Fermentation Project Green Coffee Set

The Fermentation Project is a venture by coffee processing specialist Lucia Solis and coffee professional James Hoffmann to examine the impact of fermentation on what we experience in the cup. There are a variety of roasters and companies around the world offering these coffees as a roasted set, but Sweet Maria’s is the only place (that we’re aware of) where you can get them green to roast yourself.

What will each method taste like? Typically we offer extensive tasting and roasting notes, but in keeping with the spirit of the project, it’s up to you to roast them and find out for yourself. That said, we expect noticeable differences in acidity, texture and complexity between the four methods. We recommend roasting these coffees light (City/City+) in order to keep roast flavors from overpowering the cup and covering up those differences. You are free to roast and taste these coffees in your own time, but there will be a global guided tasting with Lucia and James on October 3rd. You can hear James talk about the project in his most recent video or sign up for updates on The Fermentation Project by signing up for his newsletter. You can find more information in our Coffee Library, and we'll be updating the article and this product with our own cupping notes after the tasting.

The coffee comes from Finca San Miguel Urias in Antigua, Guatemala and consists primarily of Caturra with some H1 and a smidge of Bourbon. For the Project, the same coffee lot was harvested and processed in parallel, but utilizing different fermentation approaches in order to understand their influence on flavor. One coffee is mechanically demucilaged ("machine washed") rather than tank fermented and acts as a control sample, while the other three use varying microbes (wild, lactobacillus and yeast) to break down the mucilage before being washed and patio dried.

We’re offering all four coffees as one, complete set. You’ll receive one ½ lb bag of each method: mechanically demucilaged (control), wild fermentation, lactobacillus inoculated fermentation and yeast inoculated fermentation, all individually packaged.

Only 280 sets available, limited to 1 per customer.