2022 EXPOSURES SERIES

EXPOSURES is a collection of unusual, experimental, and off-the-beaten-path coffees curated to illuminate, demystify and delight.

“Koji Supernatural” is a novel processing technique originally developed by Phoenix’s coffee director in collaboration with James Beard-nominated chef Jeremy Umansky of Larder; Higuchi Matsunosuke Shoten Co., a koji producer in Osaka, Japan; and El Vergel in Colombia for Kaapo Paavolainen, Finland's Barista Champion and founder of One Day Coffee, ahead of his presentation at the World Barista Championships in Milan in 2021.

Koji, a strain of mold traditionally used across Japan, China and Asia to produce miso, soy sauce, and sake, produces amino acids and enzymes that break down complex starches into fermentable sugars. By culturing koji on coffee cherry, we are able to enhance its aroma, sweetness, acidity and structure.

The team at El Vergel in Colombia led by Elias and Shady Bayter masterfully executed this process across several iterations as we worked to create a scalable, affordable process that also required no water and limited infrastructure—so that it could be replicated by coffee producers anywhere in the world.

This is a new process and we're excited to be—alongside our friends at Luminous Coffee in Las Vegas who split this lot with us—the first roaster in the United States to offer it after having contributed to its genesis.

THE LOT

This Red & Yellow Caturra is one of the flagship coffees produced at El Vergel, planted in 2016 & 2018 with a quantity of more than 40,000 plants. Farming practices used at El Vergel are based on minimal usage of chemicals—meaning they are used only as needed in unique interventions (rust or severe insect damage).

PROCESS NARRATIVE

Red & yellow Caturra grown using biological methods at 1350 meters; selectively hand-picked and sorted for ripeness; floated; washed in oxygenated water to knock back spoilage organisms; inoculated with MSCO-11 koji starter at a dosage of 1g per kilogram of cherry; fermented in thin layers on shaded raised beds between humidity-regulation layers of plastic in a temperature range of 22-31ºC for 36 hours; dried in shade on raised beds with a maximum temperature of 32ºC for 22 days; stabilized as parchment in GrainPro for 30 days prior to milling.

ROASTING

This coffee was roasted on our Loring S35 to Tonino 124 color, rested for 10 days, and sealed at peak freshness.

PRICE TRANSPARENCY

El Vergel is a vertically-integrated producer and self-exported this coffee. Phoenix paid $7.00 per pound FOB for the 108kg of green coffee we purchased.

WHAT WE TASTE

Candied strawberry, watermelon, rose, complex, long sweet finish

Orders will ship the week of April 11, 2022

THIS COFFEE WAS CREATED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH