Anaerobic berry-dried Starmaya – what does it actually mean?

One of the things that makes coffee such an exciting field is that there's always something new to taste and new to learn.

We have now received a batch of coffee from our partners in Brazil, an anaerobic natural-processed Starmaya from the Santuario Sul farm.

Santuario Sul, which means "sanctuary of the south," is a place for innovation and experimentation. Santuario Sul began as a small part of the Irmas Pereira farm but is now its own farm run by Luiz Paulo Pereira. This is as much a testing station as it is a coffee farm. The farm totals 120 hectares, of which 80 are used for coffee cultivation. Here they grow over 30 different species, ranging from traditional Brazilian varieties like yellow Bourbon to exotic species such as Sudan Rume, SL28, Geisha, and, not least, Starmaya.

Starmaya – a new hybrid

Starmaya is a new hybrid that has been developed in Nicaragua over the last 10 years. The most common ways to develop hybrids are by cloning or grafting, but Starmaya is the only F1 hybrid developed via seed, meaning a tree from one species has pollinated a tree of another species. The male plant is a sterile Arabica from Ethiopia; being sterile means it does not produce pollen and therefore cannot self-pollinate. This was planted alongside female-fertile plants of the Marsellesa species (which in turn is a hybrid of Villa Sarchi and Timor). Since the male plant cannot self-pollinate, we know that the cherries on the male trees will be a hybrid of these two species.

The goal of developing and testing this species in Brazil's fertile soil is to offer a coffee with a firmer acidity structure than the traditional species that thrive so well in Brazil, such as Bourbon with its rich, deep sweetness. Not only because such a coffee is good, but also because coffees with a more distinct acidity structure are in demand and usually command a higher price. Unfortunately, climate change also means we need new species in new areas to meet global demand.

Anaerobic means "without oxygen"

At Santuario Sul, they have also focused on innovative processing methods; the coffee batches from here are either natural-processed, fermented, or honey-processed. In 2018, they acquired a fermentation tank, allowing them to experiment with processing. "Regular" natural-processed coffee is a process where coffee cherries are picked, sorted, and laid out to dry with the fruit pulp intact. What happens in the natural processing is that glucose and fructose from the cherry are included, giving us a coffee with great body and high sweetness.

Anaerobic natural processing adds an extra step to the process. Ripe coffee cherries contain a lot of sugar, and, as we know, bacteria love this. By controlling the fermentation, one also controls the type of bacteria that will naturally grow.

Many of us learned about anaerobic and aerobic exercise during PE in school, and we also felt the lactic acid in our calves during the same class. It may not be exactly the same, but much of it applies here too. The coffee cherries are placed in a tank where all oxygen is removed. This causes anaerobic bacteria to consume the sugar in the cherries, and at the same time, they will form lactic acids. This often results in very complex acid structures and flavors reminiscent of tropical fruits like banana and pineapple!

So, simply put, these are Starmaya coffee cherries that are first fermented without oxygen before being laid out to dry.

But as you probably gather from this, many years of research, curiosity, and a desire to develop something exciting for our palates lie behind this coffee.

This coffee is our coffee of the month in May 2024.