Reflections on Processing in Specialty Coffee | Coffee with April

This week, we’re discussing some of the changes to coffee processing that we have observed during the last decade within specialty coffee.
It's no secret that we have been long time advocates of letting each variable shine in a respective coffee; varietal or cultivar, terroir and processing. In this video, we discuss the changes that we have observed during the latest few harvest seasons and provide an insight into why our opinions are as such.
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We welcome your thoughts and feelings on the topics raised in this week's video, as well as other ideas you would like to see us discuss in the future. We really appreciate your feedback and support.
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Produced by April Media - 2023

[@nutzerbezeichnung]

For anyone interested in arguments for the opposing view, check out the work of Lucia Solis. I think she makes very valid points about how romanticizing coffee processing and 'terroir' might be misguided. Coffee isn't even native to most growing regions and there is really no good argument for relying on randomly present micro-organisms over selected ones. Producers make a million choices that influence how the final coffee will taste, there's no reason adding something to the fermentation should be some kind of sacrilege. There is no doubt a lot to be achieved by improving processing methods but does it really make a difference, whether a producer controls temperature to foster certain micro organisms that are naturally present or if they add said micro organism and then control the temperature? Natural randomness is not a sign of some inherent value.

[@washedgeisha]

In the 60s Enzo Ferrari famously said: "Aerodynamics are for people who cannot build engines". However just one look at a modern racing car illustrates how crucial both of these aspects are in peak performance. Same with specialty coffee. The scene is young and innovation on all fronts will bring true leaps. Be it processing, farming practices or roasting. Pluralism of opinions is a tremendous force of progress.

[@chose43]

Very true, I think puristic opinion are crucial and have to be heard but should not be dominant

[@johnduggins]

The world of coffee is amazing with different preferences, from how different cultures make coffee to how different farmers raise their trees. You could have simply shared your preferences and shown how your roasters and shops were going to focus on these preferences. It would have been a good way to differentiate yourselves from other roasters. "We're focusing on farmers and highlighting nuances between them." That would have been a positive message and made April a place known for focusing on your coffee values. Instead, you chose to go the "one true way of coffee" route. You're alienating potential customers, like myself, who are both interested in different and experimental processing methods and highlighting farm differences. I don't know how things are in your city, but in Kansas City USA we celebrate differences in coffee preferences, roasting methods, processing methods, and the sharing of information. For example, we gather to chat about how a new coffee shop opened that accentuate a specific region with cultural creations. My words are unlikely to change anything with your business. If someone does step into this video and begins thinking the wide world of coffee is an elitist "one true way" club, I hope they take these words and reflect on them.

[@coffeewithapril]

It seems we have a very similar perspective. The reason for why we don't support adding "not natural (ingredients that isn't from the coffee tree)" is that we want to showcase the individual taste experiences we get from the producers we purchase from. The individual taste should be celebrated, not covered. It's the generic aspect of processing - that makes coffee heirloom from Ethiopia taste the same as Castillo from Colombia that we don't support. Currently this can only happen when ingredients that isn't from the tree is added in the farm process.

[@luisfernandezdecordoba5938]

So many roasters, and producers from different places,so many tasty options, good keep an open mind and have a coffee culture that like any other is vibrant and a great way to bring people together and or just enjoy by yourself, like a meditation.

[@peterr8538]

harsh to call it dead, but yeah, poluded, we need a new term like the "nature wine" therm where only sertn things are aloud visited you cafe for the first time yesterday, "tak for kaffe" my thougt where, this must be the michellin experience!, and i only had an espresso :D i look forward to visit again!

[@philipsegal8475]

I am super excited because my new April brewer just arrived in the post. I like your interpretation of todays speciality coffee. Staying so true to the industry is what keeps the coffee culture so vibrant. In the end it is in the eyes & the taste buds of the consumer & we are all free to follow our preferred path. Thank you so much for continued support & education.

[@pun30763]

As a consumer and a home brewer, is it weird that I kinda want it all, the traditional, the specialty, and the non conventional process coffee. As long as one kind isn't too dominant to push the other kind out of the market, the more options to taste and experience the better for me. I also appreciate people that want to stand their ground, it's good to know that coffee I know and love gonna still be the option. At the end of the day, all I could ever ask for is that farmer/roaster to be transparent with their coffee and their process. Some new term/label to help consumers distinguish the non conventional process coffee would be really appreciated, cause these day I find it really confusing.😢

[@Hames8]

I am all for transparency, but the idea of gatekeeping what specialty coffee means doesn't sit well with me. This not only applies to processing, but darker roasts, adding sugar or other additives to coffee drinks, etc.

[@mattamorim8944]

Here in Brazil natural coffees are pretty common. You actually have to look for honey/pulped cherry or washed coffee and the latter is pretty rare most of the time. I used to drink different coffees not being conscious of their processing, but started to notice that the fruity ones (mostly naturals and fermented naturals) were getting tiresome and I usually couldn't taste much difference or depth in those coffees. After watching some stuff from your channel and hearing you talk about this discussion of processing and fermentation, I paid more attention to the processing of the coffees I was drinking! It made a huge difference. Of course once in a while I drink a really good and clean natural, but focusing on the terroir and cleanliness of the coffees has been a game changer. I agree with you on this topic .

[@sandileshongwe4750]

I love what April stands for.

[@mikeydoesit]

Craft beer all over again. I agree with your stance. With that, transparency of the methods is most important because then it helps allow the producers to dictate which avenue works for them.

[@dullknight3957]

I'm from China, and I REALLY LOVE your roasted coffee beans, but I want to make a small suggestion: your new box is perfect, but the inner bag looks the same when I open it, and I can't tell the type of coffee beans. Can you put a label on the inner packaging to distinguish them? Thank you very much

[@6minus3minus2]

It's tricky, because the reality is that many coffee drinkers simply do not want to like the flavors of speciality coffee. Even some people with sophisticated palettes, like chefs, prefer traditional coffee and are turned off by speciality coffee flavors. It feels like roasters are responding to that reality. So, while I almost always prefer the unique flavors only speciality coffee can create, can most roasters sustain a business if they don't have options that lean traditional? In terms of infused coffees, if I understand correctly, I think they can be amazing. I had a coffee where pineapple was added to the fermentation and it was delicious. To me it's like retsina wine. The resin clearly changes the flavor of the wine, it's not just grapes and fermentation anymore. But it's an extremely old style of wine making and restina wines can be super tasty. Not everything has to be pure terroir, single origin, etc to be tasty.

[@brewnsport3001]

Couldn't be more agree with you the view of against that infused coffee in processing. But I noticed that April Webstore sells LPET - Bio Innovation Gesha. I believe it's a special processing coffee. In your thought, is that coffee that has been infused?

[@coffeewithapril]

Yes, we worked with their coffees for several season and it's great. As mentioned in the video we are curious and following the work of "modern processing." And there are producers that do it in a way that makes great cup profiles. And no, we don't believe that their coffee has been infused.

[@chrisbalocca]

i prefer to look at coffee like an art form. as in there is no ideal art form necessarily when it is so subjective. Whether it be vacuous pop or experimental music, the onus is on the consumer day in and day out. I dislike the term specialty because most folks dont understand that specialty is any coffee scoring above 80 points, even starbucks scores specialty. You wouldn’t say the only way to eat food is through fine dining when there is cheap food that poor folks can afford. Now is high quality transparent 86+ scoring coffees perhaps more ethical, I might say so. But I like a washed colombian microlot as much as I like a dark acrid cup of pikes place. Just as much as I like listening to Gwen Stefani and Radiohead.

[@samuelchalekian4966]

My Dad is a big proponent of dark roast coffees. Whether it’s from Kenya or Columbia, he likes coffees which taste like roast. I’ve been trying to help him ease into specialty coffee, largely by introducing him to “specialty dark”. Left to his own devices however, he will still opt for Peet’s. Ultimately, people like what they like. Cafes can try to introduce people to coffees which are just outside the realm of what they’d usually drink, or lean into the Starbucks model of augmentation. One cafe in my neighborhood has addressed this problem by having a specialty line of coffee and a mainstream line, along with two or three seasonal sweet drinks. All this to say that perhaps the best model for cafes to adopt is to have a little something for everybody, while still maintaining the rigorous standards that you outlined in this video for the product they source.

[@irsyadiazra9134]

Quality content. Thanks, Patrik 👍

[@atharvadeuskar]

I agree with most of the things you've said! Farms with the newer processing methods really make the coffee not taste like coffee anymore and for me that is one of the reasons I've stayed away from really promoting these methods. Sure, I am always fascinated by what the industry is doing with processing but the other factors like terroir and variety seem to be outshone which is really quite sad. However, I am also seeing varieties as a big point of conversation especially with the ever-growing list of varieties we see at the Championships like Sudan Rume or Eugenoides. I honestly think it is fantastic what your approach towards speciality coffee has been and the industry really needs more people to be on this side as well!

[@DR3WP4T3]

I like a lot of what you had to say here. I think we should be careful though. I personally don’t like to use “terroir” to refer to coffee. It feels so much like we’re trying to sound like wine makers and drinkers. Coffee is not wine. It will never be. Secondly, I think we should be careful not to make it sound like we’re completely invalidating some of these experimental processes. Yes, it alters the natural flavor characteristics of the coffee, but that doesn’t have to be negative. In my opinion, it is still coffee. The same can be said if beer that uses fruit, or wine that uses fruit, or tea. Lucia Solis has a fantastic podcast where she dissects these notions of origin, terroir, and natural flavor. I’d recommend everyone listen to that, even just to hear a different opinion. To me this message sounded a bit gate-keeping. The main problem that I have observed and experienced in “specialty” coffee is pseudo-science. In reality much of it is really empirical observation. Which is fine, but framing it as anything else is misleading. At any rate this is certainly a worthwhile conversation and I’ll be thinking about it a lot of watching this video. 😊

[@animeanytime]

At 1:08 you say it is crystal clear what specialty coffee was 10 years ago. I wasn’t into specialty coffee 10 years ago, so it isn’t crystal clear to me. Could you say more about what you mean? In the video you talk about introducing/re-introducing what coffee should taste like, but I’m not sure what qualities of coffee were being introduced/re-introduced here. From what you say later, it isn’t what is popularly enjoyed. Do you mean something like higher Q grade scores? Or something else?

[@askroller]

0:02 - Kenya is like 🤔

[@mahmoudabohamed3323]

This is also my response. Yet I am not in the industry so I said being popular made roasters doing strange bad things and more expensive. Roasting became dull. I feel funky flavors without structure and can't settle to any thing. Elite light washed coffee disappeared from many roasterys. Bad taste and bad prices. Anoxic or anaerobic thing_ ruined the coffee, severely. I feel like you are almost alone in many approaches now. Yet... I live in Egypt but got your new Kenyan coffee. Two bags from fellow, from California to north africa. This is your specialty. 💙

[@trevorkurzhal7273]

I don't think I could agree more with this video. Almost every third-wave, specialty shop I know around me has pretty much jumped ship on trying to push specialty to consumers, opting for removing flavors from bags and offering too many syrups in the shops (there shouldn't be any, in my view)... now they're all basically just like a local Starbucks.

[@SpencerDonahue]

I don't think I could agree less. This is pure navel gazing self back patting. Tell all the farmers at this years BOP that Specialty coffee is dead lol Tell all the farmers in Bolivia that are seeing the value of their coffees increase immensely each year. Tell the coffee roasters that pay out the ass for said coffees. Saying that all your local shops are like Starbucks is just a lame way of admitting that you don't live in a good city for coffee.

[@trevorkurzhal7273]

​@@SpencerDonahue "I don't think I could agree less." - You mentioned nothing to the effect of specialty being better or brought more to the forefront. The only thing you did here was mention that roasters are paying more and farmers are getting paid more (we assume) for coffees in different parts of the world. That doesn't communicate anything about the quality of the beverages we're drinking. It only assumes there was either 1. inflation of price (everything's inflated right now), or 2. higher pay due to any given circumstance. "This is pure navel gazing self back patting." - There is a better way of disagreeing than using insult. I suggest you acquaint yourself with it. "Tell the farmers at this years BOP that Specialty coffee is dead lol" - If he could, he would. In fact, that's why he made this video about it. "Tell all the farmers in Bolivia that are seeing the value of their coffees increase immensely each year." - See above. He did, and all it signifies is farmers being able to flow with popular demand, not necessarily what quality is. I can guarantee you what is hot and popular now will not be within the next 10 years. Nothing ever is. "Tell the coffee roasters that pay out the --- for said coffees." - He did. He made this video about it. "Saying that all your local shops are like Starbucks is just a lame way of admitting that you don't live in a good city for coffee." - Burn? Yeah, I live in a town with less than 1,000 folks. But I own a roastery that does Specialty as right as I can with my current capabilities, so I don't need other shops. But the shops that were pumping out proper specialty around me really did stop highlighting those wonderful characteristics about coffee. I have no problem with not living in a 'good city for coffee.' What does that even matter? Instead of trying to tear down, you ought to spend more time breaking things down and properly critiquing. You make yourself out to be a fool.

[@SpencerDonahue]

@@trevorkurzhal7273 "I have no problem with not living in a 'good city for coffee.' What does that even matter?" Its the only reason you have this shitty attitude where you feel like you're better than everyone else just because they aren't doing it the way you would prefer them to. Go somewhere different and everything you're complaining about is utterly moot. Where I am there are only more and more specialty entities starting up and they are all offering more and more information, transparency and everything you're talking about. Not everyone is doing it wrong and not everyone is doing it like Starbucks. Your kind of attitude is exactly what alienates the more traditional coffee consumers and the good roasters out there cover all of their bases, not just catering to the fussy assholes that only drink washed East African coffees and act like everything else is just trash.

[@trevorkurzhal7273]

@@SpencerDonahue You project a lot on me in terms of my attitude and how I view the specialty coffee world. You can't handle simple observations that I'm making about my location. It's fantastic that the shops in your area are paving their own way, but that's not the reality of where I'm at. No one is doing what I'm doing here anymore. They've all abandoned the specialty ship in favor of sweetened-condensed milk lattes where I live. But I'm not projecting that on to where you live. Patrik might be, but I don't have the vast knowledge of the industry like he does. I only know what's around me, not what's around you. And what's around me are shops that failed to stay the course of where they started. All for what? That's right: profit. Look, I'm not against you or the coffee you enjoy (at least, I hope you enjoy what you drink). I'm against many of the things you're saying/projecting, sure, but I respect that you like the shops in your area. I don't have qualms with that at all. And I'm not inferring things are wrong in your area. But if there are renowned coffee professionals making broad observations like this, maybe it's a bigger problem than you seem to realize. Perhaps you might, too, be stuck in a pretentious bubble that can't see the forest for the trees.

[@SpencerDonahue]

@@trevorkurzhal7273 If you're in a position where all of your competitors have abandoned a more specialty approach I would actually recommend that you consider adding more traditional offerings on your menu to attract those customers to your brand. If your competitors didn't see any compelling reason to maintain using higher quality coffee then evidently the customer base you have available to you may not be all that receptive to the different style of offering. You can obviously point to those that didn't do an adequate job communicating the value to the customer, but that is all beside the point seeing that you are apparently the only one still doing specialty in your area. How much of a customer base are you able to maintain as a consequence of this? Are you making any efforts to gain those customers besides simply telling them that your product is better? I know places that have freezer programs with vintage coffees that range well above $50 a cup, all kinds of exotic varieties and processes, that also has a couple syrups under the desk and has dark roast dosed out along with their decaf in case someone walks in asking for something "rich, bold, etc". Sometimes the effort to run a specialty entity leaves you smugly telling someone that you can't serve them anything as your offerings don't line up with their traditional taste preference - you could so easily have something there for them, make them a cup and then offer them a little two ounce cup of your Kenyan batch brew "on the house" that they can try alongside the thing that they actually came in to buy from you. The set and setting of the effort to educate the non-specialty consumer is vastly more important than most roasters/cafes realize.

[@hopethathelps]

Understandable that you like to take a point of view that works for your company, but calling it dead seems provoking, inviting people to not keep it nice. All styles have thier own places as long costumers like it and buy it. A bigger concern to me is instant coffee. Especially if you stand for traditional specialty coffee.

[@coffeewithapril]

Innovation in coffee is a necessity and we work with producers that does it in a way that elevates the traditional cup of coffee. The death of Specialty Coffee as we know it is a normal part of a cycle that has happened several times already. It's re-birth and brings a lot of interesting innovation to the table.

[@hopethathelps]

@@coffeewithapril thank you for the reply. Are there any articals or books you base your opinion on? I love to read them. I think most coffees dont really die, its just precieved this way. We speak about variety's planted and harvested in a certain way, in a certain place. If the variety goes distict then we talk about death. I just don't think that happend. Each time you harvest a coffee you can change the procces for example.

[@CorwinPeck]

pretty aggro

[@SpencerDonahue]

Just say that you think that Diego is being dishonest and then go about patting yourself on the back. This video was awful.

[@thomaskelly494]

How was he saying Diego is being dishonest? Diego produces coffees with special fermentations and is open about it he isn’t producing “washed” coffees that lack processing transparency that Patrick is referencing.