/019 Colombia — El Vergel x AMOC (2X100G)

“Koji or not-Koji”

A World’s first koji benchmarking tasting set.

A concrete question came to mind: which is better, the amazing Natural Caturra on its own or this time with the Koji fermentation part added?
Benchmarking koji fermentation, side by side.

And so this exclusive A.M.O.C. x El Vergel lot came to life: koji or not koji  — that almost sounds like Shakespeare —
You can now try for yourself: same farm, same cherries, same picking day, same roasting profile.

ABOUT KOJI PROCESSING

This quite new process looks in practice a lot like a traditional natural processed coffee produced by El Vergel. Koji, a fungus that grows on rice, has a long tradition in food production but next to none in coffee processing. This open-source fermentation method is dependant on temperature primarily, keeping the cherries between 25-30 degrees when sitting on the drying beds is critical. The idea of the fermentation with koji is that it breaks down polysaccharides and pectin as well as produce amino acids. This is done so by inoculating the whole cherries within a shallow vessel for 36 hours. This looks very much like a pre-fermentation on a natural processed coffee, and from there the cherries are sent off to the drying beds. Little is now known about the impact of this fermentation method, but it’s safe to say that much more will be written on Koji processed coffees. For a more in-depth read on Koji fermentation, and on how to do it yourself, reference Christopher’s blog, who is an amazing writer and storyteller.

Country: Colombia