Yemen Mokha Matari

Beans: Yemen Mokha Matari
Varietal: Yemeni Heirloom
Elevation: 2000-2400 masl
Process: Natural
Retailer: Sweet Maria's
Pre-Roast Weight: 232 grams
Roast Attempt: 47th
Roast Date/Time: September 18, 2021, 1530 CDT

Ethiopia may be the home of the coffee plant, but Yemen is the major reason why the entire world has known what coffee is for half a millennium.  Yemeni coffee remains some of the most interesting on the planet, and I've never had any that wasn't incredible.  The trick with roasting my own, however, is that all Yemeni coffee is naturally processed, and I haven't always had the greatest success with natural coffees doing what I wanted them to do in the roaster.  I set this one at the usual starting settings - 18:00 on the clock, P5 (100% power to the heating elements), manual control - with the goal of roasting it fast for a light roast.

Chamber Temp

16:00 - 141
14:00 - 215
13:00 - 242
12:00 - 264
11:00 - 282
10:00 - 271

Yellowing appeared to happen about 10:45, which seemed positive as it's one of the earlier yellowing times I've had recently.  I increased the drum speed and kept the heat at 100%.

Exhaust Temp

10:00 - 194
9:00 - 275
8:00 - 312
7:00 - 334
6:00 - 348
5:00 - 359
4:00 - 368
3:00 - 375

First crack was notably delayed compared to the majority of roasts I've done - it didn't arrive until 3:45, with the A temp getting to 370.  First cracks certainly vary, but that's one of the hottest; usually it's more like 360-365.  Not surprisingly, one of the last times things looked similar to this was my April roasts of the naturally-processed Bogale Deyaso from Ethiopia.  First crack lasted about a minute, and I sent the roaster into the cooling cycle at 2:45, slowing the drum and opening the door after 90 seconds.

Complete Roast Time: 15:15
Post-Roast Weight: 195 grams
Loss Percentage: 15.9%

And, once again, the loss percentage on a natural looks like a medium-dark, further than I wanted it.  It should be noted that the beans did not LOOK like they roasted especially dark.  Natural coffees seem like they have more mass to lose during the process - more material on the beans, possibly more moisture inside (which might also contribute to first crack taking a little longer if there's more water inside the bean that needs to vaporize) - but even so I hate seeing numbers this high when I was shooting for a light roast!  It's going to be a real question how this comes out, though.  The Bogale Deyaso had a 15.7% loss on the second attempt and while it was still on the cusp of dark, it was still close enough to medium that I was able to fully appreciate it.  This is close enough to that number that hopefully it will end up similar.

Yemen Mokha Matari

These were the beans on Monday morning, a day and a half off roast.  I was pleasantly surprised to note that they clearly had the look and aroma of a light roast, medium-light at the absolute worst.  Any roast to which you can append the word "dark" has that particular bitter roast smell to it, and that was entirely missing when I opened the bag.  And even in this photo I think you can tell pretty clearly that the colors did not get anywhere near being called dark.  I brewed 30 grams of beans (ground to 5/6 medium-coarse) with just over 500 grams of water in the V60 to produce slightly more than 16 ounces of brewed coffee.

TASTING NOTES: Chocolate-covered cherry hits early, no shock from a natural Mokha, but then you find more happening - fragrant incense and spice notes, ground almonds, black tea.  The body is light but not thin; the acidity is distinctly soft and malic, with a bit of tannic dryness.

VERDICT: Against all odds, this was roasted light!  And boy did it come out nice.  The bad news is that makes predicting roast levels based on temperature display on the Behmor potentially even harder, but the good news is I managed to do exactly what I wanted with these beans.  Yemen is one of my favorite origins and not screwing it up on my first try was a good start.

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