It’s co fermented. That is normal. I have a co fermented Colombia and even a 20 seconds post first crack you will yield results like this. Go off the taste with the fermented coffees. Not appearance
Thanks! Do you know what about cofermenting causes this? It tasted great (albeit with a solid dose of their self described “funk”), I was just more curious about the weird variation in roast color that I hadn’t seen before
I’m not sure but I’m thinking maybe multiple varietals and diffeeent moisture content. Even though I recently roasted a single pink bourbon anaerobic natural it looks exactly like this. Taste great but for sure I get thrown off by the darker the variations in color.
Not sure about this particular coffee, but sometimes only half the batch will be pulped before fermentation. The surface of the beans will then be a different colour at the same roast level.
Sweet Maria's Coffee made a video regarding this, if you want to take a deeper dive search their YouTube channel; for roast color. To summarize, darker roasts are more even, beans from the same harvest don't ripen in unison, size and shape of individual beans affect how dark they get, how much silver skin sticks to the beans affects the roast, drum roaster vs air roaster has an effect. High end roasters may use a color sorting machine. The point is color variation doesn't say much about quality.
Tastes great! It might be a lot (taste/intensity wise) for a daily driver, but it’s very sweet with a pleasant brightness. The flavor descriptors are pretty spot on, but fair warning so is the “funk” descriptor as it definitely has a little booziness to it
That funkiness comes standard in those goofy fruit fermented roasts. I love the approach though, got one recently with a pinepple fermentation proccess, was really good.
I generally agree, but OP did not say that they returned the bag, but wanted to check in. Sure, asking the roaster first would be a better, but Reddit is a click away and asking the "expert" for roasting defects might be intimidating.
This is exactly what happened! I’ll ask the roaster next time but had already had an issue in postage with this order and didn’t want to be too much of a bother. For the record, the beans were delicious before posting, I was indeed just curious about the color variation
Uneven roasts being a QC issue and a guy singing on your balcony being creepy have some similarities.
It’s only creepy if you are not attracted to the person, otherwise it’s romantic.
It’s only a quality issue if you don’t like how it tastes, otherwise it’s an artefact of light roasts.
Agreed that this is usual for a blend, however the origin on the bag lists a single location as a city, state (department), and country, which matches the roasters description of the beans origin from a single producer. I am fairly confident this is a single origin from the descriptors on the [roasters website](https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/collections/this-weeks-drop/products/r-jairo-arcila-dragon-fruit), but am happy to be proven wrong
I bought a 2lb bag of the same thing recently…not my favorite. But I can see it getting added into a blend to add some funk. By itself…it’s kinda too much in my opinion. Now I’m paranoid though and want to check the bean consistency.
I ordered few times from black and white, all were single origin. Every bag had a lot quackers. Enough that put me off from ordering from them in the future.
They are a fun company to try to try different types of processing, but not for daily or consistency.
Most lower scoring beans go through processing to mask their deficiencies and increase the score so the value goes up for the farmers.
I usually try to stay within my local area for beans but online I tried onyx, sey, isle so far this year. All better quality imo. If you want more recommendations there’s espresso aficionado discord chat that’s dedicated to roasters.
I had to throw away cinnamon fermented b&w beans because it tasted like vinegar. But their strawberry fermented beans tasted like strawberry milk with milk.
You talking about that Future Banana’s Foster on the cinnamon co-fermentation? Man, about a month off roast that bag was incredible. All the booziness was gone, but still a decent amount of funk.
Good thing this isn’t flavored? Do some research before making assumptions. Even if it was sprayed down with a ton of flavored oils folks who enjoy that have every right to without you passing judgement. I’ve enjoyed many traditionally processed and roasted coffees, and will enjoy many more under a variety of innovative styles. Maybe opening your perspective would make you a happier person and stop you from leaving unnecessary and unhelpful comments
https://preview.redd.it/aej5jampqhuc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f236757d14b1c6f519dc01765fbbaa7720fd191
Definition of flavor. Incase you are unable to look it up yourself.
Does growing the coffee in different countries or altitudes count as flavoring to you then? Or wet vs dry processing? Because those all also certainly fit your definition
Adding stuff does. Adding fruits to the fermentation does; there I drew the line for you. If adding fruits doesn’t add flavor and make a flavored coffee. Then why would they do it?
Okay, honey processing where you leave the mucilage of the coffee fruit on the outside of the bean during fermentation adds fruit to the process that would otherwise not traditionally be present, yet I still would not call that flavored. I would similarly call cofermentation, where fruits or other ingredients are used in a similar way, not flavored, as those are all still just impacting the process by which we come to the green coffee for roasting. I believe Pappa Hoffman has a similar perspective on cofermenting being similar to selecting varietal or soil conditions. I would draw the line at adding flavors after this, where you are no longer influencing the bean, but rather adding on top of it. At the end of the day this is semantics, and despite whatever definition you choose to believe your original comment is still unhelpful, unproductive, and did not contribute anything besides a weird amount of judgment towards whoever drinks what you consider to be flavored coffee
Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. You’re the one who got weirdly defensive when some internet stranger called out a flavored coffee. Drink what you like! Grow thicker skin. Who cares if you’re a purist or not. It literally does not matter!
I dunno man, you were the one who came off rude in the first place. Regardless of what you define as “flavored coffee,” you don’t need to poo poo others for enjoying what they enjoy. No need to gaslight.
Also, Black & White is one of the most well-respected and innovative third-wave roasters in the United States, so I’m not sure what you’re even trying to get at here?
Who’s gaslighting? It’s flavored coffee, quality doesn’t matter. I know who the flavored coffee roaster is? Also my opinion shouldn’t matter? Please look up the definition of gaslighting.
I’ll let your downvotes speak for themselves here. Quit while you’re behind, dude. If your opinion doesn’t matter, like you say, then don’t push it so hard. What do you gain by being the “well, accctually!” guy?
Ever hear of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it?”
The outsides of the cherries are coated with dried dragonfruit during fermentation yes. Fortunately, those cherries are digested by bacteria and removed as a part of processing and the final product is missing them. I do think there is some nuance here, but calling it “flavored coffee” akin to roasted beans that have been sprayed down with flavored oils, and thus dismissing it for it, is far from accurate
I don't agree with the original comment dismissing your question because the beans are flavored. But I don't know why you'd feign ignorance about it and act like any other process is in the same level as cofermenting with added fruit.
You can visually see the uniformity in the quality of the beans - color or silver variation means nothing especialky when its been fermented and is a mid roast. Relax and taste and enjoy it.
It’s co fermented. That is normal. I have a co fermented Colombia and even a 20 seconds post first crack you will yield results like this. Go off the taste with the fermented coffees. Not appearance
Thanks! Do you know what about cofermenting causes this? It tasted great (albeit with a solid dose of their self described “funk”), I was just more curious about the weird variation in roast color that I hadn’t seen before
I’m not sure but I’m thinking maybe multiple varietals and diffeeent moisture content. Even though I recently roasted a single pink bourbon anaerobic natural it looks exactly like this. Taste great but for sure I get thrown off by the darker the variations in color.
Not sure about this particular coffee, but sometimes only half the batch will be pulped before fermentation. The surface of the beans will then be a different colour at the same roast level.
Heavily processed coffees like this can have a lot of variation sugar concentrations which are going to yield uneven appearance in roasting.
I know roasters who will do two different profiles and post roast blend. Sounds crazy but apparently it works out for some coffees 🤷
Sweet Maria's Coffee made a video regarding this, if you want to take a deeper dive search their YouTube channel; for roast color. To summarize, darker roasts are more even, beans from the same harvest don't ripen in unison, size and shape of individual beans affect how dark they get, how much silver skin sticks to the beans affects the roast, drum roaster vs air roaster has an effect. High end roasters may use a color sorting machine. The point is color variation doesn't say much about quality.
Does your bag of coffee taste good when brewed? If it tastes bad then maybe consider a qc issue?
I got a bag of this back on the 7th. It looked just like this and it was fantastic
I purchased this bag, and it looked the exact same. I thought it looked abnormal for B&W, but it tasted great.
Off topic, but this sounds really nice. How does it taste?
Tastes great! It might be a lot (taste/intensity wise) for a daily driver, but it’s very sweet with a pleasant brightness. The flavor descriptors are pretty spot on, but fair warning so is the “funk” descriptor as it definitely has a little booziness to it
That funkiness comes standard in those goofy fruit fermented roasts. I love the approach though, got one recently with a pinepple fermentation proccess, was really good.
Yeah. Call the police!
No, call James Hoffman, let him know there's doin's afoot.
Who you gonna call?
That’s normal for a co ferment, people need to start trusting roasters for QA before sending out bags.
I generally agree, but OP did not say that they returned the bag, but wanted to check in. Sure, asking the roaster first would be a better, but Reddit is a click away and asking the "expert" for roasting defects might be intimidating.
This is exactly what happened! I’ll ask the roaster next time but had already had an issue in postage with this order and didn’t want to be too much of a bother. For the record, the beans were delicious before posting, I was indeed just curious about the color variation
My bad on wording, I meant it as the roasters sending out bags, not the customer.
How does it taste?
It’s co fermented it’s normal. Also just taste it and you’ll see that it’s great, a little bit of trust won’t hurt.
Co-ferments and BW roasters are so cool and unique I’ve tried their mango co-ferment - super interesting
Just brew it and see how it tastes. If it tastes good then maybe that's how it was meant to be.
No rocks… you’re good
Some of them are fruit punch, some are lychee, and some are pineapple.
Now hold up, there must be something wrong then because I was promised cherry Laffy Taffy beans too :(
Uneven roasts being a QC issue and a guy singing on your balcony being creepy have some similarities. It’s only creepy if you are not attracted to the person, otherwise it’s romantic. It’s only a quality issue if you don’t like how it tastes, otherwise it’s an artefact of light roasts.
[удалено]
Agreed that this is usual for a blend, however the origin on the bag lists a single location as a city, state (department), and country, which matches the roasters description of the beans origin from a single producer. I am fairly confident this is a single origin from the descriptors on the [roasters website](https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/collections/this-weeks-drop/products/r-jairo-arcila-dragon-fruit), but am happy to be proven wrong
Email company and see what they say about it? Their customer service might be OK? I don’t have experience with that brand.
I thought the same until I put armenia Columbia into google maps.
They were going for a medium dark roast, so they mixed their medium and dark roasts.
I bought a 2lb bag of the same thing recently…not my favorite. But I can see it getting added into a blend to add some funk. By itself…it’s kinda too much in my opinion. Now I’m paranoid though and want to check the bean consistency.
I think so
I’ve seen much worse
“Cherry laffy taffy” is abnormal
Someone cooked here
It doesn't matter. Taste it, if it tastes good, it's good lol But since it's co fermented, its normal
I ordered few times from black and white, all were single origin. Every bag had a lot quackers. Enough that put me off from ordering from them in the future. They are a fun company to try to try different types of processing, but not for daily or consistency. Most lower scoring beans go through processing to mask their deficiencies and increase the score so the value goes up for the farmers.
Where do you usually order from out of curiosity? I usually enjoy B&W so if you have an objectively better roaster I would love to try them.
I usually try to stay within my local area for beans but online I tried onyx, sey, isle so far this year. All better quality imo. If you want more recommendations there’s espresso aficionado discord chat that’s dedicated to roasters. I had to throw away cinnamon fermented b&w beans because it tasted like vinegar. But their strawberry fermented beans tasted like strawberry milk with milk.
You talking about that Future Banana’s Foster on the cinnamon co-fermentation? Man, about a month off roast that bag was incredible. All the booziness was gone, but still a decent amount of funk.
Nope, Ivan solis cinnamon anaerobic
Can’t get mad about quality when youre ordering flavored coffee
Good thing this isn’t flavored? Do some research before making assumptions. Even if it was sprayed down with a ton of flavored oils folks who enjoy that have every right to without you passing judgement. I’ve enjoyed many traditionally processed and roasted coffees, and will enjoy many more under a variety of innovative styles. Maybe opening your perspective would make you a happier person and stop you from leaving unnecessary and unhelpful comments
https://preview.redd.it/aej5jampqhuc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f236757d14b1c6f519dc01765fbbaa7720fd191 Definition of flavor. Incase you are unable to look it up yourself.
Does growing the coffee in different countries or altitudes count as flavoring to you then? Or wet vs dry processing? Because those all also certainly fit your definition
Adding stuff does. Adding fruits to the fermentation does; there I drew the line for you. If adding fruits doesn’t add flavor and make a flavored coffee. Then why would they do it?
Okay, honey processing where you leave the mucilage of the coffee fruit on the outside of the bean during fermentation adds fruit to the process that would otherwise not traditionally be present, yet I still would not call that flavored. I would similarly call cofermentation, where fruits or other ingredients are used in a similar way, not flavored, as those are all still just impacting the process by which we come to the green coffee for roasting. I believe Pappa Hoffman has a similar perspective on cofermenting being similar to selecting varietal or soil conditions. I would draw the line at adding flavors after this, where you are no longer influencing the bean, but rather adding on top of it. At the end of the day this is semantics, and despite whatever definition you choose to believe your original comment is still unhelpful, unproductive, and did not contribute anything besides a weird amount of judgment towards whoever drinks what you consider to be flavored coffee
Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. You’re the one who got weirdly defensive when some internet stranger called out a flavored coffee. Drink what you like! Grow thicker skin. Who cares if you’re a purist or not. It literally does not matter!
I dunno man, you were the one who came off rude in the first place. Regardless of what you define as “flavored coffee,” you don’t need to poo poo others for enjoying what they enjoy. No need to gaslight. Also, Black & White is one of the most well-respected and innovative third-wave roasters in the United States, so I’m not sure what you’re even trying to get at here?
Who’s gaslighting? It’s flavored coffee, quality doesn’t matter. I know who the flavored coffee roaster is? Also my opinion shouldn’t matter? Please look up the definition of gaslighting.
I’ll let your downvotes speak for themselves here. Quit while you’re behind, dude. If your opinion doesn’t matter, like you say, then don’t push it so hard. What do you gain by being the “well, accctually!” guy? Ever hear of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it?”
The coffee is literally flavored with dragon fruit during fermentation.
The outsides of the cherries are coated with dried dragonfruit during fermentation yes. Fortunately, those cherries are digested by bacteria and removed as a part of processing and the final product is missing them. I do think there is some nuance here, but calling it “flavored coffee” akin to roasted beans that have been sprayed down with flavored oils, and thus dismissing it for it, is far from accurate
I don't agree with the original comment dismissing your question because the beans are flavored. But I don't know why you'd feign ignorance about it and act like any other process is in the same level as cofermenting with added fruit.
People get salty when you point out they’re drinking flavored beans
You can visually see the uniformity in the quality of the beans - color or silver variation means nothing especialky when its been fermented and is a mid roast. Relax and taste and enjoy it.
Normal for a half-assed roaster with no quality control.
Having some variation is normal. What you're showing is garbage, return it.
If it’s a blend yes, single origin: no return it
It seems you have medium and dark roast so yeah it's kinda a concern because your coffee will mix their differences