Fruto Verde: The story behind the beans
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Growing high-quality coffee is not easy. It requires a lot of dedication from the producer, and there are a huge number of variables that influence the cup quality of the final product.
Across the industry, it is desirable for specialty grade coffee to derive from fully ripe cherries. And yet, it is virtually impossible to harvest every single cherry at its ripest point; some unripe cherries are ultimately harvested along with the ripe ones. What happens to these green coffee cherries that inevitably end up mixed together with perfectly ripe coffee cherries?
Perdido Coffee, situated in the coffee growing department of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, is made up of two distinctive farms or fincas that are home to several Nicaraguans who cultivate coffee trees and harvest specialty grade coffee. During the harvesting season, they pride themselves in selecting and handpicking the cherries at its peak of ripeness, which is not an easy nor cheap task.
Coffee beans are the seeds of the fruit of coffee trees, known as coffee cherries. While this fruit is maturing the colour is green until a few weeks before it is completely ripe. Then the colour begins to change to yellow and gradually to red once the fruit is ripe. To produce the best coffee possible, the goal is to pick the coffee cherries while they are red. Which sounds easy enough right? Unfortunately coffee doesn’t all ripen at the same time; it tends to ripen in waves over a period of two or more months. It can also be difficult sometimes while picking to tell just how ripe a coffee cherry is especially in low light conditions. Sometimes the bottom half of a cherry is red but near the stem it is still green. At the very beginning of the season and the very end of the season the coffee is apt to be fairly inconsistently ripe in the field. Being selective, and carefully inspecting each cherry you pick to be certain it is as ripe as it could be, is ultimately time consuming.
Much effort and expense is put into picking cherries as ripe as possible on the fincas of Perdido Coffee; and through laborious attention in harvesting, any green cherries are manually picked out from the red cherries, collected and set aside before processing the coffee. Any unripened coffee cherries represent a loss of potential income for the producers and farmers.
BBCR is proud to have a direct trade relationship with Perdido Coffee. We exclusively source their anaerobically fermented, natural processed specialty grade coffee and are very pleased to offer it in the BBCR lineup of single origin coffees.
When given the opportunity to purchase a small amount of coffee beans derived from harvested unripened cherries from Perdido, BBCR took a chance and thought: why not? We saw it as a unique opportunity to try something different, while allowing the producer to recoup most of the revenue from what would otherwise be lost. Not only does it reduce waste on the farm, but it would also contribute to an improvement of the average income of the farm, increasing the social and economic impact felt by the farmers. This financial support leads to a better quality of life for producers, more motivation to grow coffee, and continued quality improvement. Across the coffee sector, producers face no shortage of challenges to maintain profitability.
The BBCR team then proceeded to do a deep dive into unripe coffee cherries. How would it taste and what would be the benefits? Ripe cherries are prized for their superior flavour profiles and are crucial for producing high-quality coffee; unripe cherries produce cup profiles that aren't as sweet and complex. And while immature beans have been classified as ‘defective’ for decades, they pose no health risks to the consumer. In fact, coffee beans from immature fruit have a greater amount of antioxidant compounds than those from mature fruits. Unripe coffee beans are naturally more astringent, but also higher in antioxidants.
Fruto Verde contains high levels of chlorogenic acid and caffeine. Studies have indicated these two substances provide varied benefits to human health and have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, anticarcinogenic and neuroprotective properties. In fact, chlorogenic acid has been found to regulate glucose and insulin, decrease blood pressure, protect against heart disease, reduce inflammation, improve overall cardiovascular function, and the list goes on.
At BBCR, our challenge was to create a roast profile that would lend itself well to the Fruto Verde beans. There are many chemical reactions that take place during roasting which help to bring out the flavours and aromas in roasted coffee – as well as making the beans more soluble so we can extract volatile compounds. In this instance, we chose a darker roast to break down any negative attributes and introduce flavours more associated with the process of roasting such as less acidity and more bitterness. The result is a strong cup, with bitter cocoa notes and a stonefruit finish.
This is a one time, limited release. This coffee is sourced from Nicaragua and each batch is freshly roasted to order in Gatineau, Quebec. We are fortunate to be able to support the coffee farmers and producers in Nicaragua. The taste comparison between the single origin Nigaragua and the Nicaragua Fruto Verde is interesting as it clearly illustrates the resulting differences between variables that affect the final cup, such as cherry ripeness and roast profile. We invite you to taste both and experience it for yourself!
Every single cup of coffee tells a story.
Stay curious!