INTERLUDE: Nepal

It might seem somewhat silly to have an "interlude" in a project that, to date, has had a single entry.  And yeah, that's probably right.  But the same obsession with collecting that drew me to lay out the 50-state project in the first place also draws me to try and sample coffees from as many different countries and territories of origin as possible.  I'd never even heard of Nepal as a coffee origin before, so it was simply too tempting to resist.

As it turns out, there's a pretty good reason I hadn't heard of Nepal as a coffee origin: in addition to the fact that its coffee industry is only about 30 years old, it is, as far as I know, the only coffee-producing nation in the world that lies entirely outside of the tropics.  (Even in countries that lie partly outside of the tropical zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the coffee-growing areas are themselves almost exclusively within the tropical zone, with the exception of the recent attempts to cultivate coffee in southern California.)

Saint Frank Coffee, a roaster in San Francisco, was offering a Nepal tasting series consisting of three coffees: two (a washed process and a natural process) from the Lekali Estate, and a third from the "Coffee Practice Project" in the central district of Lamjung.  (I ordered these in late January and the series is no longer available.  However, as of this writing the Lamjung can be purchased by itself from the Saint Frank website - it was, spoiler, my favorite of the three, so if this entry piques your interest I say go for it.)

The first of the three that I tried was the Lekali washed process.  The tasting notes on the bag indicated "Exotic Oolong Tea, Lime and Cola with a Full Nutty Cocoa Finish."  I definitely got the tea and the lime - indeed, all three of these coffees had pretty distinct tea-like notes, which seems likely to be a product of the Nepali terroir since the varietals used were pretty standard (a mixture of Typica, Bourbon, and Caturra in the case of the Lekali coffees).  This is rather fitting since Nepal has historically been more of a tea-growing area, but it's also sort of interesting to consider.  I think we tend to associate coffee with particular flavors, but one thing that I've learned as I've dived deeper into the world of third-wave specialty coffee in particular is that there does not necessarily need to be any one thing that coffee tastes like.  If the heavy roast levels of second-wave coffee in particular gave people the impression that all coffee tastes more or less the same, the lighter roasts and focus on single origins in third-wave coffee proves that that's nonsense.  Even the particular character of the acidity in the Lekali washed was unlike almost anything I've had before - lime really was a perfect description, with that slightly bitter and heavier character compared to a lighter lemon acidity or a sweeter orange acidity.

With that said, this may have been my least favorite of the three.  That's not to say it was bad - it was good! - but I found the body extremely light, somewhat to the detriment of the drinking experience, and I did not detect the "full nutty cocoa finish" that was supposedly present.  Tasting notes are often a mixed bag as you'll probably hear me say a lot, but when the first three notes were so dead on it was surprising and vaguely disappointing not to find the last one.  This isn't really the coffee's fault, so again I'm not saying it was bad or even disappointing as a coffee.  But I could have liked it more if I found a little more going on and/or if the body had been a bit fuller.

To some extent the Lekali natural process - i.e. the same beans, the same terroir, but dried in the fruit - fixed the issues I had with the washed process.  The tasting notes - which mentioned "almond butter and grape jam," two things I can't say I found at all - were maybe more of a miss, though I still detected the oolong tea under the surface and it is a virtual certainty that you will be reminded of cherry while drinking a natural process coffee.  But those cherry/berry notes helped the body expand a bit, removing the issue I had with the thinner body of the washed process, and the acidity was also somewhat sweeter and less bitter as it moved away from the harder citrus acidity of the washed and into more of a berry character.  I did still detect a bit of a bitter edge on it, but this time it read to me a bit more like melon rind - like when you're eating a piece of watermelon and you get right up against the green part at the end of the slice.

One thing I do sometimes find slightly disappointing about natural process coffees is that they pretty much always have that distinct cherry/berry flavor, which certainly isn't surprising for beans that have spent days drying inside the coffee cherry, but it runs the risk of covering up some of the complexity of the bean itself.  (I recently had a natural process version of a rare Yellow Bourbon coffee from Madagascar which I had already tried washed, and while it was still good and easy to drink it definitely lacked all the flavor notes of its washed counterpart.)  I don't think that was really the case here, fortunately.  The oolong tea note was still present and the other notes were more shifted by the cherry flavors than erased.

This morning I got around to the third and final coffee, from the "Coffee Practice Project" in Lamjung district (in the central part of the country).  It's not a name that necessarily fills you with confidence - while "Lekali Estate" sounds like a place that has been turning out coffee for generations, just the words "practice project" sound like you should be ready to expect almost anything.  And yet this coffee was positively delightful!  On the first couple sips I was shocked - well, it's on the bag, so maybe not ENTIRELY shocked - to be met with a sweet hit of toffee flavor.  Immediately the body was there, and the flavors kept developing.  After the initial toffee and toast hits started to fade, more complex tea and floral flavors began to rise out of the cup.  I picked up the apple notes when I poured the last few ounces out of the Chemex to top off my mug, too.  There was so much going on here and basically all of it was great.  Even the acidity was somewhat milder and sweeter, which is how I generally prefer it if given the choice.  If this is what the ethnic Gurung producers of Lamjung are turning out as "practice," who knows what their coffees will taste like in a few years?  Again, as of this writing this coffee is available by itself on the Saint Frank website (see link above) and if this post intrigued you at all I would very much suggest trying it out.

At $40 for three 8-ounce bags, the tasting series really was not a bad price at all to try three different coffees from such an intriguing origin, and all three of them turned out not to be mere curiosities but quite good coffees in their own right.  They were certainly plenty distinct, even from each other, but more importantly the quality was there too.  I got to try Coffea eugenioides as part of Paradise Roasters' Rare Coffee subscription and while that was certainly distinctive I can't say it was something I would necessarily want to drink every day.  I would be perfectly happy to drink any of these three coffees any day of the week - and with 4-6 ounces of each of them left as of this writing, I'll have a few more chances to do just that!

If you're interested in reading more about the burgeoning coffee industry in Nepal, I recommend this post over on the Saint Frank blog, which goes into a lot more detail about how they discovered the industry and how it's being cultivated and improved by local producers.  You might also enjoy this YouTube video which is a look at the production process on the Lekali Estate.

Coming up soon: state #2, Alaska!