Sometimes you regret grinding in the first place
In some earlier text, I told you about co-fermented coffee. The short description is this: one way to remove the coffee cherries to get to the beans is by fermenting them for a little while. Usually you ferment the beans by themselves, but you can also throw other fruits in at the same time. That path results in a form of coffee called a co-ferment, and it tastes very strongly of that fruit while simultaneously not being denotatively “flavored coffee”. No syrups needed; enjoy your brown watermelon juice.
I approached co-ferments with a mixture of wonder & curiosity, as one does in text. I’ve also had a few moments to really sit with co-ferments during that period, a few of which entered my home, and I must conclude that they are falling more into the “hilarious abomination” category than the “wide-open frontier” category for me.
Before we talk about that, gosh, what a knife’s edge to sit on, right? You experiment, find something fascinating, talk about it. And truly, you can co-ferment a lot. Name a fruit, combine it with coffee, see what happens. I’d like to believe that I have cultivated a strong taste for most things, including and perhaps especially coffee. The fact that I had to take a solid half-year to think about co-ferments is a testament to what they’re able to do, what our bodies ask for, and how we collectively resonate with nature. I have had some truly incredible experiences with these coffees, and I’m really grateful for that.
I also think the party trick won’t last, and after a lot of reflection I think that’s what these are. You see “watermelon co-ferment,” try it, pause, laugh. They can’t be serious, can they? Oh, they’re very serious. You take another sip, relax into it. Wow.
Okay, now step back. This makes perfect sense for the first time you experience a thing, but it also begs the question: what happens when you buy a bag of the stuff? Now you’re drinking weird watermelon juice every day for a couple of weeks. What happens if you get used to it? What happens when you go back to unadulterated coffee? What happens when you switch from a watermelon co-ferment to a lychee?
And gosh, what does coffee taste like? Just the plant. I say this often here, but we tend to forget that coffee is itself a tropical fruit, and that it should maybe be… fruity. Most of the time, we work very hard to rub out any trace of fruitiness from the thing, and I think that doesn’t do the actual plant any favors. The absolute best coffees I’ve had in my life have worked hard to preserve the idea of the fruit within them, preventing any sort of acidity from coming through and removing the cherries in a way that imparts some of their flavor into the bean. Why are we fermenting a tropical fruit alongside other fruits in order to make it fruity, when we could just change the way we work with this fruit?
There is one final thing to keep in mind here. Co-fermented coffee wrecks your grinder in a way that no other coffee I’ve ever experienced has ever done. If you don’t deep-clean the grinder after you’ve finished a co-ferment, your next grind will taste very thinly like the fruit in question. Of course, this means that every coffee you’ve ever made has the same problem, but it’s rather pronounced when you’re dealing with flavor profiles that are so far afield from what you normally consider “coffee.” Yes, this is practical. It is also annoying. And really, making good coffee at all is a heavy enough lift in the morning, isn’t it?
So that’s my evolved take on co-ferments. They are probably excellent for you to get precisely once at a coffee shop. But the luster dims over time. Then we are brought back to earth, and we look across the landscape and see coffee, only more coffee.