sourcing a good robusta

Ratrodzcafe

Hey all, hoping somebody can recommend a good robusta bean, single estate or single origin etc. Found a few places online but they don't ship outside the US! Any help appreciated.

Brett H

That's a million dollar question!  I love a good robusta and have been able to get them from local suppliers over the years.  Find a decent local importer and pick their brain.  Then, order through them.  Forget direct trade agreements unless you're importing tons and want to spend half your life doing paperwork and the other half wondering why you invested so much time in a low margin product....irresoective of your ability to value add! 

mycuppa

Hello, Can I make a suggestion. Both myself and Fresh Coffee (A.) are often mentioning our reservations about relying upon the advice of people on the internet when it comes to coffee and coffee-related topics. As everybody is at different stages in their coffee journey, there is absolutely no doubt of the great value and benefit in reading and understanding concepts, ideas and of course hearing from others experiences - be it good, bad or indifferent. We all have to start somewhere and absorbing content is easy - it is everywhere. The key is to keep an open mind and cross-check using other types of testing, such as internet + speaking to a local broker + speaking or visiting a local quality roaster + the real test is tasting for yourself. When it comes to "beans", what I tend to see a lot across many different forums are the comments, opinions and observations about bean A or bean B.....descriptors, characteristics, etc. etc. in rather limited and "pigeon hole" ways. What we have to keep in mind here folks is that the universe of coffee is much bigger than you might expect or realize and what you might pick up on a forum represents like 5% of the possibilities. Lets take a look at a typical mid-sized coffee farm. They may have up to half a dozen different varietals growing across different terrain and if they are advanced they may have even tried different fertilizer and pesticide methods, watering, harvesting (timing and technique - ripe, hand picked, mechanical, etc) and of course the varied processing methods. So already we have quite a few combinations before grading and "blending" of the raw coffees. A larger proportion of the raw coffees are also prepared to different standards using grading and regional blending - which means they are combining coffees from many farmers or producers to achieve the desired outcome. Brokers are generally supplied with multiple samples call lots. These are coded and tested at the evaluation stage whereby there might be 12+ lots on a table with dramatic differences between them.......and when I say dramatic, if you were cupping blind it would not be unreasonable to think that some of the coffees were from entirely different origins or varietals - such is the contrast. I've even cupped sample lots and thought........that's undrinkable........or it's not pleasant. So when you see a label called Guatemala Huehuetenango SHB and you think you have a handle on what to expect and the 12 different samples of the same label are put on the table - some are wonderful, others not........it sort of distorts your thinking of how you profile or define that label for that type of bean. It gets even more complicated because what Australian brokers look for in a coffee is likely to be different to Northern European brokers, etc. The lots that may be offered up are also different - so when someone in say Norway bangs on about XYZ, the equivalent or related XYZ we have access to locally may be different. My advice is to understand your requirements for a bean - what do you want that bean to do and how much of it do you need. If it's a commercially viable opportunity, then take that to a genuine, local, quality roaster and work that opportunity through with them - as they are much better placed to deal with the possibilities than those outside of the industry - what can be sourced, how it can be roasted and what it will taste like. Otherwise it's much like trying to diagnose and treat a personal medical condition via Dr Google - plenty of information, conflicted, un-validated, untried, not-applicable, different, etc. If its not a commercial quantity and just a hobby then you are limited to what is available on the internet coupled with a whole bunch of trial & error.....which may end up resulting in a more expensive exercise. As Brett has eluded to in his post, the quest for quality is a carefully guarded and expensive prize - people who know are not going to share because the facts are that sourcing quality is do darn hard these days the competition on the best lots is intense. The shortage or under-supply of quality coffee is very real and not just marketing or commodity trader's jaw-boning.

Brett H

Brilliant post Jeff and very kind of you to share this level of advice so freely and generously!!

Ratrodzcafe

Biggest problem here at the moment is coffee has gotten way to pretentious! Pretty much every cafe is so focused on single origin/estate arabica that they have lost where they started from...mostly Italian style blends and because of that robusta on its own just isn't stocked here. Believe me I understand how much research and time goes into sourcing. I'm already working with a roaster but even he was stumped when I brought up robusta, and when I mentioned single estate I totally lost him. At the moment here in Ireland there seem to be the "In" group of cafes and roasters that dictate whats trending and what's not when it comes to coffee, and to do anything that's outside their comfort zone is pretty much shunned and passed off as a fad or gimmick. I'm not looking for a roadmap or list of secret suppliers but at the moment my starting point is the Internet  and other members opinions. My main interest in robusta is for coldbrewing, using it as a starting point and then blending it to suit different needs and taste. My main interest is in higher caffeine content and using it as a base for a drink that could be used in a gym environment, either adding things like protein or supplements, either bottled or on draft as a nitro coffee. I'm also not afraid to play around with water, mineral content, hardness, even starting from scratch with distilled water and essentially building it all from the ground up. At the moment the accounts I have are relatively small and more than likely seasonal where cafes are involved so quantities could be anywhere between 30kg to 80 kg per week! Cost is a factor but at the same time so is quality, it's the usual problem of finding a balance. I understand supply vs demand and with a new cafe springing up every other week it's getting harder to weed out the genuine people that actually put the time in vs the ones that have a bank balance to throw around. Anyway my brains just abt toast but I'll keep this updated as I figure things out:)

Brett H

Awesome Rad!!  We at lucky in Australia in that there are some pretty good supply chains because we have a fairly mature market.  Lwowiak would be good for advice as he has been sourcing larger quantities of beans than the average home roaster but less than the volume of a major commercial player like MyCuppa.

Ratrodzcafe

Had a bit of a chat with one of the guys from one of the biggest roasters in the country and appearantly robusta beans are very hard to comeby over here. He actually showed me his stock which was a sample bag he ordered online, it was  basically for a training course he was running to show the difference in beans. I mean seriously, the coffee culture here was practically built on your typical Italian blends and now it's all but forgotten! On another note, does roasting the same bean to different profiles and then blending it do much for flavour.  Gonna see if I can talk a friend into playing around a little with different blends of the same bean...think my whole nitro coffee adventurs have annoyed some of the dedicated coffee drinkers so might aswell see if I can piss off a few purists by playing with a few single origins:)

FreshCoffee2

“......I mean seriously, the coffee culture here was practically built on your typical Italian blends and now it's all but forgotten!....” Hi there. Unfortunately, the fact (you say) that your coffee culture was practically built on typical Italian blends and now its all but forgotten.....really isn't such a bad thing. “Typical” Italian blends as we know them (certainly big name Italian roasters), are incredibly woody, astringent and “dirty” in character, usually from the overuse of cheap end / low grade robusta's. Robustas are no different to arabicas in regard to that you have the choice of specifying base grade product, or good grade product. The larger Italian roasters hit you from two fronts: a) use of base grade product and b) over use of the product ie......using far too much of the product in the blend, so that its character  overpowers the blend. Whereas for example, you may find that in “anglo saxon coffee culture” the deal is to use predominantly arabica based blends, and in some instances with a small percentage of robusta for whatever character it imparts to the total blend.......in the traditional “Italian coffee culture”, that position is reversed. There are small Italian roasters that have moved to “our” type coffee (if I can call it that), but the larger and “commodity” type roasters are firmly in the robusta camp and all that results in. Additionally, when you put high percentage base grade robusta blends in vacuum packs on a supermarket shelf and have them wait to be purchased very often way after the freshness factore has disappeared, the character of these commodity coffees (to us) is (worse than) terrible and is one reason as to why our market has (over?) reacted in the way it has and gone the path of the "100% arabica" bandwagon. Having said all that, that doesn't mean their coffee is “bad”. It means their market is well used to that type of coffee, it's obviously in demand and in the main they like it and treat it accordingly (short pour and large sugar portions)...so who are we to denigrate that. They on the other hand say our way is “bad” and in the case of espresso, is not true espresso because of the way we design our blends using arabicas instead of robustas. If you talk to coffee people in Italy, they will take the moral high ground because they are the inventors of espresso and they base it on robustas.! Whatever. The point is, there are different styles of coffee and robusta doesn't have to be the pariah that its made out to be “over here”. However, people taking the high moral ground “over here” sing the praises of the “100% arabica” band wagon, and so it goes on and this is why you are finding it difficult to get robusta in your locality. “...On another note, does roasting the same bean to different profiles and then blending it do much for flavour.  Gonna see if I can talk a friend into playing around a little with different blends of the same bean...think my whole nitro coffee adventurs have annoyed some of the dedicated coffee drinkers so might aswell see if I can piss off a few purists by playing with a few single origins:)...” Yes certainly and like all things roasting and blending, its up to you to experiment with this and see if it brings up something you like  or you think is worth doing or not. The way to deal with “coffee purists” is tell them what they want to hear....but tell them nothing (arent "coffee purists" people with opinions that they cant back up when you hit them with a bliind cupping?). By the way this is not in any way meant to upset, but do you think it may be possible you are pissing people off because you are telling them too much about what you are doing.....? Like telling them about what you want to do with robusta? You dont need to tell people stuff like that....you just need to come up with something you like and think will work, then serve it up. If its good it will stand on its own legs regardless of what you put in it, and telling people in this market you are experimenting robusta, since it has been brainwashed to think that the only good coffee is 100% arabica, probably isnt a great thing to do. If you want to buy robusta in my opinion it would be less frustrating for you to not waste time on the internet with people that dont really understand this stuff in terms of “the big picture”. A lot of these green bean vendors will be relatively new people that have grown up in the "100% arabica" scenario.....contact a green bean broker like say...ARC in Milano direct, a very long established professional large green bean broker. The problem however will be that if you want to buy say 2 or 3 single “origins” of robusta to play around with, the freight on getting 3 x 60 kg bags of greens to you will be quite expensive I imagine. By the way I wouldnt be telling them you are seeking "single origin" or "single estate" robustas or they will think you are crazzzzzzy    Expect they will ask you what you are trying to achieve, and let them make some suggestions, which will most probably be FAQ (bulked) robustas from various areas, which impart distinct individual characters. I cant stress enough that you need to know what you are trying to achieve so it can be annunciated to the broker, or he will not be able to help you with suggestions. These are just my opinions but I hope they help, and good luck 

mycuppa

on 1461970115:

Had a bit of a chat with one of the guys from one of the biggest roasters in the country and appearantly robusta beans are very hard to comeby over here. He actually showed me his stock which was a sample bag he ordered online, it was  basically for a training course he was running to show the difference in beans. I mean seriously, the coffee culture here was practically built on your typical Italian blends and now it's all but forgotten! On another note, does roasting the same bean to different profiles and then blending it do much for flavour.  Gonna see if I can talk a friend into playing around a little with different blends of the same bean...think my whole nitro coffee adventurs have annoyed some of the dedicated coffee drinkers so might aswell see if I can piss off a few purists by playing with a few single origins:)

Don't mean to point out the obvious, but.......... in just 5 mins searching on google I found 20 different lots of Robusta (about half them estate coffees) from a quality UK-based broker - D.R. Wakefield. I imagine that Robusta is not hard to source in Europe given a large portion of the world's production ends up in that region. Roasting the same bean different ways may not always affect flavor - it is likely to also influence acidity and body more so than flavor, but of course it depends upon how wide the spectrum of profiles. varietal, etc..

kbilleter

One would expect different profiles with the same bean would extract at different rates.  Could be interesting but might be a challenge to dial in.