Chapter 7

Quality assessment

Quality assessment/improvement

Myanmar in 2003/2004 had a total production area of 35,485 acres with 15,351 acres in production of which 3380 MT was green bean. In the past five years the government has strongly promoted planting of Arabica coffee, and plantings of both smallholders and larger plantations is expanding.

Northern Myanmar (Shan States, Mandalay Division, Chin State, Kachin State, Kayin State, Bogo Division, Rakhine State, Mon State) has the potential to produce large quantities of high quality Arabica coffee by virtue of its high, good quality, red soil plateaus and other suitable soils, at elevations above 3300 ft (1000 m), with a well-distributed rainfall of 59 to 79 inches (1500 to 2500 mm) and a distinctive, essential dry season.

For farmers in remote areas, Arabica coffee when well-cared for, gives good incomes, and because the coffee is largely non-perishable and robust, it transports easily without damage. Coffee in Myanmar is also planted on sloping land with terraces or grass strips and contour planting, and when grown under shade is sustainable over long periods, even with low inputs. Some of the earliest plantings of S 795 Arabica coffee in Myanmar grown under Grevillea robusta shade trees, are still capable of producing reasonable yields, with low inputs after 75 years.

The Government is strongly supporting private investment in coffee, and if the correct varieties are planted at altitudes of 3300 ft (1000 m) and higher, and managed and processed correctly, Myanmar should be able to produce high quality Arabica coffee.

Currently, most small-holder Arabica coffee is processed as natural dried cherry. At sale, dry cherry is roughly hulled and cup quality is far from ideal. Plantations of Myanmar Farm Enterprises (MFE) and two private groups at present are the only ones doing full-wash processing.

Many of the expanded plantings of recent years are about to come into significant production in 2005/2006, and farmers must decide which way these larger volumes of coffee will be processed. Some are already doing a full-wash process, but setting up of fermentation facilities and tanks is expensive and is very wasteful of water. At least 2.5 gals (10 L) of water are used to process 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of ripe cherry that is hulled, fermented and washed before drying.

Sample huller (centre) and moisture meters (bottom)

Semi-wash pulper/demucilager units are available (see Chapter 6). These machines, especially the Vietnamese VINACAFE pulper/demucilager units are inexpensive, portable and use very little water - less than 1 pt/2.2lbs (0.5 L/kg) of fresh cherry. The coffee produced by these machines is excellent and of equal or superior quality with better body to that of full-wash coffee. Semi-wash or demucilaged coffees produce consistently good quality as poorly controlled ferments that produce off-flavours are avoided.

Sample grading screens

Coffee maker (top). Kett moisture meter (above). Setting up the table for tasting and evaluating coffee (right)

The FAO coffee project has been particularly timely in emphasising the need to focus carefully on varieties, location/environment (especially altitude), production, harvesting, handling and new processing practices to produce high quality coffee. Side-bars show some photos of the processing equipment supplied by FAO. The FAO project provided CRIETC with a fully equipped coffee laboratory for testing and physical assessment of green bean samples, including hullers, a Probat sample roaster, grading screens, Santos grinder, drying ovens, pH/conductivity meter, espresso machine etc., and fully equipped wet processing (pulpers and pulper/demucilagers) and dry processing (1 MT/hr hulling, cleaning, grading, and gravimetric table) facilities. The project also provided the lab/office facility, a wet processing area with concrete drying patios, shed and storage for parchment or green bean and a meteorological station.

With these facilities, CRIETC is ideally placed to support all technical issues and give advice if needed for the emerging high quality Arabica industry.

Quality evaluation process

In an effort to standardize the process of evaluating the cup quality of coffee samples, the project chose to use the quality evaluation process described in the Coffee Cuppers Handbook by Ted Lingle (Third edition, 2001) and published by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).

The SCAA approach is a systematic, sensory evaluation process of a coffee. The process is divided into five evaluation steps with each step scoring from 1 to 10 points. A sixth step is added to give the coffee a Cupper's Point or Balance score from -5 to +5. For convenience, 50 points is then added to the resulting score to give a score out of 100.

Six step SCAA evaluation process

As a guideline, this SCAA scoring system should correlate to the SCAA Green Coffee Classification Chart where:

• Class 1 Specialty Grade should receive 90 to 100+ points
• Class 2 Premium Grade should receive 80 to 89 points
• Class 3 Exchange Grade should receive 70 to 79 points
• Class 4 Below Standard Grade should receive 60 to 69 points

• Class 5 Off Grade should receive 50 to 59 points

Grinding coffee

Cup quality evaluation of Myanmar coffees

Project specialists have thoroughly trained CRIETC staff in cupping as well as natural, full-wash and semi-wash processing methods and all dry processing and sampling/moisture testing methods.

The project processed a range of Arabica and Catimor varieties from various altitudes, in a standard way and sent samples to international and local buyers and roasters for assessment. The coffee samples were collected as ripe cherry from farmers and processed at CRIETC using a full-wash, wet process. Samples selected for assessment by buyers/roasters, were first assessed by FAO International consultants and CRIETC staff.

Forty-six coffee samples were produced during 2003/04 season and 61 samples during 2004/05. It was not feasible to have all samples internationally tested, so a random selection of coffee (processed using the standard full-wash) from a range of regions and varieties was selected for international evaluation. Ten samples from the 2003/04 production were tasted by CRIETC staff and international consultants. These samples were of very good quality, but unfortunately were damaged during storage and could not be assessed overseas due to off-flavours. The table on page 56 shows the results of CRIETC evaluations before damage to samples.

Seven samples from the 2004/05 production were evaluated by international coffee buyers and experts. The selected samples represented coffee from high altitude 4200 to 4600 ft (1300 to 1400 m), medium altitude 3200 to 3600 ft (1000 to 1100 m) and lower altitude 2600 ft (800 m). The table on page 55 shows the international evaluation results.

The main purpose of international cup evaluations was to determine if the CRIETC cupping lab findings correlated with international findings. International cup evaluations gave some general values to the various coffees in relation to the New York 'C' for Arabica and comments on general quality and processing, as these coffees are virtually unknown outside Myanmar. All International evaluators used their own commercial terms to describe coffees tested, which made it more difficult to get specific correlations with the CRIETC lab. CRIETC cupping lab results were the combined results of group cupping sessions held with international consultants and key CRIETC staff.

Sample roaster (top) and making expresso (bottom photograph)

Coffee roasting chart

Conclusions for the cupping results from the CRIETC lab were that:

• the CRIETC lab is proficient at recognizing taints and off-flavours, and personnel understand minimal international quality requirements for a clean coffee.

• detection of clean coffee attributes such as acidity and body between CRIETC lab and international evaluations correlated reasonably well.

• CRIETC lab gave higher scores for acidity where international testers rated all coffee samples as quite low on a world coffee acidity scale.

• international tasters indicate that some coffees approach Specialty grading while others are already at a Premium grading of SCAA.

• character can be a relative term in coffee tasting with various complex flavours developed by unique processes. This often results in very different interpretations, particularly when cup tasters have a commercial interest rather than a purely technical interest in the coffee. Thus dirty or earthy aromas and flavours to one buyer, can be considered as complex, interesting and very desirable to another.

• there was generally firm agreement among the international buyers of what they considered the best and the least desirable coffees.

Myanmar international coffee tasting assesments 2004/2005

* indicates 3 samples (B, D, G) from the same source of coffee (Pwedaung S 795) under the same process but with different drying times 12, 20, 30 days.

+ indicates coffee not processed by CRIETC. The outside processing was not well-controlled.

Score is the agreed consensus of CRIETC lab with FAO international consultants using the SCAA coffee quality evaluation system.

CRIETC evaluations with international consultants