Royal Coffee Crown Jewel green offerings

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
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keno
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#1: Post by keno »

I've seen only one mention of Royal Coffee's Crown Jewel line of greens, so thought I'd pass along this info for others that may be interested.

Royal is a large green importer with warehouses in Oakland, Seattle, Madison, and Houston. Recently they began offering 10 kg (22 lb) bags of unique coffees to smaller roasters and home roasters, who may not want to buy a full 60 kg bag. I'd never tried Royal before but decided to give them a shot. Here are the Crown Jewel offerings: http://www.royalcoffee.com/offerings/crown-jewel/

Two things in particular caught my interest. First was a fundraising special they were doing for the ACLU. They were offering Yemen Mocca Haywa al Roowad greens and offering to donate the entire purchase price to the ACLU to support their work to fight the travel ban which included Yemen, a small impoverished Muslim country in the Middle East that is also arguably the birthplace of coffee (along with Ethiopia). I recently gave to the ACLU and liked the idea that I could support them again and get some good coffee in the process. While this coffee was quite expensive at $13 per pound it supported a good cause. https://www.royalcoffee.com/25000-for-the-aclu/

Second, I like the very thorough information that Royal provides about each of their Crown Jewels. They have info on the website which includes a PDF describing the coffee, a green analysis, roast analysis with roast profile curves, and a brew analysis. This has the potential to be very helpful to home roasters who deal with smaller quantities of coffee where you don't have the luxury of doing a lot of roasts to figure out a profile. Here is the info for the coffee I purchased: https://royalcoffee.com/wp-content/uplo ... ainPro.pdf The description of the greens is spot on, so hopefully the rest of the info and guidance will prove to be as good.

The coffee was shipped in a sealed heavy plastic bag and then boxed as shown in the picture below.



This particular Yemen has very low moisture content - only 8.6%! So one thing I'd be interested in are any recommendations for roasting such a low moisture coffee. My first attempt was a 9:30 roast to 420F, what I would consider a medium roast. However, the total moisture loss post roast was only about 11%. Have not had a chance to taste it yet but I ground some and the dry fragrance sure is nice. Stay tuned.

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TomC
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#2: Post by TomC »

Compared to other origins, that isn't as drastically low as one would find in a Yemen coffee. They are historically lower in moisture content, fresh off the boat. The challenge then becomes getting all the moisture driven reactions to occur without baking the roast. In a case like this, I would expect a slightly truncated "drying/yellowing" phase, followed by a purposeful more intense/fast ramp to first crack. Ideally what I'd do on my very first roasting session is to start out this way on two identical profiles, with the only difference being the length of the post first crack development, in order to assess how the coffee likes the extended roast. I personally would avoid a drawn out ramping phase. YMMV and your nose will guide you thru the proper changes better than one of us telling you exactly how to approach it.

I'd keep my airflow at a lower than normal setting and not futz with it as much during the roast.

Many if not most Yemens are dense, hard, and little. They're not going to be shy about the heat, so don't treat them like you would a low density natural Brazil. Also, (I'm sure you know almost all of this, but I'm sharing it for newer folks who may not) expect to see a protracted first crack phase, sound wise.

I'd start out with a temp only a bit higher than I would for a natural (soft) Brazil, but not as high as an SL-28 or high altitude washed central. Somewhere in that middle ground is a safe starting point.

It's usually trickier to note the end of the "drying/yellowing" phase on Yemeni coffee. Trust your nose as much as their color.

Have fun and share your profile and cupping/brewing findings. I had considered in the past setting up box splits of these great coffees from Royal. I count Jen Apodaca as a very good friend, in my close-by coffee community in the bay area. I could set up a coffee date with her when she's not busy and peek over her shoulders as she's profiling one of these on her beautiful Probatino, and come back and make a thread about it if foiks are interested. Jen is deeply committed to giving back and teaching. When she got into coffee, there were very little resources and those willing to help. They often held their cards real close to the chest. She's going to take a different route.

I too, roast many different samples for Mohktar Alekenshali (sp) and his spectacular range of high quality Yemens, from time to time. His work in the past 8 months has really gathered steam to bring these hard to reach jewels to our hands, with the unfortunate issue of the political state we're in, its very likely that he'll encounter a great deal of difficulty in getting into and out of Yemen, especially with coffee.

Your key thing to remember when profiling a Yemen for the first time (if it's dry) is to try to preserve as much as that precious moisture to be able to shape the roast flavors to come. A long, slow gentle drying phase will tend to spell disaster moving forward into the ramp to first crack when the mallard reactions and strekers degradations and production of acids will be attenuated almost certainly. If they do, the end of the roast where the dry distilates emerge you'll likely going to end up with a unmixed flavor profile that is lacking structure.

But thats why I highly suggest keeping the first profile and second profile on the same path up to first crack. Then and only then, make one differ by letting the first crack phase either extend a bit longer. not backing off the heat as quick as you normally do. And just see where that takes you on the nose only. You might be surprised.

Enjoy them both! You should take notes over a wide panel of days. Some Yemens really need 8-10 days of rest to really blossom and show you what they've got, but others that show intense dark red fruits and occasionally juiciness should be experienced within 24 hours of the roast. They may surprise you.

Report back!


*** And a comment in my first paragraph needs more explaining. Your shortening your drying/yellowing phase. because the greens have very little to give. But the downside to this is that they'll also be wildly different as they go int the end point at which you declare then "dry". This is a point that your nose will become more important than your eyes, because you're going to see a lot of variance in the bean color and texture at that point.
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TomC
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#3: Post by TomC »

I'll go ahead and start an interest check in the roasting forums if folks would like to give these special selections from Royal a try. I could head up a distro of a bag or two that we'd democratically choose, and box and ship them to willing US (for now) buyers.

I'll start a separate thread for that. Stay tuned.
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keno (original poster)
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#4: Post by keno (original poster) »

Tom, thanks for the roasting suggestions, very helpful! Going to be doing some more roasting this afternoon so I'll give some of these a try.