India | Karnataka | Washed

INDIA KARNATAKA WASHED

• Origin: India
• Region: Karnataka, Chikmagalur, Aldur
• Altitude: 1200 MASL
• Farm: Kerehaklu (kay-ray-huck-loo)
• Farmer: Ajoy and Pranoy Thipaiah
• Variety: Selection 6
• Process: Sequentially fermented washed using a coffee blossom starter culture.

Listen here to the sounds of Kerehaklu whilst enjoying this coffee.

A typical Kerehaklu lot is processed as follows: 

• Freshly harvested cherry is floated the same day, it’s picked, then placed in open-air fermentation tanks from approximately 6:00pm to 9:00am the following morning.
• After this overnight fermentation in cherry, the coffee is pulped and transferred to lidded plastic barrels containing fresh water and a measured amount of the previously mentioned starter culture. The coffee is stirred every few hours to introduce oxygen and ensure a uniform fermentation. After 35–37 hours, it is mechanically washed and then moved to drying.
• Drying begins under heavy shade for the first two days, after which the coffee is transferred to a poly-house for continued drying.

One detail that makes this lot unique: it was produced using a starter culture that Pranoy developed from coffee blossoms.

To be clear, this is not a co-ferment in the sense that term has come to mean in coffee processing. Instead, Pranoy used coffee blossom to cultivate a starter culture – essentially capturing the native microbes present on the flowers, then used that culture to inoculate the fermentation.