Ok, here are the notes from my first roast and tasting:

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Roasting Info:

Bean: Haiti Dondon
Roaster: USRC Sample Roaster
Charge Mass: 400g
Charge Temp: 300F
Dry/Ramp/Development: 6/3:15/2:30
FC-start temp: 370F
Finish Temp: 394F
Overall Roast Time: 11:53
Moisture Loss: 14.5%

Profile Plot:



Cupping Notes:

Rest: 3 days
Brewer: v60
Grinder: Lido2, 1.0 turns
Water: 200mL at 200F
Coffee: 12g

Dry Fragrance: Tobacco, cloves, cedar

Wet Aroma: Cinnamon, tobacco, earthy, hint of slightly unripe banana.

Warm taste: Chocolate, tobacco, earthy. Plenty of body, and a lingering woody aftertaste. More roast notes than I would have expected based on the finish temperature and color. Few high notes at first, then some light citric/malic acidity started peaking through in the background.

Cool cup: Similar, still earthy, increasing malic acidity.

Overall Impression: This cups like a run-of-the-mill Indonesian coffee to me, with a bit of earthy funk, a woody/spicy aroma, and faint, generic acidity. There is some sweetness, but not much. I'm curious to see what darker roast levels would bring out of it, particularly as a component in an espresso blend. (I'll give it a try as an SO, but I'm not that optimistic.) I doubt it would become an everyday drinking coffee for me, but those who like the classic Indonesian profile might find it more agreeable.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to get more out of this coffee, I'd be very interested to hear them.

370 FC start is on the low side. Most start in the 380-390 range. Must not be an overly dense bean. You could try a faster drying drying phase. A light bean will dry faster and may take a bit harder heat. Shorten up the roast a little to see if that preserves any more acidity and lighter notes.

I'm sipping it again at the moment, from a Clever brew. It's still sweet and we'll bodied but the flavors in the finish are more separated and more mineral like. The acidity is more pronounced now, but it doesn't begin to compliment the cup until it cools a bit.

i was also playing with straight shots of the new geisha from SM that I roasted about 5 days ago, and when I was finished, I had only 10g of it left so I tossed in 9g of the Dondon and made something drinkable with less bright tannins.

Out of curiosity last night I made a cappuccino using only this bean and it made a simple comfort food drink. I didn't try it as a straight shot yet.

This coffee is a non-bitter expression of classic diner coffee. Nothing amazing, but broadly approachable. A SCAA person who saw this contacted me and is going to send me a sample of the new harvest in November that they're working on. They said it cupped at 88. If the country can slowly rebuild itself , hopefully they can improve their processing and compete with better, more affordable centrals.

For what it's worth, my thermocouples usually read between 370-375 for FC, across most bean types and regardless of whether I'm doing a slow or a fast start. But your basic suggestion of moving more quickly through drying is worth a shot; in general, I suspect that a faster roast would likely bring out more acidity. The question is, will it also strengthen the funky notes past the point where I can enjoy the coffee? I guess we shall see...

This bean definitely cracks at a low BT. I was seeing 1C at 375 on mine, and nearly all my roasts hit 1C at 385 on my thermocouple. I'm sure sub-optimal processing and storage,insect damage has likely resulted in less moisture.

[creative nickname] wrote:For what it's worth, my thermocouples usually read between 370-375 for FC, across most bean types and regardless of whether I'm doing a slow or a fast start. But your basic suggestion of moving more quickly through drying is worth a shot; in general, I suspect that a faster roast would likely bring out more acidity. The question is, will it also strengthen the funky notes past the point where I can enjoy the coffee? I guess we shall see...

Quicker ramp then a slow 3 min development after first crack to develop the sugars but keeping it well out of second. That would take a lot of temperature finessing to get a very low rate of rise but without stalling the roast. That may yield a more interesting cup. I did 2 roasts of a mediocre Honduran coffee one with a more traditional profile the other with a slightly quicker ramp to first but with a long 2.5, almost 3 minute stretch from end of first to drop at about about 10 degrees below second crack. Same drop temp as the faster roast with a shorter development. The second roast was better.

I'm flooded with coffee, both roasted and green waiting to be profiled. News travels fast as I have two different folks surprisingly out of the blue sending me Haitian samples to work thru, some promised to be much better processing/quality than the Dondon.

I spoke with one of my SCAA friends working with Haitian coffee and heard the passion folks like Martin Diedrich and Todd Carmichael apparently have for them. Martin particularly seems to advocate for a melange approach, which is what I'll try on my next roast (maybe tonight) and see what it reveals.

cannonfodder wrote:Quicker ramp then a slow 3 min development after first crack to develop the sugars but keeping it well out of second. That would take a lot of temperature finessing to get a very low rate of rise but without stalling the roast. That may yield a more interesting cup. I did 2 roasts of a mediocre Honduran coffee one with a more traditional profile the other with a slightly quicker ramp to first but with a long 2.5, almost 3 minute stretch from end of first to drop at about about 10 degrees below second crack. Same drop temp as the faster roast with a shorter development. The second roast was better.

I ended up doing a roast like this, and it turned out very well --- much better than my first attempt:

Roasting Info:

Bean: Haiti Dondon
Roaster: USRC Sample Roaster
Charge Mass: 400g
Charge Temp: 325F
Dry/Ramp/Development: 5/2:45/3:20
FC-start temp: 370F
Finish Temp: 405F
Overall Roast Time: 11:05
Moisture Loss: 15%

Profile Plot:



Cupping Notes:

Rest: 3 days
Brewer: v60
Grinder: Lido2, 1.0 turns
Water: 200mL at 198F
Coffee: 12g

Dry Fragrance: Cedar, raisins, cloves

Wet Aroma: Cedar, cinnamon, sour cherry.

Warm taste: Pleasing spice notes of black pepper and cinnamon. Minimal bitterness, faint malic acidity. Coating, whole-milk body, with a smooth, lingering aftertaste.

Cool cup: Increasingly malic, with a bit of dark chocolate bitterness emerging as well.

Overall Impression: This was closer to the roasting approach I would use for a run-of-the-mill wet-hulled Indo, and it gave a much better result. This was a great drinking coffee---"higher end diner coffee," as Tom suggested. With its body and spice notes, it would stand up very well to an omelet in the morning or a chocolatey dessert after dinner. It's not the sort of thing I would brew to enjoy by itself very often, but I bet my wife will love it as a everyday breakfast coffee.

I'm definitely excited to hear more about some of these emerging, specialty-grade Haitian offerings, so I hope Tom will keep us in the loop as he does those tastings.