn't chaff is the parchment, and the slow roast is probably due to freshness. rest it for a couple of months if you can be bothered, and try again. Have you tasted it yet?

[tisri]

Hi Anette. I haven't tasted it yet - I figured such a light roast would want to be rested for a while. I'm going to grind some and take it to work so my Jamaican colleague can taste it for himself. The smell of it is quite rich but nowhere near as much so as just about anything else I've roasted - it's as if it's a much lower grade of something than I'm used to.

Like I said before I could really do with something positive to say about it since he made the effort to bring it home, but if it tastes awful I don't want him wasting his time on future trips. I'll try resting it - I've got a pot it can sit in pretty much indefinitely, and give it another go ni the Hottop.

[ivdp]

Don't rest these beans, just give them another roasting cycle till they are nicely brown..!

Ivo

[tisri]

Ivo, I did exactly that. I was going to grind them but even after a couple of weeks they didn't smell anything like any coffee I've known before. So I chucked them back in the Hottop and gave them another go. I didn't bother timing anything because I figured I'd dump them when I was ready. They missed out first crack and went straight to second after about 10 minutes (give or take a couple of minutes). Now they look much more even, nice and brown (fairly dark) but have a slightly bitter smell to them. The 250g of greens I started out with ended up as 189g of roasted coffee - before this the darkest I'd ever roasted anything resulted in 250g of greens turning into just over 200g of roasted.

I compared them to regular Blue Mountain and there really is no comparison. BM is very rich and smooth (even only an hour after roasting) while the mystery bean coarser and less complex, despite having some of the same characteristics.

I'm guessing from this and everyone's replies that I've got a mix of low to medium grade coffee from Jamaica, some or all of which may have come from the Blue Mountain area. Apparently in Jamaica they don't even roast it, they just break it up (often using a big stick in a pot) and pour on boiling water.

[Beanie]

Tisri, I found these pics of beans from coffeeresearch.org:

Grade 5 greens: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... mage96.htm
Rancid green: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... age147.htm
Sour, fermented greens http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... age182.htm

The coating you mentioned that isn't chaff is the parchment

which, if I understand correctly, is called Pergamino: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... age123.htm

Low quality roasted beans: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... age108.htm and http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... age107.htm

And I think I should end this with very pretty looking greens: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/sharedpic ... age101.htm