Roasting September 22nd ONLY! (8oz Bags)
White Label Vietnam Dung K’No Smallholders Anaerobic Natural
Tasting Notes: marionberry jam, plum skin, crème brulee
This is the second of a two-part White Label roast highlighting how different processing methods can produce dramatically divergent flavor profiles within the same cultivar grown on the same farms picked during the same harvest. Last month’s washed variant of Dung K’No revealed the subtleties inherent in these catimor beans grown in the high-altitude terroir of Vietnam’s Lam Dong province—milky-smooth body, mild lactic acidity, light, sweet aromatics of rice pudding colored with hints of spices like cardamom and cinnamon.
This month’s anaerobically dry processed iteration creates an entirely different cup profile, though it traces a path identical to its washed counterpart for much of its journey. The coffees are cultivated in the remote mountaintop village of Dung K’No by smallholder farmers of the ethnic K'Ho who hand-pick and deliver the ripest cherries to nearby collection points for transport to the Duc Trong Wet Mill. The mill was transformed in 2018 to focus on controlled and precise processing of local small-lot arabica coffee and is largely owned, managed and run by women from the surrounding coffee-growing community.
It is at Duc Trong after careful sorting for defects where the paths of these coffees diverge. While the washed separation is mechanically de-pulped, soaked, and rinsed to remove skin, fruit, and mucilage leaving only protective parchment on the seed, the ripe cherries slated for anaerobic fermentation are left entirely intact—fruit, skin, and all. These whole cherries are packed into stainless steel fermentation tanks sealed with one-way valves for 24 for 48 hours while monitored for temperature, sugar breakdown, and pH levels to carefully gauge fermentation.
Within the tank, the digestion of fruit sugars by natural, slow-acting microbes creates citric and lactic acids that react with ethanol produced by natural yeasts to create volatile compounds that introduce fruity, floral, and/or tropical flavors into the porous coffee bean. Fermentation also creates pressure inside the tank by releasing carbon dioxide that both forces oxygen out of the tank and facilitates flavor absorption by pushing the concentrated volatile compounds deeper into the seed.
The cup resulting from the highly controlled anaerobic fermentation is dramatically different than last month’s understated washed counterpart. The intense fruit flavors are bold and immediate—ripe plum, marionberry jam, and tropical fruit punch. The cup is juicy and bright, a touch winey, with a syrupy body and slight leathery mouthfeel. A pleasant tartness balances the fruit sweetness well, like the piquant effect the skin of a plum has on its ripe innards. Later stages conjure sugar crust and a touch of vanilla reminiscent of crème brulee, and notes of port wine linger in the finish.
Cultivars: Catimor
Region: Lam Dong
Farm: Dung K’Nosmallholders
Altitude: 5,000 feet
Processing:dry anaerobic fermentation
