☕ Craft, creativity, and nitro lactic fermentation
David Solano, Sam Parr, and Kevin Harlan
Welcome Julian, Alex, Sylvester, Ash, and Lee.
This newsletter is about reclaiming time and enjoying the small pleasures of life.
Pour Over Spotlight
Guatemala - Nitro Lactic Fermentation
Nitro Lactic | Light Roast | Guatemala | Red Bourbon
Roasted by Captain + Stoker & Produced by David Solano
Wtf is nitro lactic maceration natural fermentation?
Let’s break it down.
Fermentation
Whenever there’s water and sugar, microorganisms like yeast, bacteria, and fungi want to eat the sugar.
These microorganisms produce byproducts like alcohol and CO2, which create the flavors and textures found in everyday foods like sourdough, yogurt, and soy sauce.
Fermentation is the process of turning sugars into byproducts.
All coffees undergo some sort of fermentation, but in recent years, prolonged fermentations with experimental cultures have led to coffees that taste intensely sweet and fruity.
In The future of coffee…, I introduced an experimental coffee from Black & White Roasters that I described as “anaerobic”.
Anaerobic coffees are coffees that have been fermented in oxygen-deprived tanks and are the umbrella term for the many types of experimental coffees that have come in vogue.
☕☕☕ The future of coffee, pink bourbon, a Kenya apart from the rest
Natural Pink Bourbon by Hidden Grounds Natural | Medium Roast | Colombia | Pink Bourbon | Hidden Grounds I like this coffee because it’s rare. Pink bourbons are a prized variety that’s usually washed, but this coffee’s natural fermentation makes it intensely sweet and pungent, almost like an
Nitro
Low oxygen environments promote fermentation.
When coffee cherries are stored in a sealed tank, microbes rapidly convert the sugars from the coffee fruit into flavor compounds.
Less oxygen means more fermentation, and more fermentation generally means more flavor (or different types of flavor).
To maximize this reaction, farmers may only use cherries that have the most sugar, or even add compounds like nitrogen to further remove oxygen from the fermentation environment; hence, “Nitro”.
Maceration Natural
Maceration Natural is a specific form of anaerobic fermentation in which coffee cherries are not pulped (i.e. their skins are not removed) prior to fermentation.
Most of the time, maceration coffees and anaerobic coffees are the same thing.
Lactic
In food, there are two general types of fermentation:
The sourdough kind: Yeasts consume glucose and produce alcohol and CO2
The yogurt kind: Bacteria consumes lactose and produces lactic acid
This coffee is the yogurt kind.
Lactobacillus is added to the fermentation tank to produce sweet and creamy flavors (like a “mango lassi”) and a cleaner, fruit-forward cup without strong winey notes.
If you want the complexity of an anaerobic coffee without some of the boozy qualities, lactic processing may be a good fit.
Nitro Lactic Maceration Natural Fermentation
This coffee from Captain + Stoker & David Solano is creative.
David ferments the cherries in an oxygen-deprived tank to bring out sweetness, and adds live cultures to mute the booziness that typically comes with anaerobic fermentations.
Alicia from Brooklyn describes the coffee as slightly fruity with a very smooth finish.
If anything, it’s definitely a mouthful.
Podcast Pairing
How to Be The Best At Your Craft
Sam Parr is the founder of The Hustle, which was acquired by HubSpot for ~$27 million.
In the podcast, Sam is asked: “How do you get good at writing?”
The best way to get good is this.
I found people I admired and who were the best in their field. And I would write their work out by hand.
For example there’s a handful of long-form copy writers who were considered the best, so I spent 6 months writing out each word by hand.
Then, I wanted to learn a little bit about writing books, so I took J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and I wrote that out by hand.
If you want to become very good at comedy or script writing, you can take a Judd Apatow script or Woody Allen script, and write it out by hand.
It’s the same way you learn about music.
If you give someone a guitar, in six months they can get really good.
What they do is they play Jingle Bells a bunch of times. And then they go play a Green Day song. And then they play an AC/DC song. And then they understand the patterns between blues and rock.
And then they see the commonalities and they know how to apply their own textures, because they’ve learned the combination between people they admire.
And then they decide they’ll add their own flair to that.
Listen to the rest of the podcast:
Internet Creators 2 - Brains
feat: Sam Parr, Aella, Julian Shapiro, and Courtland Allen
Parting Idea
Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over! It’s all over!
—
Philadelphia’s got the lead! Maxey stole the ball!
In 1965, the Boston Celtics played the Philadelphia Sixers in a Game 7 elimination match for the Eastern Conference Final.
With 5 seconds left, and a 1 point lead, Boston steals the ball.
Announcer Johnny Most infamously shouts:
“Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over! It’s all over!”
Fifty-eight years later, the Celtics and Sixers are once again matched up in the playoffs. With 30 seconds left in the final quarter and a 1 point differential, Philadelphia steals the ball.
Legendary announcer Kevin Harlan shouts:
“Maxey the other way! Slams it down! Philadelphia’s got the lead!
Maxey stole the ball!”
Kevin Harlan’s “Maxey stole the ball” is a deep cut, an ode to Johnny Most’s announcing, and a nod to the story-like reenactment of the same play almost 60 years ago.
…
Does Kevin Harlan think his job is at risk due to algorithms or AI?
I doubt it.
Because craft, consistency, and creativity are the makers of the human condition.
Don’t forget to text your mothers this weekend.
Ira
Thanks Tucker and Iris for reading early drafts.