#70: What do coffee cascara and rose wine have in common? Roasted coffee labels, batching your cherries over multiple days

Some of the questions in this episode:

• What typically happens to the water, along with cascara and whatever else is part of a fermentation, after the fermentation has been completed?
• Cascara is sometimes processed into a secondary product, cascara tea. Are there other secondary products that are made?
• As a roaster, what should we put on our bags to better point towards the farm?
• What's the consensus on adding flavor descriptors to bags? Do or don't?
• How can I store coffee cherry for 2–3 days without creating high damage?

Resources:

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Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee

Transcript

lucia: 0:21

Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Making Coffee. This is episode number 70 and every 10 episodes I like to do a q and a. And so episode 69 was a kind of discussion, kind of my manifesto about naturals and there were a lot of things that came up in that episode. and actually since then I've been hearing some of your comments of things that still need a little bit more discussion. Need more. Development, and so I'm definitely working on a part two of the Naturals, but because the next episode is number 70, which I have in my head that needs to be a q and a episode, I decided to interrupt our regularly scheduled program of a part two and get to some of your questions that Nick has been. Collecting,'cause we know we have these episodes coming up. So in addition to this being a q and a episode of questions that you guys have submitted through Patreon, through, of emails like Nick has just kind of scoured a lot of different outlets to get these questions. Another thing that we're trying to do that's different is instead of. The usual thing where I sit with the questions for a really long time and overanalyze them and give you a very thorough, response. We are going to try to do this a little bit more quickly so that we can actually get through more questions. So Nick is here with me today. So usually I am recording these episodes by myself in our recording studio, AKA, our guest room. But instead of being alone today, I am joined by Nick because he's gonna be reading the questions and helping me get through these. Hey Nick. Hi everyone. So if you don't know Nick, Nick is my husband and also partner and editor of the podcast, and we work together doing all coffee things. So he is helping me make this episode a little bit more promptly because he's collected the questions and instead of, like I said, me mulling them over and. Obsessing over the answer. I haven't really had a lot of time to prepare, so this is going to be a lot more casual of an episode and a little bit more off the cuff. So let's see how it goes.

Nick: 2:39

Okay, so the first question is from Henry. Hey Lucia, big fan of yours from North Carolina. Me and my mother, were listening to episode number 65 and we came to have three related questions. Number 65 was to blend or not to blend. wine vintages, and harvest update. So the question is, what typically happens to the water, along with Cascada and whatever else is part of the fermentation after the fermentation has been completed? In previous episodes, I think you stated that some producers have much easier or cheaper access to water than others. So how and why might this change from one producer to another?

lucia: 3:13

Hey, Henry, and Mom, I love that you are making this a, a family occasion. so why might some producers have easier, cheaper access to water versus others? Well, you'd really have to think about where their land is found. So where their farm is, if there is a natural spring, if they have a river nearby, or maybe they don't. Have something like that and they have to rely on their neighbors or have some agreement with their neighbors to have some sort of water access. So you can either be blessed with one spring, multiple springs, or you can have just relying on rainwater or potentially having some kind of city water. So access to water is incredibly varied, based on your location and even not just country to country, but also where you may be on a particular mountain side. So that means that the processing is incredibly varied depending on how much access to water you have. Let's see. What happens with the water along with gsta? Okay, so that's why you might have access to a lot of water. So I know a lot of producers, for example, where we're located in Antia, we have multiple springs located where we are. So the process relies heavily on wash process and there isn't. A lot of concern. I'm not saying I agree with this, but it's kind of this idea of like, well, the water will never run out. We have multiple springs and we've been blessed with water. So that is some people's attitudes, whereas other people realize that there, it's a limited resource and kind of change their process accordingly. what happens to that water is also something that I'm very concerned about because when we are doing these fermentations, whether they are wild fermentations, whether they are yeast, inoculated, they're, it's a very heavily charged medium. So the yeast and the bacteria are breaking down the mucilage, releasing it into the water, and making this very. Sugar rich mineral, rich amino acids, like there's all kinds of kind of raw material in there, and depending on where you're located. YA lot of that water, depending on the regulation, you know, could just be immediately dumped into a field like a leach field. It could be immediately dumped into a river or it could go into a water treatment process. And I think that's something else that a lot of I. Coffee consumers, coffee lovers don't realize is that coffee, it's grown everywhere. And each country has their own level of regulation, their own level of oversight, and it's incredibly varied. So there's not a standard, I mean, it's very common for small holders or even very large producers to have zero oversight and to just be dumping into the river. And I think that that's not the case for everybody. Obviously there's, there's a lot of producers that care deeply about the environment and also make sure that they capture that water that they. Do settling tanks that they are able to clean up the water before it goes into a river or into a water source, or that they capture it for themselves and, you know, use it as irrigation water. So it's really hard to answer what happens to it, because it's the whole gamut from being responsibly treated and recycled to, you know, contaminating, uh, rivers and contaminating like the population's drinking water.

Nick: 6:36

The second question is, Cascada is sometimes processed into a secondary product like Cascada Tea. Are there other secondary products that are made? Why might some producers choose to sell Kaka as a secondary product while others may not?

lucia: 6:49

I think this is also a very popular question about, what to do with these secondary byproducts. I think that there is, we have this idea that, okay, coffee's not paid well. So what can producers do to improve their income? Well, if there are other sources like this G, then that could be a way to kind of compensate income. And I think that obviously that is. An idea. I think we overestimate the feasibility of it because so many coffee producers are just struggling to make coffee and now we're going to add a completely other product that requires different things. I think that's one of the reasons too, why Cascada Tea has not really taken off as much, and is not really viable, is that it's not being treated as a separate product. It's much more treated as an afterthought or it's. Being. Dried and processed using whatever we have available for coffee and what coffee needs and what a cascada tea would need are very different things. They require different infrastructure, they require different, processing lines. and so. When you make cascada as an afterthought or as a secondary product, it doesn't usually turn out as great. And I think that's why it's not becoming as popular. So I have an example of wine. I think that, maybe some people don't realize the history of Rose, and I think that if you're a wine lover or maybe kind of on the periphery that you think of rose as an inferior wine or maybe, uh, maybe embarrassed to order a rose versus a white wine or a red wine. And I think where some of that comes from is that originally Rose was an afterthought. So in order to make better red wine, the goal of a wine maker is to concentrate flavors and to get that intensity. And for red wine, you are. Macerating you are, you know, you, you pop the grapes and you have skin seeds and you have a lot of juice. And so that juice is extracting the flavors, the tannins, the phenolics anthocyanins, all of those things from the skins. And the more water that you have, the more diluted that is. So you wanna concentrate that. So a lot of times, a traditional. Wine making technique is they would bleed the wine. It's called a ye. So you would bleed off some of that liquid, which already has some of the color in order to kind of concentrate that initial red wine and make a better red wine. So then winemakers had this ye that is. Slightly colored because it doesn't have all of the contact. And then they would ferment that separately and make a rose wine. So it was literally the afterthought. It was literally the, like the leftovers that turned into a rose wine. And so saying that you liked, that was almost admitting that you liked an inferior product, that you liked the, instead of liking the primary product. And that used to be true. And that's still a method that some, some winemakers use. But now, uh, there are very many producers. That make a rose on purpose, that select the grapes to make a rose wine that look at all of the characteristics of the grapes. To make that product that isn't an afterthought. It's, you know, the primary product and sometimes it's hard to know, was a rose made on purpose or was it made as a leftovers? Um, I think one way to kind of have a clue about this is the variety. So for example, if you have a traditional rose variety, like a Syrah, a Mve, uh, Grenache, they probably made that on purpose. But if you have a rose made from grapes that you're not. That familiar with maybe a Merlott or a Cabernet? It's probably because they were trying to make that Merlott and Cabernet more concentrated and then just had some leftover juice, and they're like, Hey, let's make this some wine. Which doesn't mean that it can't be delicious and amazing. It just means that that wasn't the primary intention of that wine. So what I'm trying to say is that. There is a way that you can make a product like a rose as a secondary product and it still can be viable and it can still be good. But in coffee, so many producers are struggling to make the one thing, and so to add another level of complexity, I think is, is not realistic for very many of them. And Kasra is incredibly, susceptible to. All of the things that we care about in coffee, but extend it to mold, off flavors, off aromas. The cascara has fewer defenses, whereas in coffee, you are going to, dry that seed and then roast it and then turn it into a different beverage. So maybe you can mask some, bad processes by roasting a certain way, by making, an espresso and adding a lot of milk to that beverage and again, masking some of the processing of, I don't wanna say mistakes, but some of like the eventualities of processing. But when you have sra, you are going to just put hot water on that and drink it as is. There's not another secondary or tertiary transformation. So it's a really naked crystal clear view of the product. So if you have any microbial contaminations. Or anything that is kind of compromising the quality, you're gonna see that immediately. So casda needs to be treated differently. Cascada for the sake of cascada consumption needs to be treated very differently. So, for example, one thing I would do differently is sanitizing the cherry. I don't recommend this step for regular coffee processing. I don't think it's necessary to sanitize your cherry before your fermentation, because I do controlled fermentations, but some people do do it. And it's an additional step. but if you're gonna do cascada, I think it's very necessary to sanitize your cherry before pulping and then setting it to dry. I think another thing is that, that cascada needs to be dried immediately. As we know if you've ever visited a wet mill, it's very common that you pulp your coffee. Maybe you collect your pulp for the whole day. And some places collect it for a couple of days'cause that's more efficient. So you kind of batch it. So you collect the pulp and so it's sitting in a big pile, fermenting and decomposing, and then it gets taken to, a second location and it may be dried. So I think that that. Again, is leaving you open to a lot of, microbial contamination. A lot of decomposition. That isn't what you wanna do. It's like when you're making dehydrated fruit, you wanna get from the stage of separating the cascara and go straight to drying as quickly as possible so that you can stop time. You can then freeze the quality of the product where it is instead of letting it decompose. And I. Know so few producers who can manage that because that's not the way that we treat Cascada It. Like I said, it piles up and then you take it to the next location after a while. So if then you have to start processing that in a different way, it's like a whole different paradigm shift that. it sounds easy, like we'll just take the product and dry it. And it is, if you do that, it is easy, but it's not very good. And if it's not good, then people aren't gonna seek it out and pay a premium for it.

Nick: 14:09

Okay. And for the third question from Henry. I know this is a bit ridiculous and is well out of the realm of practicality but while listening to episode number 65, my mother posited the idea that perhaps coffee casca and maybe any leftover fermentation water could be turned into wine or specialty vinegar and sold as another secondary product. I was horrified at this idea, but I realized I didn't have the knowledge to pinpoint why it seemed so gross Is there a reason that Casca and perhaps fermentation tank water could not conceivably be turned into wine vinegar or some other type of secondary fermented product? Could it taste good?

lucia: 14:42

Henry? I think that you need to give your mother a little bit more credit. I think that this is a very clever idea, and I guess the short answer to your question is, yes, it can taste good and no, there's no reason not to do this. There's no good reason not to do that, except for kind of what I mentioned before with the cascara, that when you're adding a new product, it's a whole different level of complexity and a whole different level of equipment that a lot of people are not prepared for, but there's no reason not to turn sugar water with, these, characteristics into something like a vinegar. I think that the, the key. With this fermentation water, is that it? It has actually very low sugar initially, so even though our coffee cherries are starting at, let's say 20 bricks, maybe 15 to 20, let's say something like that. Whereas wine starts at like 24 bricks. and you'd think, okay, coffee's pretty close to grapes, so therefore we should be able to make a coffee wine the way we make a grape wine. But you have to kinda think about the anatomy of a grape, where the grape seeds are really tiny and most of that. Grape is actually liquid. So there's a lot of water at 24 bricks, whereas in a coffee cherry, we're mostly seed, and so the amount of liquid that is actually at 15 to 20 bricks is like a couple of drops. You know, sometimes it's even hard to get a single drop of liquid out of a cherry, so that coffee cherry so that you can even measure the bricks. So to get, you know, a kind of rolling fermentation usually. I do converge. So you have water. So when I'm doing my fermentations, my tanks are really at like five to seven bricks, which means an alcohol about 3%. You know, something very, very low. And because the tanks are open, a lot of that alcohol will volatilize. So one, I want you to not be worried that there is alcohol in your coffee because. It's a, it's a really low level in the fermentation and it'll volatilize away plus the roasting step. So don't worry about alcohol, but if you then did wanna capture that it's such a small amount of alcohol, that you couldn't really do anything with that fermentation water, you'd need to do another step like a distilling so that you could concentrate that. So for me, fermentation water, wine. Or coffee, wine doesn't make a lot of sense, but something like a distilled spirit, something like a, coffee vodka or something like that does make a lot of sense. But again, that is a whole other business that I don't, it's, it's easier said than done.

Nick: 17:24

Okay, so our next question is from Jill. So much of the conversation around agriculture and climate change in other sectors of food production, turn toward regenerative agriculture, biodynamic farming practices, fruit pruning, et cetera. I'm curious as to your thoughts of the impact practices like these might have for coffee farmers going forward. Again, they provide stronger and less susceptible trees. Is as practical as so many coffee farms are mono crops. Would these practices affect the taste of the coffee? Are healthier cherries more delicious?

lucia: 17:53

Hey Jill, thanks for your question. I think I always have to put in the caveat that I live, I live in the realm of microbiology and not agriculture. I'm not an agronomist, but I definitely have. I definitely have thoughts on, some of these subjects. So as long as that's clear that I'm not giving agriculture advice, I think I can, attempt this question. So starting at the end, our healthier, Cherry's more delicious. I think they have to be. I think that, you know, we are such sensitive taste creatures that, you know, we can taste the difference between, two part per million, or in the case of TCA, cork taint, that's parts per trillion. And so humans are able to detect something in the realm of three to five parts per trillion and say, oh, this wine is corked, or there's, there's something off with this bottle. So speaking to the fact that we're incredibly sensitive, I think that many people can taste unhealth in a particular product. And I, I think that in the, you know, the. Last decade of tasting coffees. Nick and I have gotten pretty used to tasting a lot of different processing styles and I genuinely feel like I can taste, kind of tiredness. I can taste a coffee that feels overworked, that feels like too many steps have kind of been taken on this coffee and it almost doesn't have any life force. And I think that a lot of these words may be, kind of hard for you to listen to from. More of a science-based podcast. You know, if we're talking about energy and we're talking about flavors and all of these kind of, esoteric concepts, but I think that there's definitely a place for them in the conversation. I think that we can have. You can taste energy in terms of being tired. So I think that if you had trees that were incredibly healthy, you should be able to taste that. And this kind of reminds me of episode, I think it's episode three, the best cup of coffee I've ever had from this podcast where I tasted coffee in Rwanda and it was the best cup of coffee I've ever had because I felt like it was indestructible and I attributed a lot of that indestructibility, meaning it was old, it was not brewed well. It was. Just hotel coffee on the side of the road of, some place that we were traveling between. And I think that the trees were so healthy, the process was so minimal that the energy of that coffee shone through and we were able to taste something really magnificent. So I think that the processes that you mentioned, regenerative agriculture, biodynamic farming, fruit pruning, all of these things of coffee. I don't see how they could not help except for the fact that yes, theoretically they could all help and they should all be better, but we don't live in a theoretical world. In practicality, producers don't have all of these options at their fingertips and. They're incredibly difficult to implement if you don't have a history of doing that. And I think also coffee for so many, for its entire history, has been a volume game. The way to make money on coffee is to have really high yields, to have a lot of land, to have a lot of volume, and, have quantity over quality. So. Most of the structures in the world are set for volume. And if you're gonna then change it and say, okay, now we wanna do quality and we wanna do these practices, one of those, I think, shifts or transitions that can happen is at first you'll see volume go down because either the plant needs to stabilize or there's just a, a disruption in the system. And I think the very first kind of step is like a, a pause, maybe the vol, the volume goes down, and then later you can. Maybe get back up to that volume, or I'm sure you can even see increases in volume, but there's an initial disruption that I think a lot of producers could not afford to go a season or a couple seasons with significantly reduced volume. So I think that the producers that can undertake these methods have to have a pretty significant runway to, to be able to make that transition. So I think it's more about. You know, tho those realities kind of like those actual constraints, then it is, are these good ideas? Of course they're good ideas, but in the practicality, who can afford to have significantly reduced coffee for the time that it takes to stabilize

Nick: 22:23

This nExt question is from Jason. We are going through a new bag design and it will be good to start fresh. Part of my job is to educate our customers about where the coffee comes from and the importance of the work that they do. We are looking for ways to talk about the journey of the coffee seed to cup in ways that are not overbearing. As of now, we have the farm co-op or area country acidity, body elevation, and taste as the scriptures of the coffee. I see how we can stop using the word elevation because we have learned that with good practices for plant health, lower elevation, coffees can be more like higher elevation. Coffees. This education does go further than the bag and has to be throughout a storefront, but the bag is the start. Education is also ongoing because customers are on their own journey in our learning things from all sorts of people in the industry as a consumer and learning from Lucia's findings, I have to ask myself. What should we put on our bags to better point towards the farm?

lucia: 23:16

I really like that Jason is thinking about this, you know, kind of his role in the industry, like his role as an educator to say that. As a roaster, the things that you put on the bag are training your customers to know what is important. So that's a lot of responsibility. And again, if, if you choose something like Elevation Thinking that has importance and you're training customers this matters, and then they're being trained to only look for high elevation. To look for the highest elevation, to only seek the highest elevation, then you're leaving out a lot of coffees that are delicious and you know, shouldn't be punished because of. Their particular geography in the world. So I think that it seems like a small thing, but I do think that it matters. So when we're looking at these different, value additives, you know, these descriptors for where a coffee comes from, I think just asking yourself that question, like is there a way for this to be turned kind of against the thing that I'm trying to teach? I don't wanna be too prescriptive about, you know, having. Five descriptors or which ones are the most important? I mean, I have in the past and I've said that, you know, you should at least have the country, and I think it's important to have the name of the, the producer. That's not always known, whether it's a co-op, like something that signals. How this coffee was made, I think is helpful. And then everything else, oh, that's not true. I also want variety. I think variety is helpful to let consumers start to figure out what type of varieties they like. I think that's helpful, but it's not always necessary. I think the most important part. As a roaster is developing your own criteria, so out of the potential, you know, 15 different information bits that you can include. Not all of them are important. Not all of them are equally. Impactful. And I think that what's interesting is that for you as a roaster with your own experience to decide which ones are the most important, and then when people buy the coffee, they can trust your criteria. So I think that instead of having a standard across the board that everybody seeks to like calibrate to. I like having the roasters have their point of view. And if your point of view is, in my experience, elevation is really important and I as a buyer only seek to buy the highest elevation coffees, and that is my niche, that is my point of view. Then I think you should absolutely include it so that customers know to seek those coffees from you. So I don't think that there's a correct way. I think at this point it's more creative license and it's your. Your point of view, and again, I just like to buy coffees from people who have a particular point of view of kind of making it a little bit more accessible to the consumer and not alienating other producers. So I think that, you know, you can do both.

Nick: 26:12

What's the consensus on adding Flavor descriptors do or don't? We're so used to seeing them now we can't imagine otherwise, if you don't know anything about the producer, varietal, et cetera, it might help determine what you'll buy. Hence works like another marketing tool. But then at the end of the day, when you sip your coffee, do you care?

lucia: 26:30

So I think that flavored descriptors are the most important. I think that in order to get

Nick: 26:38

You do since when?

lucia: 26:41

What do you mean? Since

Nick: 26:41

when Never. You never, we never even talk about flavor descriptors when we talk about our coffee. We almost never give anyone flavor. We give them body, sweetness, acidity. We don't give them anything else.

lucia: 26:53

Yes. We don't as producers,

Nick: 26:56

but to look at something, I don't really care either. I, I look at like, I know the variety. I know the region and I know if it's a washed or not. That's what we seek. We don't look for. Raspberry.

lucia: 27:07

No. And I, and I'm not talking about me as a consumer, I'm saying I think that flavored descriptors are the most important thing for a consumer to buy a coffee. I think giving them, and I,'cause there's so many choices giving. A consumer, an idea of, is this going to be a funky, fruity coffee? Is this going to be really chocolate heavy? Is this going to be, you know, really bright and acidic? I think that's the most important thing because you're buying a coffee for your morning. You're buying, especially if you're buying a bag of coffee, you're gonna have, I don't know, 12, 15 cups of that coffee. So you're like making a commitment. To say, I'm gonna have this coffee for the next 15 mornings, I wanna know what I'm getting into. So like I think that's part of a contract and I think that's the most important thing in general for consumers to know for me as a consumer.'cause I'm not the typical consumer because the percentage of consumers that also process coffee is small. I'm talking about consumers that don't process coffee and are just like buying coffee. But yeah, Nick, you're right for me. Descriptors are the last thing I, Lucia Soles personally look for, because I'm interested in kind of amplifying our repertoire, amplifying like our experience of coffee. So I'll go for, you know, locations that we haven't tried before. Or maybe if I do know a region, I'm like, oh, great, there's an Ethiopia, I wanna have that. but yes, I don't look at descriptors, but it's like a do as I say, not as I do type of situation. What? You don't agree?

Nick: 28:39

No, I don't entirely agree with you. I think this idea that flavor descriptors are very important is kind of misguided because they all seem to stem from American culture. Like we're gonna list a lot of things on the bag that a lot of other cultures, like in Latin America or Asia won't understand what, for example, smoker's, jam tastes like. I think the more important component would be talking about. general characteristics, like if we just said red fruits or yellow fruits or chocolates, I think everyone can kind of relate to these generalized flavors and then maybe put more emphasis on the body and the acidity and the sweetness characteristics instead of specific flavors.

lucia: 29:21

No, you're totally right and I think that there's a level of specificity that is. Kind of absurd in terms of flavor descriptors, something that is so, so specific and so obscure as to not be helpful. but I think that yes, descriptors can be problematic, but I'm talking at the level of Jasons, I'm talking at the level of a particular roaster that has bought a coffee and they are selling their coffee to their market. So if you are a roaster in Florida, or if you're a roaster in Kansas and you have your audience and let's say 78% of your coffee is sold in store or kind of in state, then I think that it's helpful to have your very specific descriptors. If you have a specific candy bar or something that is for your audience, and they know that, and you're right, somebody from. Indonesia is not gonna know what Smucker's Jam tastes like, but that's also not who the coffee's necessarily being sold to. So I think that there's a usefulness in descriptors for the purpose of selling a bag to somebody and for them to like, it's like a contract. It's like I'm selling you this bag'cause I think this is what it tastes like and you are going to buy it and have 15 cups of coffee and maybe you like it enough and you're gonna come and have more. And then that's. I think the difference is you're talking about like the value of descriptors in purchasing coffee in the first place. For some, for a green buyer to come visit and put some value on the coffee based on their personal descriptors and say, if it tastes like this, I value it more. Or if it tastes like something else, like then I value it less. And I think that. That like in both cases, descriptors are being used, but for very different purposes. So for Jason's question, it's what do I as a roaster put on my bag for my customers? And I think that that is more important, for somebody to pick up a bag who doesn't know anything about coffee and say, I know what I'm in for versus coming up. And having a bag of coffee and it says Guatemala. And if you're newer to specialty coffee, I think that's intimidating because you're like, what does Guatemala taste like? Do I like Guatemala? I don't know. Like you already have to be several layers ahead to say, oh, I know I like coffees. Like we do, like we know we like coffees from Ethiopia. and even that's too broad. We have to say like, okay, we like ache or whatever. So I think that as someone walking into a shop, you wanna be as friendly and accessible as possible. So telling them something tastes like grapes is way more helpful than saying, this is from this particular co-op in Ecuador. Like, that doesn't give most people a sense of, what am I in for? Why should I give you my$20? That's why I'm okay. With just having Flavor descriptors as a contract for you, as a roaster to your audience? Me, me, myself, as a consumer. I like to see where the coffee was purchased from because I like to know those things, but I don't know that, we may be alienating more people than actually bringing them in.

Nick: 32:37

So this next question is from Alex, a roaster in the uk. I had a really interesting customer email come in a while back regarding someone whose sister intensely disliked the flavors of natural processed coffees, but also washed coffees with longer in cherry fermentation and even some black honeys. I asked if his sister also disliked kombucha, lambic, and sour beers, thinking perhaps similar metabolic pathways and flavor compounds, only to find out that these are some of her favorite styles. The interesting thing that was mentioned was an intense dislike of carbonic Macerated, gamey wines, and of Brett Barnyard flavors. My hunch was perhaps the compound she was sensitive to in coffee was related less to microbial fermentation, but perhaps more towards enzymatic fermentation. But I couldn't be certain I wasn't making that up or further still know what the culprits may be. I think this question was one particularly suited to your expertise, wine and coffee, and promised I would pass it on. Is there a common factor between all of these?

lucia: 33:34

Hey Alex. well, I think, I think you're asking me to be a little bit of a mind reader on this one because I think I. One of the things, if you remember from the last episode in episode 69, is how the same compound, depending on your genetics, can just read differently. So for some people it's a passion fruit flavor, and for other people it ta that smells or tastes like animal urine. So there's a lot of compounds like that that kind of have this duality. So it could be something like that. It, it's not necessarily that there's something in the fermentation that's creating a flavor. That she's recognizing in this way. It could just be the same flavors that everybody else recognizes in one way is translated differently in her. You know, in her experience. So I think we can't rule out, you know, that genetic component, I think, makes me think of the people that think cilantro tastes like soap, right? They're not tasting something additional. It's just a different interpretation of what everybody else is tasting. and I, and the other thing I think that it could be is context, because I also like kombucha and lambic and sour beers. I really like those compounds. And if I have a really. Bready wine. It's not my favorite. and I also don't like natural, you know, very naturally flavors, very cherry forward, coffees. But for me it's less about, you know, it's like I can't disentangle the flavor from the context because of my training and because of my perspective. For me, those taste like. Bad processing, like something was not done correctly versus being done on purpose. And my brain can't separate, this was done on purpose, therefore it's good and this is an error. So I think that, when I come back to the idea of kombucha, I really like. The flavor of kombucha in the context of a kombucha beverage, but that is high acetic acid. And if we have high acetic acid in my wine, I also don't like it. So. I'm trying to figure out how to like, bring all of these things together. the idea that it, it could be any one of these things and it could be a combination of these things, of having the genetic interpretation in a different way and then also having the context. You can like a certain flavor, but not like that. I'm also thinking about when they did those experiments where they put green food, coloring and milk and people just could not drink the milk and it, there was no flavor difference. It was just the context. Now it's green and now it makes me wanna throw up. I do wanna point out the. I think the language of trying to separate something, being a microbial fermentation and an enzymatic fermentation is a little bit confusing and a little bit of a muddled way to think about it. So I encourage you to think about fermentation as a metabolic activity of microbes and enzymes are not alive. You know, enzymes are catalysts in reactions, so they obviously contribute to flavor, but it's not. A metabolism, it's, you know, a reaction. So an enzymatic fermentation to me doesn't really make sense to put those things together. I would say, you know, flavors responsible from microbial fermentation or just fermentation that's implied. And then like enzymatic reactions or enzymatic processes, but not to combine those two words.

Nick: 36:57

And now we have our next question from Alejandro, a producer from Colombia. I have one follow-up question. After attending FTC. As you know, my bottleneck at the moment is drawing. I'm looking at redesigning my workflow and I'm thinking of alternatives on how I can hold coffee cherries before entering the de pulping stage. How can I hold it for two to three days without creating high damage to the cherry? For example, how long would they hold their quality by submerging them in water or have you tried in any other alternative? One idea on why to do this is to create some sort of buffer time before entering the flow. That way I could have a six day average for trying.

lucia: 37:34

One of the first things I wanna address with Alejandro's question is his point about holding the coffee cherry for two to three days without creating high damage. I think that's, those are his words, high damage. And I wanna challenge this because I talk to a lot of producers who are, once I start learning about the. Microbial process about, you know, rotting about the impacts of this stage. Unfortunately, I think it creates a lot of fear and that's the opposite of what I wanna do. You know, my method is minimalism and, and actually just kind of relaxing, kind of doing things. In a less stressful way.'cause coffee processing is stressful enough and I, I, I don't want the fermentation to be more stressful. So I don't think that you would cause high damage if you hold your cherry for two to three days. I want to break this idea that you're creating high damage. What you are doing, potentially is creating inconsistencies and. Those inconsistencies, you know, the severity of those inconsistencies really depends on a lot of factors. So it's not like you're ruining your cherry by holding it too long and. Not moving on with the process, but by holding them for a long time, they are starting their metabolic journey. They're starting their fermentation without you, and so you can't control it. So again, that can turn out amazing and that could turn out really well. It's just you won't be able to replicate it next time by doing the same things because you don't know exactly what happened. So the problem is a lack of control and consistency, not like damage, and things are ruined. so this method of holding cherries for a while is. I think very common in Columbia where there's small holder producers who are collecting cherries, small amounts of cherries, whatever they can in a day. And they will hold them for several days until they can pulp, because it's like batching. It's more efficient to have four days worth of cher to pulp instead of pulping four different times and having four different fermentations. And when you're a larger. Producer, that's what I recommend is to pull up as soon as possible so that you can control that fermentation. But when you are much smaller, it's really that advice doesn't make sense. It makes way more sense to hold your cherry and process once or twice a week. and I know some producers who hold their cherry for five days and only process one day a week to make their, workflow more efficient. This has implications again on reproducibility in cherries. So Alejandro is saying, well, how can I do both? How can I hold my cherry but then reduce my risk? And he mentions, you know, submerging in water. I like the method of submerging in water because then you're. Stabilizing your temperature, you're lowering your temperature, and anything that you can do to lower your temperature buys you more time so that you can control the fermentation. And this kind of goes back to the first question where it depends on how much water you have. If water is, if you have a spring and water is readily available, then I think that's a really great method. But again, not everybody has access to water. So whatever you can do to keep your cherries cooler, whether that's. Thinking about where you store them, whether that's giving them more open air. So for example, when cherries arrive at the farm, they're usually in sacks, in in bags like tied very tightly. And when you have cherries tied in bags, then those bags can create a lot more heat and accelerate the decomposition process. So my recommendation, if you can, is to get them out of the bags and into an open. Tank so that there's more airflow so that they aren't, in thin layers instead of really thick layers. Anything to bring that temperature down, and you'll know if you're accomplishing it by just having a thermometer that you can, check the temperature of your cherry, just stick a metal probe thermometer in your cherry mass and see if the interventions that you're taking are working. Does it help when you have them spread open and thin layers? Does it help when you have, if you have it in. a storage area that maybe is exposed to sun may be getting shade, so it might be easier, make more sense to invest in a tarp, to have things shaded so the sun isn't shining directly on them than to submerge everything in water if you don't have a lot of water or can you do both? Can you submerge them in water and add some shade so that you can lower that temperature and hold your cherries? another thing would be. Depending on, if you're doing three days, four days, maybe changing that water. So having water in there for the first 24 40 hours and then changing the water and getting fresh water in there so that you reduce that microbial load and further reduce, your uncontrolled fermentation. So it's not about one protocol that works for everybody, it's just how can you lower the temperature where you are with what you have? And some of those options are water submerged shade. Airflow, maybe you have access to refrigeration. I think those are off the top of my head, like the three main levers that you can pull to be able to hold your cherry for longer. And I think also, having a. paradigm shift. You know, it's not a bug, it's a feature. It's not bad that you have to hold your cherry. It's a way for you to build complexity. So thinking about it as this is part of your process because this is what makes sense to do, and there's a way that this is helping you have coffee that tastes like it could only come from your facility with your process. So also, this isn't something that we have to compensate for potentially. It's something that makes your coffee better, but the point is, can you control it and can you reproduce it?

Nick: 43:09

So thank you to everyone who submitted questions for this episode. We do collect these over a few months as we create other episodes. So if you would like your question to be answered in the future, you can join Patreon and submit a question there or through the discord.

lucia: 43:24

I will also say that you can submit questions, through the newsletter that I send out periodically. So there's a newsletter with every single episode. And I also like to do harvest updates, so that's another place where you can reply and send your question. And like Nick mentioned, and Patreon and Discord, if you have something that is much more time sensitive. they can't wait months and months. Then you can join our office hours on there and every other Friday we get together and have a live chat and we do workshopping different producers issues. We just talk about general topics in the industry. It's a really fun place to meet other coffee nerds and talk about. Things going on in the industry. So I hope to see you there. All of those links are in the show notes and then we'll be back with the next episode in More Adventures in Naturals. Thanks everybody. And remember, life's too short to drink Bad coffee.