Four new coffees from Yemen

1. Just launched: Matari Mountain Light-Med
   • Not to be missed! Notes: Red grape acidity, sweetly perfumed, syrupy smooth...redolent of Crème brûlée
   • Scored a 93 by CoffeeReview.com / top ~2% of Yemeni coffee 
2. Al Ghayoul Valley Dark: creamy, spicy, bold dark roast for days
3. Haraaz Cooperative™ Yemeni Light, Medium, and Dark
   • A new regional lot from the Haraaz Mountain 
4. Green Coffee: Eight to choose from, including a new product line!

Matari Mountain Light-Med

I basically sit at my desk every day with my feet up, drinking coffee. And that's literally what I'm doing right now, keyboard on my lap, and my right hand on a cup of this headline coffee. It's intense.

Just over a month ago, I was doing the exact same thing, except rather than a keyboard in my lap, it was my jaw. The cup of coffee started normal enough. Water at 200ºF, 3 minute pourover recipe. The beans had arrived the day before, supposedly exceedingly tasty based on the 93 score. But I'm so skeptical of such ratings.

The first sip is the hottest, and doesn't really tell you much. Lots of heat, not a lot of nuance. But two sips later, and my jaw is on my lap. Decision made, buy it all. Just like that, $5000 out the door and a really exciting coffee on the way.

I'm never this impulsive, but when something like this presents itself, you just say yes.

For tasting notes, the coffee immediatly begins with intensity, definitely red grape acidity going on. That builds into a full bodied, rounded elixir of raisins, prune, and more, in a multi-layered but also simple harmony. I'm shaking my head: no flaws! And this complexity of flavors is redolent of Crème brûlée. Normally Yemeni coffees are much lighter in flavors and body, but not this one.

Surprisingly, it's not a showy coffee as you might imagine; rather, it's Yemen but just turned up in intensity. I'm half serious when I say you might find it too intense and too strong.

If you're deeply familiar with Yemeni coffees, when you stumble upon a Matari, the correct response is skepticism, but also hope that maybe, just maybe, you've found one that made the region so famous. You're prepped for quality but prepared for a letdown.

Let's step back in time. In 1922, William Ukers wrote that the Matari region both "commands the highest price" and is "the best". This is the guy that wrote the encyclopedia of coffee that's so good, it's still used today. In fact, that's my 1935 second edition below, which I frequently use as a reference. How is it that nothing better has come along in nearly a century? Anyways, it's a good book.

This is where you gotta work with a supplier that knows what they're doing. You've previously heard mention of the Rayyan Mill. They're excellent folks sourcing excellent coffee. That's great, but Matari coffee is especially hard to procure.

The beans have a genetic defect known as false polyembryony. Basically they make a fake embryo in the coffee cherry, and that results in a hollowed out bean that looks like a shell. In the industry, they're known as shells or elephant ears. If you look closely in any bag of Yemeni coffee you're bound to find a few. Normally they're removed at the mill, but some always sneak through. And it was from those sneaky beans in my bag of coffee that I took the below picture.

Most coffees have this problem with just a small percentage of their beans. It's a nuisance as the shells break easily and don't roast at the same speed as the normal beans. You want a uniform size for a uniform roast. (Peaberry beans are another example of a genetic defect being sorted out.)

Now for the Matari coffee, this genetic defect is WAY worse. Upwards of 25% of the beans can be shells. That's reason enough to stay away from the high altitude good stuff. But if you're diligent, you can source from farmers within Bani Matar that are not having this problem so much. Essentially, do the leg work and be really selective.

As an aside, this raises another important issue. In Yemen, coffee cultivars (or cultivated varietals) have evolved with the land. It's unclear how much of a regions flavor profile results from genetics and how much from terroir or that combination of altitude, soil, sunlight, microclimate, etc. So for this genetic defect, it's unclear if it's good or bad.

We're making great progress, but there's one final reason why this lot is so special. If you've been with us for a while, you'll recall that we also carried a Matari during the winter of 17/18. But it wasn't nearly as good! It was regular as oppose to "Reserve" quality. What's going on?? Something really fortuitous happened. Can you guess what it is?

If you know your wine vintages, you know that Bordeaux 1961 is legendary. That is your hint.

This coffee is no 1961. But climate conditions from year to year matter. And for Bani Matar in general, it seems that quality is directly tied to...rainfall! That's the answer.

This coffee "vintage", i.e. most recent crop year, had just the right amount of rainfall. And if you want to look into the future, it's already here. Rainfall in Bani Mattar this summer was not so good. The crop literally maturing on the tree right now—not yet harvested!—is almost definitely not as mind bending.

The Rayyan Mill and their general manager, Andrew, who sourced the coffee, gave me a hot tip: one of their customers, the Baba Java Roaster and Cafe, had too much Matari and here was my chance to snag some.

To sweeten the deal, Baba Java Roaster had previously had the Matari graded by the coffee nerds at the very reputable and niche CoffeeReview.com website. That's a whole other discussion, but know that the 93 score this Matari garnered is really high. Specialty coffee is anything scored above 80, and to break into the 90s you're looking at maybe 1% of specialty coffee. The crème of the crème brûlée.

And that is what makes this coffee even more interesting. What does a fancy one taste like? I'm always super skeptical of such rankings, but for this one I'm in agreement. Here is the CoffeeReview.com description:

Blind Assessment: Very sweet, richly perfumed, wood-framed. Pipe-tobacco, lychee fruit, spice box, freesia-like flowers, amber and musk in aroma and cup. Richly, densely composed structure, crisply tart acidity. Impressively syrupy-smooth mouthfeel. The finish consolidates pleasantly into a slightly drying though rich-toned, spicy tobacco.

Read the whole review here: https://www.coffeereview.com/review/yemen-matari/

You've been a great audience.
—Anda
(Owner, Al Mokha)
PS: Want a dark roast? Get the Al Ghayoul Valley Dark, also from the Rayyan Mill!