ONYX - Honduras Edgardo Reyes

Edgardo Reyes, a coffee producer with a long family history in the industry, delivers exceptional coffee each season, featuring pronounced clarity and acidity reminiscent of East African coffees. We have partnered with Edgardo since 2019, we have been consistently impressed by his dynamic and delicious deliveries. This season, we have initiated a pilot program with agronomist support to evaluate and improve the soil conditions on his farm, aiming to stabilize production costs and enhance quality beyond existing quality-based incentives.

Benjamin Paz is a coffee producer, roaster, and exporter in Santa Barbara, Honduras. Outside of running his own successful coffee farm (He placed 1st in the Honduras Cup of Excellence this year) and roasting program, he is also the liaison for the greater Santa Barbara region through his mill and exporting company San Vicente. Benjamin manages hundreds of relationships with the producer group in Santa Barbara, connecting each with a roasting partner who can grow with each coffee producer they’re partnered with. A true legend of the industry, Benjamin does it all with a smile on his face and a deep love for coffee and the people that grow it.

Through Ben and San Vicente, we’ve established a sourcing program over the years with almost a dozen coffee producers in the area. Each season we visit with the people in the region, sharing meals and talking about the harvest and special projects.

Each season, the coffee deliveries from Edgardo Reyes are exemplary, with pronounced cup clarity and acidity that is more reminiscent of coffees from East Africa. Edgardo grows pacas and bourbon on a 1.25 hectare farm, producing only 30 quintales of coffee. His history of coffee production is long, after his brother won Cup of Excellence in 2008, spurring the rest of his family to pursue coffee production. We began partnering with Edgardo in 2019, when his coffees blew us away on the table during a cupping. Each season we look forward to his dynamic and delicious deliveries. This season, we have endeavored to partner with Edgardo to evaluate the soil needs of his farm, hoping to utilize the agronomist support of San Vicente to better understand the soil needs of the farm after many harvests. This pilot program may better serve to stabilize the cost of production when things are tight, and to act as a premium outside of any quality-based incentives.

WASHED PROCESSED COFFEES
The washed process began less so with the intention of influencing flavor, and more so with the intent of creating an easy-to-dry ubiquitous product that will reduce risk. This process has maintained popularity for its influence on the final cup- coffees processed as ‘washed’ are typically more in line with what consumers expect coffee to taste like. Washed process coffees are celebrated for their high perceived clarity, as well as for a balance in fruit characteristics and acidity, but it is not always that simple. The process of removing the outer layer of fruit once a coffee cherry is, and has been, fairly simple. The post-harvest processing begins the moment the coffee cherries are picked. The cherries are usually inspected, with an initial quick round of hand-sorting, separating the defective coffees before placing them into the hopper of the machine. There are various methods used to remove the outer layer of mucilage from the cherries, the most common machines utilize friction to remove the thin layer of fruit skin from the cherry, followed by a formal fermentation phase meant to break down the sticky fruit layer. During this fermentation, a microbial de-mucilagation takes place, which allows the outer fruit and pectin layer to break down, making the coffee easier to dry. This fermentation process has a wild amount of variability depending on the facility, preferences of the producer, and cultural practice. Additions of water as lubrication through the machine are made most of the time, with an optional underwater fermentation. (Some forgo this, choosing to ferment dry.) Typical times for this post-depulp fermentation are 12-36 hours. This phase also crucially alters the organic acids within the coffee, as sugars and organic acids are transformed, with the best-washed coffees maintaining their complex fruit esters. Once the formal fermentation time is complete, the parchment-sheathed seeds are emptied into some type of washing channel, where they are agitated with rakes or paddles to remove the last of the fruit layer. During this step, the water is refreshed to ensure its capability of separating the fruit layer from the seed. Once the washing is complete, the coffee is taken to some type of drying facility to prepare it for exportation and storage.

While the terms we use to describe specialty coffee processing have stayed static, the methods used for post-harvest processing have adapted to not only now solve the problem of removing the outer sticky layer of fruit from the seed, but many producers now see this as an opportunity to influence the final taste profile of the cup. Seeing this final cup as malleable has led producers to use post-harvest processing to influence flavor through the control of variables. Outside of the well-known variable of the level of fruit left in contact with the seed over the drying, there are now a whole host of data points to monitor, even within the ubiquitous description of ‘washed processed.’ There are levels of fermentation, as we assume the level of fruit left on within this washed description is fixed. (at or near zero, after depulp, which we will discuss later.) The variables adjusted to add value while transforming the final cup are as follows: time, environment, and additives. Environment and time are closely tied, as certain fermentations will have a greater effect as the temperature increases in the given environments. Some producers have now taken on a less-than-passive approach when it comes to the environment, choosing to allow oxidation to take place, or by restricting the contact of oxygen to the seeds. (What we in the industry incorrectly call “anaerobic fermentation.) This variability in the environment is also sometimes coupled with an addition of yeast, fruit, spices, or even organic acids as inoculants or catalysts for reactions. As the world of post-harvest processing continues to shift and innovate, we strive to better understand and articulate the way the final cup has been shaped with better descriptors for the process.