Burundi Mutambu Hill Anaerobic One Roast
Burundi Mutambu Hill Anaerobic
You know when people are so good that you don’t even notice them? Burundi Mutambu Hill Anaerobic is the coffee version of our analogy. One has to work at making this taste like an anaerobic, if that is what you like. You have the body and sweetness of a natural, and most people wouldn’t know it was anaerobic until you made espresso from it.
Top Trumps
Mill: Mutambu Hill
Area: Bujumbura, Burundi
Varietal: Red Bourbon
Process: Anaerobic Natural.
Soil: Sandy, Loam, Clay
Average farm size: 1-5 Acres
Average Farms per lot: 500-2000.
Roast: One Roast
Filter Brewing:
|Aromatics: Fruit Tea |Body: Creamy| Acidity: Cherry, Plum, Pineapple|
On opening Mutambu Hill Anaerobic is high in fruit sugars with a rich and creamy body. Unlike most anaerobic coffees, this is ripe, like a naturally processed coffee and clean.
The opening acidity sits somewhere between tart cherries and cooked plum, with a boozy, lingering finish. As the cup settles, I can hardly stop myself from drinking this. The acidity is soft like pineapple and rum. The finish gives the slightest hint of an anaerobic process away, but it is subtle. On cooling, the liquor sobers up and becomes simpler, with an extended limey finish.
Filter Recipe: 60-65g per litre
Espresso: This coffee was set up at 94C
We used the most basic grinder in the roastery, with standard burrs: Anfim Lunar and a 7-year-old La Marzocco PB (with over 100,000 shots on the clock). We had to take the grinder very close to its finest setting.
This is not an easy coffee to brew in espresso.
Recipe for milk-based drinks. 17.5g-18g of coffee into 34g-36g of espresso. 30 seconds
8-9oz Milk-based drink: Sweet, chocolate and banana milkshake
5-6oz Milk-based drink: Creamy, chocolate
Espresso Recipe:
17-18g into 45-50 g of espresso liquid, extracted in 30-35 seconds. Finally, the anaerobic process shows up. You know that flavour that sits between one you can’t quite decide whether you love or not? Is it Umami and cacao or a background flavour that’s just too dominant? It’s there in the foreground, mingled with lime and stonefruit. We deliberately didn’t brew this hotter than usual to extract more, as that alienates many people who brew coffee at home.
Let us know what you think.
Farm Stuff
Mutambu Hill is a washing station founded and run by Migoti. In Burundi, there are laws about moving coffee cherries after they have been harvested. This results in coffee being processed at many small washing stations close to where the coffee is harvested. This isn’t all bad for coffee quality.
Many smallholder farmers bring their freshly picked coffee cherries to Mutambu Hill and are paid above market rates.
Natural processed coffees are less appealing to producers. Why? This is for various reasons. You have greater losses. Approximately half of the total weight of your coffee is waste. Secondly, at the time you need it most, your drying beds are full for twice as long, with naturals. You can look at it this way, or the fact that your yield is halved by drying natural processed coffees. The risk is also higher than with washed coffees. More can go wrong.
Let us know how you’re brewing here