There were a number of possible choices I could have gone with in Georgia. But I had passed up the chance to try a roaster that owned and operated its own farms in a coffee-producing country once already (an Arizona roaster that sourced from its own farm in Brazil was one of the last couple I ruled out prior to my ultimate selection), and I wanted to see how that experience might compare to a more typical end-of-supply-chain roaster. Plus, let's just say I have personal interest in a company called "Alma Coffee" that sells a product called "Soulmate."
State #11: Georgia
Alma Coffee
Canton, GA
I suppose the naming conventions are a little precious - I usually like my coffee names to be a little more reflective of the sourcing, but when you're sourcing from farms you own (and partners in the same area) you can get away with it. The source for Alma Coffee is Honduras, an origin I'd had some luck with in the recent past (Verve's Honduran offering was very good). The "Soulmate" offering is a varietal I hadn't previously tried called Parainema - the genetics of Parainema are somewhat interesting, not to get into the weeds too much. Basically it derives from a cross between a Timor hybrid (itself a cross between Arabica and Robusta) and a natural Bourbon mutation called Villa Sarchi. The first-generation cross itself, known as T5296, is not stable for planting, but some varietals have been obtained from it via pedigree selection (where plants in successive generations are selected for stability of certain traits until a replicable, stable varietal is achieved). This is probably more than most people want to think about the coffee they're drinking, but I find it interesting and frankly quite relevant to the future of coffee. Parainema, like many Timor hybrid-derived varietals, is pretty resistant to coffee leaf rust, a very important characteristic. But happily, it also tastes quite good! Robusta is not known for having great flavor, and so the goal in cross-breeding is to obtain some of its disease resistance while retaining an Arabica-derived flavor profile. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't - my experience with Catimor-derived varietals has not been terribly positive to date, for instance. But at least in this case, a Sarchimor-derived varietal was excellent. The cup had a nice syrupy body and notes of caramel and toasted nut underneath a mild citric acidity (a bit like an orange perhaps). I found it extremely drinkable on its own, and if you are eating a heavier breakfast with a bit of grease - something with bacon or sausage, for instance, like I did on one of the mornings when I had this coffee - the syrupy sweetness is really called forth for a quite delightful contrast. It's not exactly fair to rate a coffee based on its performance on a non-neutral palate, and so my rating is not based on how much I enjoyed that specific experience, but I think it's worth noting. In any event, this was an excellent coffee that I rated a 9, Great.
The other coffee I tried was a Caturra processed using the "black honey" method - the difference between this and other "colors" of honey processing is that more of the mucilage is left on the beans and the fermentation and drying times are longer. This leads to a fruitier cup, somewhat closer to a natural. Here again I found the acidity to be citrus, like lemon or orange, but a bit stronger. There were nice marzipan notes in the cup and the body was nicely balanced. However, I thought the flavor depth could have gone a bit deeper, at least for my liking. Sometimes you have a coffee with a lot of different notes, sometimes you have a coffee with only a couple. Given the choice, I tend to prefer the former - which isn't to say the latter makes for a bad coffee, certainly not, and this was a good coffee. But that is how I rated it: 7, Good.
All told, a nice experience, and the combined score of 16 puts Alma Coffee near the top of the rankings so far. It's also another roaster where I probably would have turned around and ordered more - of the Soulmate at the very least - if I weren't doing this project. Given the unpredictable economic situation right now, and indeed the somewhat unpredictable nature of the coffee business in general, hopefully my favorite roasters are all still in business in a year or so when I'm done with this project and ready to revisit some of the best. Kind of a downbeat way to end what was otherwise a positive post, I guess. Sorry. Anyway, next up it's off to Hawaii, which means coffee where the entire seed-to-cup supply chain takes place within the borders of the United States! Always an intriguing comparison, if nothing else.
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