I first heard of USDA 762 from the newly formed Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia in 2007 or 2008. On their website they discussed coffee varieties being grown in Indonesia and had a section discussing Ethiopian lines.

Mentioned are 3 varieties: Abbysinia, Rambung and USDA. The former two I Read the rest of this entry »

On the Island of Maui a unique cultivar called Mokka is commercially cultivated. I first heard of it perhaps a decade ago and over the years I have heard things like it is a varietal brought from Yemen or Ethiopia; always an air of mystique around its origins. While it’s Read the rest of this entry »

Jamaica has long grown coffee, at one time, for a short while, it was one of the world’s largest producers of the crop. Much of the coffee comes from Jamaica’s famed Blue Mountains. Despite its reputation for quality I, like many coffee professionals, cannot remember a time in which it Read the rest of this entry »

Like many people in coffee, the Geisha cultivar in Panama fascinates me. I’ve done as much research into its history, as well as other Ethiopian cultivars, as anyone. While I have a lot to say on it here I want to focus on some aspects of its history that were Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve spent the last week with Graciano Cruz in El Salvador, cupping lots of coffees, many of which are honey coffees he is working on. Honeys are a style recently being experimented with quite a lot in Central America, also called pulped natural and pulped sundried coffees elsewhere. In traditional Read the rest of this entry »

In most places around the world coffee is harvested by hands. Quite often in marketing for coffee from various regions and farms they extol the virtues of selective hand harvesting. Everyone claims to only pick ripe red cherry. But how ripe? And how evenly ripe? The reality is most coffee Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time not so long ago most of the coffee planted in the world was from one varietal, Coffea Arabica Var. typica or typical coffee. 100-150 years ago it didn’t mater where in the world your coffee came from Sumatra, India, The Americas the trees were essentially of Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a well known fact that roasted coffee has a limited shelf life before it begins losing its flavors. But what about green (un-roasted) coffees? They too don’t last forever. 100 years ago it would have been said that most coffees need a year or 2 of age before they Read the rest of this entry »