Surprise package...

One of the folks on the Roast.World forum is located in India. He and 2 friends have joined forces to develop a coffee growing region in (wait for it...) Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. Here's their web site:

Back in perhaps February was their first harvest. And it was seriously hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the really high areas they had high hopes for couldn't be harvested. 

On top of that the areas that they were able to harvest weren't processed as planned as new equipment they had ordered was never delivered. So they did processing by hand in small batches and were forced to use a mortar and pestle to remove the parchment... an all-hand operation.

I asked about buying a sample of Darjeeling Altura's first harvest but Vikash said "I wouldn't even know how to ship a commercial order out of the country right now". Instead he offered a $0 sample which arrived right about the time I had to repair the roaster.

After much fussing around I finally got up the courage to risk the precious sample and... you guessed it: I screwed up the roast. The beans have a very high amount of moisture relative to what I've been seeing and are very different from anything I've roasted before. I'm accustomed to the bean temp rising as I approach 1C but these beans defy any convention I'm aware of: the bean temp started dropping. I turned up the power but the down-rate was so steep the effect of more power was negligible till I got to the end of 1C. Very disappointing considering I had anticipated the move but didn't add extra power early enough to be effective...


So I abandoned the Recipe for the second roast and used the just-completed roast as an Overlay (background image) so I could be sure to avoid the power issue... and got essentially the same thing!

I concluded it was just something that is characteristic of these beans and I either have to get over it or change the way I want to roast.

I waited 4 days for the roasts to rest and this morning was the big day. And indeed it was a big day. These beans are fantastic. My befuddled roast managed to give us a great cup of coffee! Good body, (kinda) buttery mouth feel with a nutty flavor, and I think I picked out some chocolate flavors. C says she thinks there was a floral scent to the cup though that was lost on me.

So if you find your way to this blog, Vikash... thank you for some of the best coffee we've had in a long time!!

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