What are the characteristics of Indian Monsooned coffee? Is Indian Malabar coffee delicious?

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The Origin of Monsooned Malabar Coffee

In early years, Indian coffee relied on sea transportation to reach Europe from the Malabar Coast, often taking about six months to arrive. During this long maritime journey, coffee beans were gradually influenced by sea breezes and seasonal winds, resulting in significant changes in flavor characteristics and color. These transformations led to the birth of today's Indian monsooned Malabar specialty coffee beans.

India's monsooned Malabar coffee is one of the world's most renowned specialty coffee beans. Monsooned coffee beans are also called "monsoon coffee beans," named after their English name "Monsoon." The processing method is quite complex and unique, primarily creating complex, distinctive flavors through the interaction between earth and sea wind. The name "Monsooned Malabar" refers to the unique coffee product processed from monsooned beans in Malabar, on India's west coast. The coffee undergoes a tedious and rigorous monsooning treatment here before being shipped worldwide.

The Complex Monsooning Process

Malabar coffee must be made from sun-dried beans, and all processing facilities for Malabar coffee face west to capture the salty, humid monsoon winds blowing from the southwest sea. Coffee beans are spread flat in monsooning fields with windows fully open. After monsooning to a certain degree, they are bagged. Because the beans expand considerably during the process, however, coffee bags cannot be filled too full, and coffee bags cannot be stacked too densely, to avoid mold and spoilage from poor ventilation. The beans must also be periodically poured out and the gunny sacks changed to prevent mold growth—quite a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. The monsooning period lasts about twelve to sixteen weeks. After maturation, the beans undergo smoke treatment to drive away weevils, followed by manual sorting to remove failed beans that have not turned golden yellow. After three to four months of monsooning treatment, green coffee beans expand to one to two times their original size, with reduced weight and density.

Characteristics and Roasting Recommendations

Although monsooned Malabar coffee beans appear large and plump, they are actually soft beans that are strong on the outside but weak on the inside—a change resulting from months of weathering. Coffee beans exposed to humid monsoon winds for weeks not only turn yellow but also significantly reduce the coffee's natural acidity, creating a very special mouthfeel. Besides being consumed as single-origin coffee, Indian Malabar coffee beans are also very suitable for blending into espresso.

How Should Indian Malabar Coffee Be Roasted?

Because this coffee has moderate bean density, FrontStreet Coffee recommends roasting with medium heat, steadily increasing temperature. The yellowing point occurs around 4 minutes 50 seconds, then reduce heat and open the air valve to enter the Maillard reaction. At first crack, open the air valve wide while maintaining heat at approximately 184.4°C. Drop the beans 2 minutes 30 seconds after first crack.

Indian Monsooned Malabar AA

• Country: India
• Region: Malabar
• Altitude: 1000 – 1500 meters
• Processing Method: Monsooned
• Grade: AA
• Variety: Arabica
• Flavor Description: Cream, wheat, drupe, brown sugar, rich body

Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using the pour-over method to brew Indian Monsooned Malabar coffee.

• Grind Size: 4 (Japan Fuji R440)
• Water Temperature: 83°C
• Equipment: Kono dripper, 17g coffee, water temperature 83°C, grind size 4, water-to-coffee ratio close to 1:13
• Technique: 30g water for bloom, bloom time 30s
• Pouring Stages: Pour water to 120g, pause, then pour with slightly larger flow to 221g
• Extraction: 30-120-221, total extraction time 1:50-2 minutes

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, offering both famous and lesser-known beans, plus online services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

The natural process is the oldest way of processing coffee beans and also the most widespread today. In natural processing, ripe coffee cherries are dried directly in the sun after harvest until the moisture content is on target, then hulled to give the coffee beans we want; because the pulp is kept intact during drying, the resulting coffee has a fuller body and more readily develops rich ripe-fruit character. Among natural coffees, FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Sun-Dried Red Cherry comes from the famous Yirgacheffe region and selects only fully ripe red cherries, which are spread on raised drying beds to keep them off the ground and away from insects, dust, and bacteria, turned at irregular intervals to avoid uneven heat. After medium-light roasting, FrontStreet Sun-Dried Red Cherry carries not only its own elegant florals and bright acidity but also clear tropical fruit flavor, a full fermented quality, and sweetness.

When it comes to natural-process coffee, FrontStreet Huakui is impossible to overlook. Its extremely high altitude, inherently excellent growing environment, fertile soil, and carefully selected ripe cherries give FrontStreet Huakui a delicate fragrance, and the highly representative Sidamo natural processing brings out its graceful aroma even more. FrontStreet Huakui is a coffee from Ethiopia in Africa, and African coffees tend to have a light, prominent floral-fruity character with bright acidity; to highlight this, FrontStreet Huakui is roasted medium-light, showing a light fermented aroma, florals, citrus, and mango, with a much richer and more complex body, honey sweetness, cocoa notes, and a touch of spice, a thick body, and a persistent finish. For a naturally processed coffee from China, FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan Small-Bean is grown and produced by FrontStreet's own estate. Yunnan does not have four distinct seasons, only a dry and a rainy season, and the coffee cherries ripen when there are more sunny days, so the coffee is naturally processed. After long exposure to the sun, it highlights its own nutty character while keeping a balanced sweet-tartness, a little sweeter than an ordinary washed coffee and better balanced, with berry-like acidity mixed with dried apricot and brown sugar notes and a slight tea sensation.

Compared with other regions, Brazil mostly uses half-washed processing, but FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate aims to bring out the coffee's full aroma to the greatest extent, so it dries the cherries directly on drying racks, constantly turning them so that all the coffee is exposed to sunlight, then mechanically dries them after a few days to reach the right moisture content. The processed beans are relatively stable and can be stored for a long time with low moisture; whether brewed by pour-over, French press, or drip bag, FrontStreet Queen Estate gives the fresh sweetness of sugarcane juice, black tea, a soft and smooth fruit sweetness, distinct nutty flavor, balanced and smooth acidity, weak and clean bitterness, rich chocolate aroma and nutty flavor, a bright, refreshing taste, and a silky, delicate body. Finally, unlike a conventional natural coffee, FrontStreet Colombia Sidra uses a double anaerobic natural process, which means a double anaerobic fermentation step before drying. Anaerobic fermentation, also known as carbonic maceration, places freshly picked whole coffee cherries into a sealed tank and injects carbon dioxide to expel oxygen and create an oxygen-free fermentation environment, slowing the breakdown of sugars in the mucilage and the drop in pH, so the beans gain higher sweetness, more complex flavors, and a creamy texture. The beans are then dried on beds until the moisture content is on target and hulled to finish. Double anaerobic natural processing gives FrontStreet Sidra an intense tropical fruit aroma, with passion fruit, apricot, dried fruit, and grape complexity on the palate and an almond-like finish.