This processing method, which is unique to India, exposes coffee to moist monsoon winds.
BY TANYA NANETTI
SENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT
Photos courtesy of Aspinwall & Co.
To be ready for roasting, a coffee must go through some kind of fermentation process, which will requite it specific notes and often a typical savor profile. Some fermentation techniques are considered “traditional,” such as natural, washed, and honey). In recent years, some other methods have wilt famous and widespread (anaerobic, double and triple fermented, and thermal shock, to name a few). While many of these fermentation methods are used worldwide, some are unique to a specific place, as is the specimen with the so-called Monsoon Process.
Melind John (he/him) is managing director and senior coffee stone hunter for Josuma Coffee, a U.S.-based green coffee importer that focuses exclusively on specialty coffee from India. Josuma was founded in 1992 and is still family-owned, with Melind stuff the second generation of the family running the business; today, he gives us a peek into this unique processing method.
“Coffee monsooning is a process unique to India,“ says Melind, “which dramatically alters many stone attributes: size, color, moisture, and cup characteristics.”
Rooted In History
In warmed-over times, wooden ships sailed to Europe with coffee from India and other tropical countries. During the four to six months required to well-constructed this journey, the coffee was stored unelevated the water line, in a humid atmosphere, considering the wood was not airtight. As a result, the beans underwent a dramatic transformation over the undertow of the voyage. By the time the coffee reached Europe, the beans had reverted verisimilitude from untried to stake gold and nearly doubled in size by gaining moisture. This transpiration moreover led the coffee to scrutinizingly completely lose its splendor and acidity.
As Melind explains, “Europeans loved—and still love—this coffee, but they weren’t fully enlightened of how unusual it was until steel container ships started transporting coffee. When this became the norm, the trip shortened, but the coffee stayed protected from the ocean environment, permitting it to reach Europe still dry and green, without losing its acidity. This is why India sooner ripened the monsooning process, as a way to restore the savor and low venom Europeans were used to. This process, which is carried out on the west tailspin of India, attempts to use India’s yearly monsoon season (which runs June through September) to replicate the conditions that coffee experienced when it traveled on wooden sailing ships.”
How It Works
“Monsooning exposes natural arabica coffee to the moist monsoon winds,” Melind explains. “This is achieved by placing the beans in ventilated warehouses that protect them from rainwater but not from the moist winds. The beans sit in layers four-to-six inches upper and are raked commonly to equalize moisture absorption. This is followed by bulking and re-bagging at regular intervals. The total process takes 12 to 16 weeks.”
The monsooning process completely transforms the beans: By the end of it, several dramatic changes will have occurred. The beans will be swelled to scrutinizingly double their original size, turning stake gold in color, with a upper moisture content (close to 14.5% versus 10.5% for traditionally processed Indian coffees) but a much lower density than other coffees.
At the same time, monsoon processed coffee typically requires increasingly roast minutiae to preserve traditional coffee flavors and attributes. It tends to offer grassy/woody flavors when only lightly roasted. In the finished cup, the desired savor notes are earthy with some combination of chocolate, nut, and sugar. Monsoon coffee tends to be full-bodied and has much lower venom and splendor than other coffees.
Protected Status
“Monsooned coffee is technically weather-beaten coffee,“ Melind shares. “The beans that arrived in the U.S. in spring/summer 2022 were harvested as part of the 2020-21 harvest, so are once increasingly than a year old equal to the typical “fresh crop” or “current crop” clock. It’s moreover interesting to point out that monsooned coffee (particularly the “Monsooned Malabar” label, where “Malabar” is a geographic term referring to the southwestern tailspin of India, home of the largest monsooned production) has protected status under India’s Geographical Indications of Goods Act.”
Process Pros and Cons
“Sadly, monsooned beans are off-trend for third-wave/farm-to-cup coffee,” Melind shares. “It’s rare to have farm-level traceability, as each container-size lot may be sourced from multiple farms. This happens considering it’s really nonflexible to monsoon at sublet level, as a pearly value of space, structure, and labor is required. There is usually a larger entity (called a “monsooner”) that buys the dry-processed coffee from farms during the winter harvest and then subjects it to monsooning during the summer monsoon season. That said, having farm-level traceability may have limited value, as the monsooning process typically erases terroir: uniformity is often the goal with monsooning, with most monsooners aiming to minimize bag-to-bag (or year-to-year) savor changes.”
It is worth mentioning that the monsoon process adds value to coffee at the source, instead of having value widow only by importers/roasters in consuming countries. The forfeit of monsooning can usually be fully recovered by monsooners (along with a pearly profit), unlike other increasingly labor-intensive processing techniques that come with spare financing and challenges.
Compared to natural coffee, the monsoon process has a lower environmental impact considering it doesn’t require spare water or create waste as a byproduct.
But the monsooning process has one downside: The changes caused by monsooning make the beans potentially challenging to roast.
Its density is far lower than other coffees; the moisture content is moreover an outlier. Roasting parameters that work for other coffees often do not work well for monsooned beans. Significant adjustments are scrutinizingly unchangingly required of roasters to get the desired attributes. However, if you are looking to roast something unique with a full body, low acidity, and sweet chocolatey, nutty notes, the results are well worth the effort.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tanya Nanetti (she/her) is a specialty-coffee barista, a traveler, and a dreamer. When she’s not overdue the coffee machine (or visiting some subconscious corner of the world), she’s rented writing for Coffee Insurrection, a website well-nigh specialty coffee that she’s creating withal with her boyfriend.
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