12on the shelf
Natural process coffee beans, dried in the cherry for berry sweetness and a heavier body, lovely as pour over, AeroPress or a fruity espresso. Roasted to order in New Delhi from named Indian estates. In stock now: RATNAGIRI NATURAL CUT (caramel-sweet, fruity), MOSS THEORY (floral, fruity) and RED LANTERN (chocolate, fruit, nut). Whole bean or ground for your brewer, roast date on every bag, free shipping across India.
How to brew natural process coffee
In a natural, the cherry dries whole with the fruit still on the seed, and only then gets hulled. Sugars from the pulp migrate inwards during drying, so the cup comes out heavier, sweeter and fruitier than the same variety washed: berry, jam, sometimes a fermented depth underneath. It is also the harder process to get right. Badly dried naturals taste of overripe fruit and vinegar, which is why the ones worth buying are traceable to a named estate and a known drying method.
Brew naturals a touch cooler than washed lots, around 91 to 93C, and slightly coarser. They are already high in soluble sugars and it is easy to push them past pleasant into cloying. Give them a longer rest as well, twelve days or more from the roast date, because the fruit-forward volatiles keep developing after roasting and a very fresh natural can taste boozy rather than sweet.
Most of these are single-estate lots; the regions behind them are mapped in Indian coffee estates.
