A look at Finca Monteblanco
From Into the co-ferment kingdom: a trip to Finca Monteblanco
My personal goal was to demystify the world of funky coffees colloquially deemed āillegalā due to various competition policies. There remains plenty of hesitation in specialty coffee communities to accept these coffees. Fingers are pointed at the overarching perception that mysterious, secretive, and shady practices means that we canāt trust them. Itās critiqued as lipstick on a pig, that itās a technique used to cover up bad farming techniques. And then thereās the flavor thing. Labeled as cheap tricks, fakery, deception; the material that goes in isnāt necessarily the flavor that comes out. But from the puristās priorities of appreciating terroir, farming practices, and allowing the flavor of the bean to speak for itself, the additive processing crosses the line for many in terms of being āauthenticā flavors.
As big a deal as coferments are made out to be, you can tell by how small a fraction of this post is about them that thereās more to it than just the funny fruit processing. Coffee still needs be planted and harvested with care, to be processed as washed or natural, and to be milled; green coffee, clean washed or cofermented, gets purchased and sold in the same way. Seeing the secrets behind the soup was as exciting as Iād hoped itād be, but also, logically sound and demystified; it feels no more mysterious than any other modern technique like dark room or carbonic maceration that requires infrastructure, equipment, and experimental trials to dial in. Perhaps thatās how it was meant to be - as arcane as your imagination wanted, fueled by moral opposition and controversy, but ultimately, exactly what it says on the bag.
The pictures make the post worth reading alone but also hopefully this does de-stigmatize coferments, even if by a little. I do have to say personally I've enjoyed them, although maybe some coferments are a bit too strong.