Slurps Up… A Matter of Fermentation w/ Lorena Segura and Lucia Solis

An educational tasting about coffee fermentation from two amazing women of coffee.

Time to check the PH and inoculate our senses! This time, we have organised an event in collaboration with Lorena Segura, an inspiring coffee professional currently working at Project Origin, to showcase the recent release of the fermentation project from @jimseven, weird coffee person, and Lucia Solis, a fermentation expert with a background in wine. In this project, we will be examining and learning about 4 different fermentations of the same lot of coffee.

For the cupping, we will be tasting two expressions from both @zestcoffee and @whyldcoffee. We are also extremely excited to have @Lucia Solis joining us via video call* for an informal Q&A session before we taste. On purchasing a ticket, we will be asking you to leave a question or topic you want Lucia to cover, so please take a moment to consider what you are curious about in relation to fermentation.

*please note: we hope the video call will work. We will try and secure a stable connection but there are no guarantees.

A little bit about the project (taken from the Fermentation project website)

From a sensory perspective, our goal was to select a coffee that clearly showcases the nuance of fermentation while remaining clean, sweet, and approachable and we believe these lots achieve that balance very well. When people taste “fermented” coffees, they rarely get to taste the un-fermented version for comparison… Here are details on the four coffees:

1. Mechanically Demucilaged (No Fermentation)
Processed without fermentation to serve as the control. The profile of this coffee comes from growing practices and genetic varietal characteristics.

2. Wild Fermentation
Fermented for 48 hours with local wild microbes. This is the traditional method most coffees experience, where the mucilage is removed by the local microbe population.

3. Lactobacillus Inoculated Fermentation
Fermented for 48 hours, this fermentation enhances the production of organic acids, impacting the brightness and complexity of the coffee.

4. Saccharomyces Yeast Inoculated Fermentation
Fermented for 48 hours, this fermentation enhances the production of flavor precursors, impacting the body and complexity of the coffee.

The farm is Finca San Miguel Urias, owned by Hector and Lilian Leal, operated under Rueda Farms, Antigua Valley (genuine Antigua), between Ciudad Vieja and San Miguel Dueñas, and the variety is ~85% Caturra, ~15% H1 and some Bourbon. All of these lots were processed by Lucia Solis, who worked closely with the farm team to ensure the coffee was pulped, fermented, washed, and dried according to specification.

This coffee cupping will be held at the Proud Mary event space above Aunty Pegs in Collingwood, Melbourne from 5:30 – 7:30pm. We hope to see you there!