The Fermentation Project: Brio x James Hoffmann

One coffee, four fermentation methods — you're about to embark on a wild and wonderful world of coffee processing with thousands of your coffee friends. 

We're so glad you're here! Brio Coffeeworks is thrilled to participate in The Fermentation Project in partnership with James Hoffmann and Lucia Solis. Following in the footsteps of The Decaf Project last year, we have an exciting and unprecedented opportunity for coffee fans around the world to join together to explore the unique impact of fermentation processing methods on a single, exceptional coffee lot. We're showcasing four distinct processes on a coffee grown at Guatemala's Finca San Miguel Urias, owned by Hector and Lilian Leal. 

This project was designed as an educational tool to talk about the power and limitations of controlled fermentation. It's an opportunity to create conversations around the role of processing beyond creating intense flavors associated with co-ferments or extreme processing.

What Makes this Project So Special?

• Four Processes, One Coffee: An unprecedented access to explore the nuances of each fermentation method.

• Coffee with a Story: Sourced from the highlands of Guatemala at Finca San Miguel Urias, and owned by Hector and Lilian Leal.

• An Additional Tasting Experience: You can taste these coffees along with James and the global coffee community online on Saturday, October 3rd, 10AM EST.

• Complete your experience with a one-of-a-kind artist tee created exclusively for this project by Matt deForest Jenkins (coming soon).

The Tasting Box Set

Each Box Set will include four 60-gram bags of whole bean coffee processed in four different ways:

Check out this video where James explains the fermentation methods in more detail.

And here's some more from Lucia and her team on each method in the Box Set: 

"Using the same starting material, we created 4 different versions of the coffee to illustrate the effect of fermentation and processing on the same coffee. When people taste “fermented” coffees, they rarely get to taste the un-fermented version for comparison.

All the coffees started as washed coffees (Mechanically Demucilaged coffee; no fermentation). Cherry arrives, gets floated, pulped, and put into fermentation tanks submerged in water. All with approximately 48hr fermentations, then "washed" or rinsed, and sent to the patios where it is dried between 10-14 days with intermittent shade use to control temperatures."