Boldjava wrote:Experience tells me to wait 7 days on a Yemeni (rarely happens due to inner Impatient Child). A friend said this coffee sang best for him at 20 days. Will never happen in my house.

Copy that. I'll give it at least a week. Can't imagine I'll make it to twenty days, but I'll summon strength to try.

The fresh AA+ had an astringency at 7 days that disappeared 10-11 days post roast. This is a one roast sample size for data. Even at a week it had the berries, chocolate and spice and it is big bodied coffee. When the astringency fades everything else shines. I finished the bag at 14-15 days and it was really good. I'm trying to be patient with the second roast. Tomorrow is day 10 and it will be sampled in the morning.

Awesome. Let me know how the sampling goes!

Boldjava wrote:Experience tells me to wait 7 days on a Yemeni (rarely happens due to inner Impatient Child). A friend said this coffee sang best for him at 20 days. Will never happen in my house.

My very first try at roasting with my FreshRoast SR540 was a Yemen Mocca Ismaili - I was stunned at the results. Sometime later I was going through what greens I had and noticed a bag with a small amount of the roasted Ismaili. The date on the bag indicated it was 17 days past roast but the flavors were just as stunning, only with the volume knob turned up high.

I've noticed this with almost all of the Yemens I've roasted - days 7-10 are really nice but after day 10 things really start to evolve. Is this something unique to Yemen coffee beans and is there an explainable reason why?

downy_ball wrote:I've noticed this with almost all of the Yemens I've roasted - days 7-10 are really nice but after day 10 things really start to evolve. Is this something unique to Yemen coffee beans and is there an explainable reason why?

Unique to Yemenis? In my experience, yes. Explicable? Just a WAG on my part would be varieties coupled possibly with extreme elevation on some of them.

You look at the varieties grown and they are obscure. Ancient seed crop that no one grows out in the rest of the world; unique.

I have the Royal, the current, and the previous Roastmaster Yemeni offerings. For me, it takes nearly 2 weeks for the Royal to fully open up. I started a cold brew last night with some last night, we'll see how that turns out. The A+ from Roastmasters is better out of the chute, more fruit, the first roast batch was gone within a week due to lack of patience on my part. I wanted to order more but they were sold out, so I ordered the A++, yet to roast it.

I sampled a 10 day post-roast Haraaz Fresh AA+ bag by pulling two shots. It was disappointing as the astringent taste overshadowed the good body and fruits. It was not crisp and layered as it should have been.

17.5 gm - 202* - 32-33 gm liquid.

I pulled the first shot without profiling as I always did. The above description is what I tasted. The second shot I used a slayer profile at 2 bar or less until the first drops at 16 seconds when I tried up the flow to get 6-7 bar. This one did tame the first sip and sweeten the overall flavors, however, not without the tannic- astringent element.

I'm not going to try this again for at least 2-3 days. I though I think a coarser grind and adjusting flow to the same timing might help.

My Al Qafr roast will sit for a bit before I open it.

Zaneemomo wrote:I have the Royal, the current, and the previous Roastmaster Yemeni offerings. For me, it takes nearly 2 weeks for the Royal to fully open up. I started a cold brew last night with some last night, we'll see how that turns out. The A+ from Roastmasters is better out of the chute, more fruit, the first roast batch was gone within a week due to lack of patience on my part. I wanted to order more but they were sold out, so I ordered the A++, yet to roast it.

I'm experiencing the same thing with RC Crown Jewel "Yemen Hawari Al Qafr Rooftop Dried Natural Rooftop". I just brew w/ Vacuum Pots anymore (I don't pull espresso shots anymore). Today I brewed the Yemen that is ~12 days old and it outshines the SM Dry Yirg that I roasted at the same time. That was just the opposite from day 4 until now where the Yirg was much more interesting. Is this reasonable? Until I reread this thread I thought it was just me.

Well in any event I'm going to roast the RC Yemeni and the Roastmaster Yemen Haraaz Special Red Grade A+ tomorrow for the first time. I''ll let the RC Yemeni go untouched for ~12 days and and try the Red A+ at 4 days and again at 12 to see.

Thanks for sharing.

-Tom

I've never roasted a Yemeni bean that got into it's prime period in less then 7-8 days, sometimes longer.

This is as good of an explanation as any

Boldjava wrote:...look at the varieties grown and they are obscure. Ancient seed crop that no one grows out in the rest of the world; unique.