We first tasted this sample from an unlikely source: a sample dropped by our booth at a trade show. While this is a great way to hand over material, it's unlikely to yeild great results for the buyer or the seller. Given this paradigm, we focus on cupping and evaluating each sample we receive, and in this case, it yielded a great new relationship with our friends at Bright Java. Read more on this coffee below.

Parikesit is our name for a project we started in 2021 with the Daya Sindoro farmer group on the slopes of Mount Sumbing and Mount Sindoro in Central Java. In addition to the standard processing of full washed and wet-hulled coffee, we wanted to improve the cup quality overall in a honey process. Since the cooperative was amenable to producing a competition-grade lot for this year we started this experiment of anaerobic fermentation using a single yeast variety.

When we cupped the base honey this mixed varietal came from we thought that with a controlled fermentation we could improve sweetness and acidity. Our hypothesis was that the natural yeast and bacteria endemic to the fermentation process were not providing the right flavour notes to make this a stand out coffee.

The results of this trial proved a success. With access to a natural mountain spring for rinsing cherries as they arrive at the cooperative every afternoon during harvest, the Daya Sindoro team removed much of the natural yeast and bacteria during the floating step. This left a perfect media for inoculation with a commercial yeast strain commonly used to brew ales.

So we took a basic coffee, worked with a farmer group eager to learn new post-harvest practices and made what we think is a coffee that has to go on an offer list to anyone wanting to know what yeast fermentation or anaerobic fermentation is all about.

ANAEROBIC FERMENTATION
There are few leaps in the technique of processing coffee larger than the most recent trend of Anaerobic processing. This is oftentimes a technique of natural processing coffee, where whole cherries are fermented in a limited oxygen environment. The word Anaerobic is a catch-all term used more often than not to refer to a limited oxygen environment. Coffee cherries are subject to a pre-fermentation before they are moved to a drying bed or patio. The extended fermentation often adds a winey or fruity note to the coffee. Throughout the world we’ve seen this practiced in many ways, from adding cherries into a clean grainpro and tying the top for the night, all the way to stainless tanks with an airlock on the top to slowly let out carbon dioxide caused by the microbes at work. There are many people who are working to understand and better control this process to gain clarity on what is really going on with limited oxygen fermentation. This Mexico lot processed by Marco Cadena was fermented in sealed tanks, producing that winey and candy-like fermented fruit sweetness that anaerobic coffees are known for.