Robusta, sealed for ninety-six hours.
Robusta grown, fermented and roasted with the care usually reserved for the finest arabica — a 96-hour sealed anaerobic ferment on a Tamil Nadu canephora lot, our first release in what is now a running series.
Tamil Nadu
It is October, and the cherry is ripening on the branch. Picking starts in November.
A typical year for this kind of country. This farm's own dates can run a few weeks either side.
Ammikulavi grows at 1,300–1,400 m in Tamil Nadu — the figure on our lot sheet. Which hill range it belongs to is one detail we are still confirming with the estate, so this page gives the state and the elevation and stops there.
What we can say without guessing: this is the estate behind Obsidian, our first robusta release, and the reason we stopped apologising for the species.
The lot is canephora, sealed and fermented for ninety-six hours before drying, then roasted medium light to hold the fermentation sweetness in place. The body stays syrupy and the finish long, with none of the harshness robusta usually carries: black grape, aged rum and dried fig on filter, molasses and dark cacao as espresso.
“Obsidian is the coffee we hand to a skeptic. Ninety-six hours of sealed fermentation on robusta, roasted with the same care as our finest arabica naturals, produces something closer to aged rum and black grape than anything the word "robusta" usually promises.”
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