Tag Archives: Agro Magazine

Coffee “Blumen,” Honey Process

Published September 18, 2018

Café Blumen is a single-origin coffee from Apante, Matagalpa, Nicaragua. It is roasted at origin and designed around floral, fruit, nut, caramel and chocolate characteristics.

Coffee profile

• Roast: Full City, also described as City Plus
• Process: Semi-washed or honey process, with fermentation followed by sun drying
• Varieties: Arabica varieties including Caturra and Catuai; the source also mentions Yellow Catuai and occasional Java
• Origin: Apante, Matagalpa, Nicaragua
• Batch: Coffee from a single farm lot
• Flavour: Strawberry, almond and flowers
• Aftertaste: Strawberry, almond, caramel, chocolate and flowers

Creating a floral coffee

The coffee was developed to emphasize floral notes alongside almond, strawberry and caramel. Its semi-washed processing method leaves some fruit mucilage around the parchment during drying, allowing its natural sugars to influence the finished flavour.

What the honey process means

Coffee processing is commonly grouped into washed, semi-washed and natural methods. In the semi-washed or honey process, the fruit skin is removed while some mucilage remains on the parchment-covered seed.

As the coffee dries in the sun, sugars in the remaining mucilage concentrate and caramelize. The term “honey” describes the sticky, sugar-rich mucilage and the resulting process; it does not mean that bee honey is added to the coffee.

The producer notes that this method was also discussed in a technical article prepared for the Central American agricultural publication Revista ProAgro.