Yemen? What's that?

What do you think about the fact that Yemen is featured by both Lighthouse and Blue Bottle? Hasn't that been a non-contender for a while?

This got me thinking about coffees from Yemen. I've literally only had one conversation about the coffees of Yemen that I can even remember....and it wasn't that favorable. I've read a decent amount about it and I know Ukers book speaks well of it. The major draw back (and don't read to much into this...I like Natural coffees) is that it is naturally processed...and a risky coffee that comes at a high price. The choice to carry it may lie more in the personality of the roaster than in anything else. Maybe this season's crop is really great...it seems that Blue Bottle kind of infers that the last few years hasn't been as good as what they have found in the current offering. Lighthouse, on the other hand, has always carried it. I'm pretty sure he carries a standard set of origins and rarely differs in his selection.

I wouldn't classify Yemen as a non-contender...more of a coffee that can be so weird that many just don't spend the time to get to know it. It can be a wildly fruity and savory coffee, some say meaty...an odd characteristic for a coffee, one that could turn alot of people off...especially in the pop-fad light, sweet and clean coffees we are appreciating (and talking about) so much. I wish I could talk about Yemen with some personal experience, but aside from cupping maybe two samples in the past 6 years (one that I roasted way too dark on a little 5# roaster) my last drinking was Starbucks Sanani....circa 1998. It would be very interesting to taste a Yemen at a light roast. Probably overwhelming and definitely unlike any other tasting...but maybe most put a little darker (full city) profile on it to tame it.

The other side of this that really intrigues me is that arguably Yemen is a true example of how coffee was designed to taste. This is where coffee naturally occurred and the dry processing of the coffee is how it was prepped since before history. This coffee is barely even cultivated...it grows wild and is picked and processed on small patios much like, if not exactly like it was more than a thousand years previous. Maybe it is just me, but I'm drawn to understand how something tasted before we (humans) got to thinking too much about it. This isn't to say that technology and understanding hasn't made coffees better, it has. But there is something nostalgic about tasting something in its most purist and unaltered form...before taking it to the other side of the world, or hybridizing, or processing with water...coffee is it was first experienced.

So maybe Yemen is showing up on the menus of roasters that feel nostalgic about coffee and want to experience something a bit more unadulterated. I can appreciate this...too much human involvement and we typically mess it all up in the end.

Join me in the debate that naturals are the 'true specialty coffee'!

(ok...that last line was a joke!)

Guatemala

My appreciation for the coffees of Guatemala has grown immensely over the past 4 years. I have had the luxury of cupping some amazing coffees...mostly from Huehuetenango and Antigua. I'm inspired to do a cupping spree of Guats...and I recently have purchased a couple of Guats from two different area roasters. I'm not going to 'score' these coffees, but would like to publish cupping notes. And hopefully others will try them as well and share their thoughts. I think Guatemala is an extremely important origin on a roasters menu, not just because it's usually a prime component of their espresso blend, but because it is usually a good representative coffee for a roasters profile, their quality/philosophy in sourcing and a good overall 'control' coffee.

My perspective on tasting has shifted a bit in the past 6 months since not working for a roaster. I have almost exclusively been employed by a roaster over the past 15 years. I have found that this has limited(via my own laziness) my tasting of available origins... I'm not necessarily looking at that as a bad thing, but now that I make a pretty willful choice about who sourced & roasted (hopefully the same person) my coffee I'm excited by the myriad of options I actually have. I intend on ordering some coffees from Europe as well, and I have been told that transport can affect quality...I'll bear that in mind, but I'd like to get a taste for what the world has to offer as they translate what is being produced by Guatemalan coffee farmers on small estates and cooperatives.

Here is what I would like to taste (if I can get it mailed to me!) in no particular order:

Verve, Blue Bottle, Counter Culture, Lighthouse, Anodyne, Brown, La Boheme, Square Mile, Ancora, Terroir, Kickapoo, Metropolis, Stumptown, Herkimer, Peace...