Mexico FTO Comunidad Tierra Blanca

Beans: Mexico FTO Comunidad Tierra Blanca
Varietals: Bourbon, Typica, Marsellesa
Elevation: 1500 masl
Process: Washed
Retailer: Sweet Maria's
Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams
Roast Attempt: 49th
Roast Date/Time: September 26, 2021, 1130 CDT

It's hard to believe that it's only been nine months since I first roasted my own coffee at home, but it has - the initial roast was December 22, 2020.  That first roast was a bag of the eight pounds Sweet Maria's includes free with the purchase of a Behmor - Mexico Organic Chiapas Sierra Mariscal.  In my most recent purchase, I decided to look into revisiting Mexico for the first time since then, and the description of these beans sounded quite intriguing.  I was also surprised to note the location - I had been assuming that the coffee-growing areas of Mexico were relatively contained, but this batch comes from western Oaxaca, hundreds of miles from the border with Chiapas.  They also included a varietal I had not heard of before - Marsellesa, which turns out to be a rust-resistant hybrid in the Sarchimor line.  This means it was bred from a cross of Villa Sarchi (a natural Bourbon mutation that sprung up in Central America in the mid-20th century) and the rust-resistant Timor hybrid, an Arabica/Robusta natural cross that appeared on its namesake Indonesian island about a century ago.  Resistance to disease is always good; Robusta genetics not so much, but on the other hand I just had a perfectly good Zambian coffee that was entirely Catimor, so by comparison the amount of Robusta genetics in this one should be pretty small.

This time I remembered to switch to manual control after starting the roaster on the one-pound setting to get 18:00 of time.  I started the heat at P5 as usual, 100% power to the heating element.

Chamber Temperature

16:00 - 131
14:00 - 204
13:00 - 230
12:00 - 251
11:00 - 271
10:00 - 267

The temperature started off cooler than most recent roasts, but given that things have tended to work out I wasn't overly concerned.  The yellowing phase arrived more or less on time at 10:30 (7:30 into the roast) and I increased the drum speed as usual. Shooting for a medium-light roast and hoping that on a cooler day I would have a little more power to work with, I also tried lowering the heat to P4 to see if I could extend the middle phase a little without extending it too much.

Exhaust Temperature

10:00 - 185
9:00 - 266
8:00 - 302
7:00 - 320
6:00 - 334
5:00 - 345
4:00 - 354
3:00 - 361
2:00 - 370

Three minutes after lowering the heat to P4, at 7:30 on the timer, I raised it back to P5.  The B temp had dropped all the way to 240 and the A temp was only around the mid-310s; I just needed it to be a little hotter a little faster.  This was a fairly similar process to what happened with the recent Cameroon roast; the good news is that one came out great.  First crack started at 3:00 and lasted about a minute; with the A temp touching 370 and first crack finishing, I hit cool just after 2:00, slowed the drum, and opened the door after 90 seconds to expedite cooling.

Complete Roast Time: 16:00
Post-Roast Weight: 205 grams
Loss Percentage: 12.8%

That's what you like to see.  In this case, between the loss percentage and looking at the beans, I think we should be in line for a nice light roast, with the flavors of the beans themselves highlighted and no roast bitterness at all.

Mexico FTO Comunidad Tierra Blanca

These were the beans on Wednesday, three days off roast.  The color was overall nice and light, with some variation among the beans.  I ground them to 3/4 coarse and brewed 30 grams with 500 grams of water in the Chemex, producing just under 16 fluid ounces of brewed coffee.

TASTING NOTES: There was a soft malic acidity with hints of apple and peach.  The cup yielded sweet suggestions of nougat and buttery caramel, with a bit of tobacco-like bitterness that I would chalk up to the Sarchimor.

VERDICT: This was definitely a light roast.  A little more time - not even much, 30 seconds max - might have balanced out some of that residual bitterness, but I think you'd risk losing some of those sweet hints to roast flavors then as well.  When in doubt, I always prefer to highlight the origin and the natural quality of the beans over piling on roast notes, even if the origin quality has a few aspects that are marginally less palatable.  Overall, this was definitely a pleasant morning cup of coffee - not in your face with its acidity, sweet, fairly balanced.  Mexico getting it done again!

My next roast will be my 50th effort.  I ordered some more beans because there were a couple of really awesome sounding Ethiopians on the Sweet Maria's site, so I might need to dip into those for the milestone.

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