The co-fermentation fallacy.

Our Quest for pushing the boundaries of speciality coffee, starts with impact and it is followed by intention.

Over the past years, we have seen coffee competitors, professionals and even media focusing on "fermentation with intention" and "co-fermentation for intense, expressive and funky coffee flavour creation".

In the recent Coffee Intelligence article:  Are infused and co-fermented coffees reshaping consumer expectations?  the focus lies on:

• Flavour creation = Intense, expressive and funky coffee
• Co-fermentation & infused coffee treated interchangeably
• Co-fermentation cannot become mainstream
• Co-fermentation does not facilitate the communication of flavours
• Co-fermentation as a positioning shift
  

All these elements contribute to personal, biased and non-fact based definitions and arguments.

We define the "co-fermentation fallacy" as the idea that biased coffee professionals present co-fermentationis as marketing gimmick, one that masks coffee's true nature rather than enhancing it.

We now, invite the entire coffee industry to experience KAKAW-KAPE. We invite you all to experience:

• Impactful circular coffee processing innovation: Our innovation KAKAW KAPE pushes boundaries from just flavour creation to " impactful circularity & intentional flavour creation". Our purpose is to embrace circularity as a food system designed to eliminate waste & pollution by up-cycling & keeping materials and nutrients in use, rather than discarding them. We started with the pulp of the cacao-fruit discarded as waste in cocoa production, but many more organic materials that are wasteful could be uopcycled and treated to create innovative circular co-fermentation.

•  Our intention is indeed flavour creation but not intense, not funky and not super expressive. If you experience our coffee, you will find something different as traditional co-fermented coffees. You will experience: A  flavour profile that is as clean and complex, resembling the best of a washed coffee, but also sweet, floral & fruity  with a pleasant medium intensity far from bing as funky nor crazily intense as traditional co-ferments.

• Circular & innovative co-fermentation can become mainstream:
  • It is sustainable too begin with and solves some of the most pressing environmental challenges created by the coffee industry, mostly those of unsustainable use of water and toxic waste water contamination created by washed coffee processing.
  • Flavor Development: It can produce complex fruity & floral, clean cups.
  • Higher Value: Co-fermented coffees often command higher prices, allowing producers to increase their income and experiment with new methods.
  • Control: It allows producers to use specific microbial cultures (yeasts/bacteria) to guide the fermentation.

It is not a question of traditional vs co-fermentation, the question rather is can coffee be both circular & deliciously sophisticated? While the industry argues that washed coffees are cleaner, complex and cheaper "by taxing the planet water resources as  for free", "unsustainable use of water and waste toxic water is breaking havoc in the natural world, it crushes the idea of new experimental circular solutions such as a new frontier of coffee. It is time to challenge the convention of "traditional" and embrace "first, impact by protecting nature. Then, flavour creation as intention".

The only thing we can be certain of: Circular co-fermentation innovation offers the industry a chance to expand the boundaries of speciality coffee. Time to embrace change. The truth is in the cup, we invite you to experience our coffee so you can decide yourself whether circular co-fermented coffee is what everyone says it is or it is actually the next coffee frontier.

Lastly, in the Podcast It´s Just coffee: Coffee co-fermented with hopps, the producer Edwin Noreña argues for co-fermentation as a way to empower producers, add value to the coffee and a space for flavour innovation. 

The choice is yours. So what will you choose? 

We are soon opening our e-shop and will be realeasing testimonials from leading coffee brands and coffee professionals so stay tuned.

Coffee greetings to you all!