Pacamara Coffee Bean Roasting Recommendations | Pacamara Variety Analysis | Pacamara Coffee Bean Pricing

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Understanding Pacamara Coffee Bean Roasting

Many roaster friends still have many questions about roasting Pacamara. When we roast and cup samples, we deeply understand that presenting its best flavors requires certain techniques and experience. To help our roaster friends understand the Pacamara variety and develop suitable roasting plans to better present the optimal flavors of Pacamara coffee beans, our editor has specially selected a chapter about Pacamara from Mr. Sasa's book "Coffee Man" to share with readers.

How to Roast Pacamara Coffee Beans

"When roasting Pacamara, we need to pay close attention to the bean's density, moisture content, shape, and size, as these factors affect how each coffee bean receives heat. For example, denser beans can retain heat more effectively, while during the roasting process, beans with larger surface areas absorb heat differently than those with smaller surface areas.

During the roasting process of Pacamara coffee beans, we found that in the middle stage, they behave similarly to low-density coffee beans; however, in the final stage, the way the beans maintain temperature resembles that of high-density coffee beans. As a roaster, being unable to properly control each stage of roasting and make the beans behave as you want can be very frustrating. At this point, you need to make a compromise in your roasting approach.

I spent several weeks studying Pacamara roasting plans and began observing various minute details during roasting. I discovered that at different stages of the roasting process, the beans consistently showed uneven coloring—some golden yellow, others brown.

I used a small wooden sieve to screen the green beans. After analyzing the screened coffee beans, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: coffee beans from the same bag showed completely different particle sizes after screening. 21% of the beans were size 18 mesh or smaller, round in shape, with 11.7% moisture content and 680g/ml density; 33% of the beans were size 20 mesh or larger, with moisture content actually below 11.1%, oval in shape, with 660g/ml density; the remaining 45% of Pacamara beans were between 19-20 mesh, with moisture content slightly below 11.5% and density of 672g/ml.

The Origins and Characteristics of Pacamara

In addition to understanding these special circumstances, we must also understand what kind of coffee variety Pacamara is. It is a new variety formed by grafting the Pacas variety with the Maragogype (elephant bean) variety. These two coffee trees have completely different root systems, leaves, and node structures, so their fruits also present completely different flavors. I personally prefer the multiple flavors and mouthfeel presented by high-quality Maragogype, with its prominent lychee flavor.

Pacas is a high-quality coffee variety. Its small tree size is an advantage, meaning it won't be affected by wind speed; at the same time, it has a very solid root system structure and is more disease-resistant compared to Maragogype. From the farmer's perspective, grafting these two tree varieties together can create more attractive new varieties. The Pacamara variety is widely grown in Central and South America, especially in the El Salvador region.

The Roasting Challenge and Solution

When we roast single-tree variety coffee beans, beans from the same tree have similar shapes and sizes. The screening results of Pacamara explain why roasting Pacamara is a challenge for roasters. Although it's also a single variety, because this variety is formed by grafting different tree varieties, the grown coffee beans have different structural characteristics.

These results show that although growing on the same tree, some coffee beans inherit genes from the female parent tree, while others inherit genes from the male parent tree, and some even inherit genes from both parent trees. This is completely different from inheriting only female or male parent tree genes.

For example, round, high-density 18-mesh coffee beans absorb, retain, and release heat completely differently during roasting compared to oval 20-mesh beans. After screening the beans, we roasted these three sizes separately and recorded their roasting curves to find the most suitable approach. Then, we roasted them separately and blended them together before cupping. Finally, we found that the same coffee's cupping score was 83-85 points before screening, but after screening, separate roasting, and blending, the cupping score could increase to 87.5 points.

During roasting, when coffee beans reach a certain temperature, sugar browning (Maillard reaction) occurs, and this stage is also the flavor development phase for coffee beans. During the roasting process of these three different sizes of coffee beans, I compared and discovered the key to the problem: 20-mesh coffee beans reach the sugar browning stage relatively earlier than other sizes, which means these beans will have too long a roasting time before leaving the roaster, leading to over-development that damages the coffee's cleanliness, sweetness, organic flavors, and aroma.

Meanwhile, 18-mesh coffee beans have higher density and smaller surface area, needing more time to reach sugar browning. If the roasting time from this moment until the beans leave the roaster is insufficient, it will lead to underdeveloped coffee bean flavors, unable to maximally present their expected flavor characteristics.

Therefore, when roasting Pacamara, without screening, you'll encounter quality control issues similar to roasting blended green beans. This means our roasting plan cannot fully meet the roasting requirements of the coffee beans. For Pacamara roasting, we now have two choices: first, determine the mesh size of the majority of coffee beans and choose a roasting plan suitable for that mesh size, but even this roasting plan is not perfect. As for the second choice, it's to screen and roast different mesh sizes separately.

Through such screening and separate roasting of different-sized coffee beans, you can roast coffee beans with stable flavors without needing any compromise approaches. At this point, the only 'trouble' you need to face is that you need more time to sieve the beans."

—By Angus Mackie

Australian ONA COFFEE Roaster

ONA COFFEE Chief Trainer and Partner, Australia

2018 Australian Barista Championship Third Place

Pacamara Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted Pacamara coffee beans offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high value-for-money—a half-pound (227 grams) package costs only about 118 yuan. Calculating at 15 grams per cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 7 yuan. Compared to coffee shops selling cups for dozens of yuan each, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

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