Quote below from Don Schoenholt outlines the "original" monsooning process and reasons for same. These days monsooned coffees come from growing regions that first of all have monsoons, i.e. India and Indonesia, and second have sufficiently cheap and plentiful labour to exploit the conditions. You need a hot, humid climate and moisture-laden sea winds for proper monsooning. See
http://muddydogcoffee.wordpress.com/201...ar-coffee/ for the process.
The effect on the beans is to open up the cellular structure pre-roasting and to reduce or eliminate volatile acid components.
Quote Begins:
"OLD BROWN JAVA"
In the age of sail, the "estate" coffees (those farms owned by white
colonialists) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) were kept on
island not in closed warehouses but in go-downs, platforms with
thatched roofs and no sides on which the coffee was stored awaiting
shipment. The coffee weathered in the tropics waiting for the sailing
ship captains to arrive and bid for the the choicest lots. The ships,
at the mercy of the vagueries of wind and weather, did not keep
arrival and departure schedules as we understand them today.
The coffees of the islands were sold under the accepted name "Java"
regardless of the Island on which they were grown. Of these Sumatra
"Java" was the most prized in the generation in which we speak.
There were "Java" coffees even from places that grew no coffee.
"Singapore Javas" (named for the port-o-call where they were sold,
having been trans-shipped from a pacific origin island) was a
rfesource for "Javas". Singapore, at southern tip of the Malay
Peninsula, became a British Crown Colony after being colonized by the
East India Company in 1819. It was a convenient pick-up point saving
additional travel to the Dutch ports further on, and it lay along the
trade-route home to London.
Once on board a wooden bottom, the bags packed tight in the holds,
often with other odorous goods, were subject to the close unventilated
salt air, and oppressive heat down below. The coffee foamed and
sweated. Some molded, and decomposed.
Often on arrival at destination the ruined top layer of beans had to
be "skimmed" off and discarded revealing the old browns below.
Old Brown Java was a feature of the New York Trade in the 19th Century
when heavy smooth non-acidic coffees brought the highest premiums. As
in every generation there were those who tried to duplicate the item
without going to the trouble. The twentieth Century saw the rise of
the "bright" acidy washed profile coffees of east Africa and Central
America.
Things change. The advent of regular scheduled steam service between
Northern Europe, America and Asia picked goods up on a set schedule
instead of haphazardly when the ships arrived. Steam and later oil
brought Asian goods to destination faster. The canals at Panama and
Suez shortened time between origin and destination. The advent of
steel bottoms and in the last generation containers changed the way
goods traveled en route.
The rust fungus (Hemileia vastatrix) wiped out the arabica coffee in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In Dutch eat Indies (now
Indonesia) arabica coffee was first to replaced with rubber and later
with Robusta (only about 10% of Indonesian coffee is arabica today)
changed everything. World War Two cost the suspension of production.
The birth of the specialty coffee movement has seen new interest in
arabica coffee in Indonesia (where all new plantings are mandated to
be arabica).
The Americas were untouched by leaf rust which gave the Western
Hemisphere produce a decisive edge over its Asian rivals in addition
to its advantage as tastes changed toward a brighter cup, and
transportation costs were lower between the American producers New
York, San Francisco and New Orleans the largest North American import
centers for coffee in the era prior to World War II. The rust was
discovered in the Americas at Bahia Brazil about 37 years ago.
The espresso evolution is changing the blending and roasting habits of
North American roasters, by pointing up the depth, character, lack of
acidity and flavor complexity in the arabica coffees of Sumatra, and
Sulawesi and other Asian coffee regions and districts. It has not
brought back the old brown Javas of old, except as an exotic rarity.
Holland Coffee Group does bring in a very limited number of bags of
4-5 year aged "Old Brown Javas". Jack is also right, Indian Monsooned
Malabar (I speak of an arabica item) is as close as we get today to
the brown Javas of old.
-Donald Schoenholt
Quote Ends:
Alan
by ethiopie on Mon Sep 05, 2011 5:15 pm 
