For many folks, the term “natural coffee” immediately conjures images of ripe berries, jams, and fruit gummy candy. We have always been a fan of berry-forward coffees, and so naturally--pun intended--we always selected fruity Ethiopian coffees to go into the “natural spot” on our menu. But over time, we realized we were limiting ourselves by only selecting Ethiopia naturals. There’s such a wide spectrum of fruit flavors to explore in natural processed coffees from around the world! Back in May, we selected the first non-Ethiopian coffee to go into the natural spot on our menu: Indonesia Natural Bali Kintamani. (This was also the first time we represented Indonesia on our menu.)
The Indonesia Natural Bali Kintamani was warmly received by our staff and customers. It was selling so quickly that we had to double our purchase of green coffee to make sure that we could offer it on our menu a little longer! We’re sad to see it go, but we’re excited to continue our exploration into other flavors in natural coffee and welcome the Burundi Natural Buzira Muruta.
Young coffee trees growing next to the Buzira Washing Station. It can take up to 5 years before a tree can produce a maximum amount of fruit. Photo by Royal Coffee
This coffee comes from smallholder farmers that are a part of the Buzira Washing Station in Muruta, Kayanza province of Burundi. Ripe cherries are picked, hand sorted, spread across raised beds, and are left to dry for several days. This meticulous work results in a very distinct cup of coffee. We were blown away when it came across the cupping table and we knew that we had to get it!
As a part of our R&D process, we make several sample roasts in an attempt to discover flavors and determine a roasting approach that will best enhance the most prominent flavors. Across all sample roasts, we found a complex, winey flavor that we couldn’t quite put our finger on. We want to make sure that we use the most accurate flavor descriptors, and so we took the extra step and tasted a few wines alongside our samples before setting our final notes of white cherry, pinot noir, and pear syrup. We’re so excited to share this coffee with you, and hope you love it as much as we do!
Sometimes, it can be a challenge to accurately identify what we taste in coffee, so we take extra steps to calibrate. On this day, we sampled pinot grigio and pinot noir alongside our preferred sample roast to figure out what “winey” flavor we were tasting!
Click on the link to get your bag of Burundi Natural Buzira Muruta!