The Ex-Files | Scary Physical Defects Ep. 6

Episode Summary
Mark and Todd dive into the world of coffee defects, drawing parallels between scary physical defects in green coffee grading and classic horror films. They explore various defects such as full black, sour, and fungus damage, while pairing each with a horror movie, a blend of coffee expertise and a little Halloween fun.

 

Episode Notes

• Full black defect is likened to 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon'.
• Sour defect is compared to Stephen King's 'Christine'.
• Fungus damage is paired with the movie 'Annihilation'.
• Foreign matter in coffee is humorously linked to 'The Last Werewolf in London'.
• Insect damage is associated with 'The Fly'.
• Partial black defect is humorously tied to 'Beetlejuice'.
• Withered beans are compared to 'The Mummy'.
• Shell defect is likened to 'The Exorcist'.
• Parchment defect is humorously linked to 'Children of the Corn'.
• Floaters are humorously associated with 'Altered States'.

MIKE FERGUSON: Welcome to The Ex-Files, podcast from the past with Mark Inman and Todd Mackey. Down the stairs, around the corner, down the long hall and through the double doors, you'll find the archives for the Exchange Coffee podcast. Episodes from 2018 and 2019, before we had a studio.

We're going back through the archives and improving the sound quality where we can, re-recording introductions and merging two-part episodes into a single episode. This is episode six of The Ex-Files and the topic, just in time for Halloween, is scary physical defects in green coffee grading from episodes 23 and 24 originally recorded in 2019 before we had a studio and recorded in person where I can slap Mark and Todd if they touch their microphones. I would suggest a drinking game where you take a drink every time you hear one of them touch or bump or do something they shouldn't be doing with their microphone but I'm afraid you'd be drunk before the end of the episode. Perhaps I'm exaggerating. But in any case now, here they are, Mark and Todd.

 

TODD MACKEY:  Let's get into our spooky scary defects Halloween special and you’ve graciously offered to pair each of the physics physical defects, so we’re focusing on physical defects in green grading.

 

MARK INMAN: Yeah.

 

TODD: But you’ve offered to pair with scary films from across film history. So thank you in advance.

 

MARK: Yeah.

 

TODD: And I cannot hear you've come up with.

 

MARK: And this is in line with our new sponsor Blockbuster Video who is a proud sponsor of The Exchange. All of these movies that we will talk about today can be found at your local Blockbuster. Mention Todd/Mark and you'll get 20 off a scary movie. Right? Did we get a sponsor? Yeah. No, we didn't get a sponsor.

TODD: I hope there's a Blockbuster Video somewhere. I mean, I understand that there’s like a location left somewhere in Alaska, but who knows?

 

MARK: Well, if you are in Alaska, mention Todd and Mark for 10 % off.

 

TODD: Go get ‘em. It's drastically reduced in 30 seconds.

 

MARK: Oh, that's right. I said 20 earlier. Sorry, 20 % off.

 

TODD: You gotta know it, you gotta book with Mark right away.

 

MARK: Right away. Shifting, shifting deals.

 

TODD: Awesome. Well, like I said we are going to focus on green physical defects.

 

MARK: Right, last year was taste defects.

 

TODD: And by no stretch are we gonna forego correlating some physical defects with potential cup outcomes. But we wanted to essentially go through the SCA washed Arabica green coffee defect guide. Just as a discussion starter for what you might see in a green coffee sample as you are evaluating and considering a use, a placement and or purchase. Important thing to talk at the gate of course, is what is a standard sample size. So to just take a moment, we're again, talking strictly through the lens of SCA sampling procedure, which calls for a 350 gram sample. It's important to note that all of these defects that we're going to talk about are recognized and classified according to not only SCA standard, but also the Green Coffee Association of New York, and international bodies, such as the Columbia Coffee Federation, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, so on and so forth. They may be classified differently in terms of the national grades for export. But they're going to be recognized and of course, the causes and in terms of where they're coming from and their origin are very, very similar. So just keep that in mind as we go through. Again, the important place to start that 350 grams of green coffee. From here, we break down the green physical defects into two types according to the SCA standard and this is Category One and Category Two, also often detailed as primary or secondary.

Now we'll start with the scariest of defects, which are the primary defects, of course. And to kick us off, we are going to start with the full black defect. What are we talking about when we talk about a Hollywood film, scary film for the full black defect?

 

MARK: Well, when I think of a full black defect, I'm thinking of the kind of murky, musty, kind of swampy flavors that you can get in a full black defect. And nothing captures that more than the 1954 black and white 3D monster movie, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

 

TODD: You’re so good at this.

 

MARK: Which 3d black and white to me is a real amazing feat I don't know how they pulled it off, but it was a 3D movie back in 1954.

 

TODD: Yeah, I mean how did they I don't have a clue. It's like a different technology, the different type of glasses you would’ve used. I mean you were, of age.

 

MARK: Yeah, I was in high school then, sure. No, Todd, I was not even born yet. I don't think my parents, my parents were born, but yeah, no, I don't know how they did it. But anyways, that it fits the taste defect perfect. It was one of the easiest ones to match up here.

 

TODD: Most definitely. And the full black defect, very easy to physically identify, you know, as our, our co-worker and friend Rob Stephen who had a hand in writing this, he’s a classification guy, always says, “black is black.” And when you are grading a sample, you can quite literally ask yourself, is this seed, is this coffee bean black? Is it yellow? Is it brown? Is it red? If it's anything other than black, it is not a full black. And the reason to be cautious here, is that a full black is a one-to-one full equivalent primary defect. Meaning that if you find one full black bean you have disqualified, the coffee for SCA’s specialty grade. The reason being, as Mark aptly pointed out, this is a big threat to cup quality, musty flavors, over fermented flavors, all sorts of potential mold characteristics have a strong correlation to the phenol cup defect, which of course is never pleasant, that sort of pool water taste. This is something that most typically will occur when coffee is left to over ferment in the cherry on the trees. It's an agricultural issue, of course, the blackening does come from the fermented pigment, you know, with the effect of microorganisms and high moisture and sugar content on the tree, but you know this also beyond just the risk in the cup it also an aqua toxin risk which, take it or leave it right, is something real and something to look out for. It's full black one-to-one primary defect, a total disqualifier. But, much like the full black, we have what's called the full sour. Now full sour potentially, most likely, those other beans that you might thought were black, the yellow, red, orange-colored seeds, fully covered through and through. Often new graders will see a discoloration in the silver skin on the outside of the seed, you know, in specific for honey coffee or naturally processed coffee. The cheat here when you're grading the sample is to just turn that bean over, rub it on your grading mat, sheet of paper or whatever, or on a table, what have you, use your fingernail. And if that color is coming off, that's just the color of the silver skin and that's of course not the sour defect. Additionally, a good way to detect sour is that often the embryo of the seed has turned and/or fallen out. And so at the very top rounded back of the seed, opposite the center cut, you would have the embryo or what would become the shoot for the new plant.

And souring would essentially happen as this has gone off and fallen out or is soon to be. So, look for that discoloration at the top. You know usually, when we see this partially we actually see it on that side and around that piece as well. Partial sour, where do you put us in terms of a scary movie for this one, Mark?

 

MARK: No, this is a full sour not partial sour.

 

TODD: Oh, sorry, full sour. Excuse me, we'll get there, we’ll get there.

 

MARK: Well, so this one, where I get this is the 1983 Stephen King thriller, Christine. The character Arnie as he became bonded with Christine the car just became a sour individual and not pleasant to be around so Yes, 1983 Stephen King classic Christine.

 

TODD: He wasn't just wasn’t pleasant.

 

MARK: He wasn’t. Yeah, even though his best friend, was really sour.

TODD: What a mean guy. Well, sour we look out for not only for the color or the variation but of course, the stinker cup, the over fermented cup, acidic acid or vinegar. These are traits that the sour physical defect will lean towards. These are also an issue from ripe cherries or overripe cherries, I should say. These can also be issues presented during processing, wet processing specifically due to overfermentations. Definitely one to look out for and again into one full equivalent primary defect. And again it is a one-to-one  full equivalent. The full sour, if you find one in a 350 sample would disqualify it for SCA’s specialty coffee grade.

Moving on, we have the unicorn of defects and that is not because it's not a lovable mystical creature, it's because it is very unlikely at least in consuming countries to be found this is fungus damage. What movie associating fungus with?

 

MARK: Well, this was a tough one because it you know, you think about fungus as a horror medium, there's not a lot that leaps to mind. But I did some digging with my research team here and we found a fantastic movie the 2018 horror movie called Annihilation and there's a death, there's a mutant fungus that's killing people and there is a horrific death scene in a pool where a fungus has wiped out a man he's like half there recognizable and half fungus. Well worth seeing, you could YouTube clip just that scene alone and get the idea of it. But it does fit the look and feel the appearance of the same beings that are fungal damaged in coffee. So the 2018 thriller, Annihilation.

 

TODD: And I have to imagine, with 2018, this must be a gruesome scene.

 

MARK: Oh yeah, it's great. It's wonderful.

 

TODD: Oh man, fungus damage. So again, the unicorn of defects here, because we typically don't see it, the reason being fungus is one of the only physical defects that will spread not only within a sample, but within inventory. So if you do find fungus, look out. The way you can tell that you're looking at fungus, you might find colors similar to sour, maybe some white mildew associated with it. Real defective characteristic of fungus is that there is a growth on the seed itself. Meaning, you know, it's raised, it looked pretty angry. This of course comes from poor storage conditions. Cup qualities are disgusting.

Fermentation, musty, moldy, phenolic, just everything you do not want in a nice coffee. And again if and when you stumble across this take action to separate the coffee that you're finding it within it can under poor conditions spread to nearby materials so, fungus....

 

MARK: Yes, have you come across that a lot in copying Todd?

 

TODD: Truthfully, no, and I would never call it, you know, obviously on the cupping side, you might find it manifesting as phenol or mold or mildew. And most likely to see, you're most likely to see, unfortunately, I don't mean to, an origin for, you know, telling people they will find it because of course never true, but the places you'd be most likely to see are Indonesian coffees, in particular wet-hulled coffees for how the trade and the value chain is exchanging coffee and the high moisture that spends a significant amount of time within. So yeah, the times that I’ve come across this and been able to physically bring it with me to the lab to teach with  has been when I’ve taken mill floor sweepings and and then graded them out. Totally non-romantic unless you're really into coffee quality and understanding kind of the processes organically that are going to go on when coffee is degrading. But yeah, otherwise it’s really unusual. I mean, you just don't see it. It just doesn’t come up because the coffee has to be at a pretty extreme moisture for an unusual amount of time. And people who are taking care of coffee, owning coffee, trading coffee, milling, they do a great job. And this is often avoided for how serious it is. If you do stumble upon it and that's not your coffee, keep your distance because that is not something you want to fool around with.

One to one is a full primary or category one defect. One being in a 350g sample. Although it's unlikely you'd find just one with this particular defect. Because of it’s spreading organic, living nature. One would be enough to disqualify the coffee. So moving on, we have everyone's favorite. This has created many a story. I've probably sat at numerous campfires at Roasters Guild retreats and talked about foreign matter. What have you found in your coffee?  My goodness. Everything from cinderblocks to bullet shell casings. It’s crazy but foreign matter as it sounds something that is in the coffee that should not be there. What do you have for us?

 

MARK: Well, I have the classic John Landis film, The Last Werewolf in London, because for the British, that American traveler turning into a “wewewolf”, sorry werewolf was a foreign matter. Oh the delivery, I blew it on the delivery.

 

TODD: That's genius. I mean the delivery was pretty funny too. Hey we gotta give you one from time to time.

 

MARK: Yes, you do!

 

TODD: It’s good and I’m sure the listeners are happy to know that Mark Inman is only human.

 

MARK: It’s true.

 

TODD: Be glad. Foreign matter. What do typically see, Mark? What have you typically seen in your sample?

 

MARK: Yeah, most people get chips of concrete from the patios, rocks. You do see sticks a lot of the time. That's the average. I would say that rocks are going to be the predominant thing. You will, it's not an if, it's an always. You're going to see these if you're a roaster. It does encourage you to look at things like de-stoners and rare earth magnets if the the rocks themselves have any type of metallic content to trap that before it gets into grinders and things where it can really cause problems down the line. But yeah, mostly sticks, rocks. There was a interesting Roasters Guild retreat discussion on foreign matter like the weirdest things people have found and the two that came up was a mummified frog an entire frog and a human finger that was also dried and mummified.

 

TODD: Man, if that's not spooky, what is? Horrible. Yeah, I mean not to laugh at someone's clear dismay. With some of the milling equipment you see, you know, in on the origin side, I mean it's  no surprise. Yeah, some you know if user operation. Operator error comes into play, I mean, that's unforgiving.

 

MARK: I'm just thinking who had their finger lopped off and just said, “Oh well, let's get this treated.” Forget where the finger went. That's irrelevant. And walked away. And then it ended up in a bag and sewn up and shipped. I'd love to know the backstory on that one.

 

TODD: It's interesting you bring that up because I think about it from a completely different perspective where I'm like, oh man, yeah, we can send that 15 bag microlot to that mill because we won't know if it could come out. Right. You know, I mean, a lot of these mills are so big that it's like to even put like 50 sacks of coffee through and know that you're going to get it back is a question mark. So I mean, you know, needle in a haystack.

 

MARK: That is true. Finger in a sack of coffee.

 

TODD: It's like feels oddly good to laugh about this.

 

MARK: But what's surprising about this, and I'll tell you with the foreign matter thing, is one foreign matter is one full defect. And it is very, very common in coffee. And so you think about how many coffees are statistically taken out of specialty grading based on this. It would be a pretty high amount if you were to really be a stickler about it.

 

TODD: Well, and this brings up a really sort of value that the grader has to bring to the table or bring to the lab so to speak. It's the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. You're talking about a sample that if taken properly is drawn from a minimum of 10 percent, the number of packages, bags, cartons, etc. It’s aggregated and it’s representative of the whole and if you pull those 350 grams that might have, you know, only a little fragment of patio or a stick that is the same size, density and shape. And it's in a coffee bean and makes it through the medical sorting, it’s a really unfortunate thing. Yeah, but you know, you have to hold that intention with that fact that you put your coffee out and you're a super premium brand and a roast, sorry, a retailer breaks a grinder on a stone or stumbles upon a coffee that their customer looking at with a confused look saying, well, why is there sticks in my coffee? There's a brand defamation impact that is real. That's why I think SCA would call this a one-to-one primary defect. So one instance in 350 grams would disqualify the coffee. You know, you also have to also be practical and think real world coffee.

 

MARK: Sure.

 

TODD: As a buyer.

MARK: Sure.

 

TODD: A good tension. But moving on with dried cherry or pods. Now, really important here, we'll get into the category two related defects, hull and husk, but in this case, a dried cherry or pod is definitively so as the seed itself is intact inside the material. So you could have a pod that is broken on one side. If the seed is encased, is definitively a cherry or pod. And these are one-to-one full equivalent category one defects for the potential over fermented moldy damp or phenolic flavors that they can present. Of course, in addition, the appearance and roasting impact can be significant. Where did you associate us on the movie scale?

 

MARK: Well, this one was easy for me because this one there is a movie that scared the crap out of me as a child I'm not going to the I know you want to say it's the 1956 version because of my age, but it actually is the 1978 remake Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers because these were pod people. A terrifying movie to me as a child I could still remember the scenes with the pods and the people coming out of the pods and just how horrifying that movie was. The interesting thing about that movie, you had seen it and had forgotten, Leonard Nimoy was in that movie and a very, very young Jeff Goldblum was in that film. I think it's pre big chill. I didn't may have been his first movie as far as I know.

 

TODD: Wow, Mark, you're endearing the audience, I'm sure. I mean, you're so human this episode. You experience fear? I had no idea, this is crazy!

 

MARK: Oh yeah, yeah, as a young lad in the theaters...

 

TODD: I mean, it's been a long time.

 

MARK: It's been a long time. I've been dead inside for years since then. But no, back then, yes, I had emotion in human range.

 

TODD: That brings us to severe insect damage. Which is of course a category one defect. We'll also deal with slight insect damage at the same time. So we have in insect damage, we have of course insects depending on origin but namely the coffee berry borer beetle, or broca as it would be locally named in the Spanish-speaking countries. These would be a very small insects bores into the seed and lays eggs. The larvae would then eat it’s way out. It creates sort of tunnels through the seed of course the coffee bean compromised, the skin having a perforation, the seed having a perforation, lots of moisture, lots of sugar. There can be fermentations, souring, blackening of the beans depending on how severe this is. But the way to define insect damage, whether it’s severe which is a primary or category one defect or slight, which is a category two defect, is by the number be fermentation of perforations. So if you count these perforations, if you count to three and or keep going, it is severe insect damage. If you can count only two or less, you have what is called slight insect damage. Now two things you have to look out for, there is with coffee that has been in storage a long time, a very high likelihood that the embryo has shriveled and fallen out of a seed. And it is one of the most common mispicks on new graders that on the very top, again opposite the center cut, on the backside of a seed you would see what is like a little hole. If this hole is there it's not a perforation into the interior that's not discolored from moisture, pre- the coffees processing and drying. This is most likely the absence of the embryo of the seed. We get people teaching the Q all the time that this is mispicked as slight insect damage. So look out for that. Additionally, we're looking for very specific perforations, three or more. Sever insect, up to two slight insect and just to give everyone a sense of how these classify, the first in number of different defects that have full equivalents that are not one-to-one. So in the case of the category one, severe insect damage, you can have up to five that would equal one full category one defect. So just to recap, if you have five or more severe insect damaged beans, you would actually disqualify the coffee for specialty in the case of the category two slight insect damage you could actually have 10 and that would equal one category two defect. So in a 350 gram sample, you would actually need 60 slight insect damaged beans, that’s individual beans with one to two perforations from broca to disqualify if this was the only defect that was in the sample, 350 grams. But let's get on to the good part. What's your scary Halloween film?

 

MARK: Well, keeping on the Jeff Goldblum theme, I'm going for the 1986 remake of the classic horror movie, The Fly. This is a genetic accident gone awry where a man gets fly DNA in his body as he's doing teleportation and he mutates into a fly. Interesting thing though, since 1986 there's been a lot of advancements in genetic technology. I think we're due for a remake for this movie. So, any Hollywood producers out there listening to Todd and Mark, make a movie about us and give us a giant contract and consider remaking The Fly, it was a fantastic movie again the idea of that you your body transforming is terrifying.

That's where I went with that one. This is not the 1958 original. I think that the ‘86 version would capture this defect far more accurately.

 

TODD: Awesome. Okay, well this this natural segway to our category two defect. To date, or to the moment I should say, we've talked about slight insect damage of category one defects. All of the these defects when the full equivalent reached, whether one-to-one or in the case of severe insect damage, five-to-one, these would disqualify a 350 gram sample for specialty coffee according to SCA.

Now as we transition into category two defects, the important thing to note is that we, according to the SCA, a standard, have the allowance of five full equivalent category two defects. So as you’re keeping score and as you’re grading samples, looking forward, keep that in mind. This allowance is reasonable and of course these category defects are named because the potential cup severity, the roasting issues they might present, for example, it's severe to slight insect damage, change in density, change in the potential characteristics that could be affected by roast. This is exactly why we have this distinction between two categories of defects.

To start us off for category two defects. We of course have the the category two- comparable to full black, which is partial black, which is up to but not exceeding half the surface of the seed is blackened. What do you have for us, Mark, with partial black?

 

MARK: And not broken chipped and cut?

 

TODD: No, we’re going to get to that yet.

 

MARK: Yeah, partial black was a tough one because I mean, where do you go with this one? So I went for Beetlejuice. Because the character Beetlejuice wore a partial black and white suit in that movie throughout the film.  

 

TODD: That is a classic. Anyone who's listening if you have not seen Beetlejuice..

 

MARK: Yeah, turn us off right now go watch it then come back to us and you'll get what we're talking about will be for you.

 

TODD: We will be here later for you. Don't think twice. Yeah, it's interesting that that to me is that was clearly I mean, it was a pretty troubling movie. But so fun and the same time it made like this crossover into the mainstream like it was a breakout film. I mean, obviously the the acting was fantastic and the look was  amazing. But what was it about Beetlejuice that took it from like, I wouldn't call it horrifying, you know, certainly scary movie. How did it break out? I mean, what's your take on that Mark?

 

MARK: Why did that movie break out? I think it was, know, Michael Keaton at probably the top of his game of, know, who is a very funny person. Gina Davis, of course, is at a big point in her career along with Alec Baldwin. And then you had Catherine O'Hara from SCTV, who's now in a Schitt's Creek, is the name of the show she’s on. A Canadian comedic actress incredible cast.

 

TODD: Winona Ryder as well?

 

MARK: Winona Ryder, very funny cast, great music.

 

TODD: So partial black same type potential cup characteristics same causes and issues just not as full a manifestation in the category 2 partial black is a 3 to 1 full equivalent. And when we have three partial blacks that would equal one category 2 defect. Just to recap again, the full equivalent, up to 5 allowance, this would mean we would need 18 partial blacks to disqualify a specialty coffee. Again if that’s the only defect. Unlikely, but if it were the only defect you find in a 350 gram sample. Moving on we have the same type of recognition for a partial sour. More than half the seed covered in sour, or manifest the sour defect. What do you have for us, Mark, for that?

 

MARK: Well that one I have the 1978 John DiBello classic, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Because a lot of those tomatoes were probably pretty sour and as they were killing people so partially sour tomatoes can have a sourish edge to it so a classic film that had the hit song, “Puberty Love” in it.

 

MARK: So if you could catch that movie, it's a good late 70s kind of campy B movie horror film.

 

TODD: Tomatoes are hurling themselves?

 

MARK: Yes. Yeah, they're attacking the air, which you know, off stage, was just stage hands throwing tomatoes at people. And they would latch onto your neck and start to chew at your jugular vein. Yeah, they would be holding the tomato near their neck and screaming.

 

TODD: But they didn't, they were just like nameless, faceless tomatoes, right? There wasn't like a gang of them?

 

MARK: Yeah, there were thousands of them, yeah.

 

TODD: But they were like anonymous sorry.  So you're not like ‘Oh, man Joey...”

 

MARK: No, no, no. Yeah, no, they were just... It was almost like, you know, insert alien film. It could have been, you know, anything, but it happened to have been tomatoes. The poster has a tomato with big teeth on it. Although in the movie, I don't remember teeth being involved, but they somehow attacked you and chewed on you and made you bleed. But I don't remember seeing actual teeth in the movie.

 

TODD: Interesting. I'm surprised that, you know, we have a like local farm culture. I'm sure you know, Northern California the same. I'm surprised that like, the CSAs don't play with that for like those few weeks in the summer when there's only tomato in your basket.

 

MARK: I think that there are. I looked it up when I was doing the research here. There is the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Festival, which is a tomato festival, not necessarily a movie thing. So farmers markets have goofed on this, you know in their own--

 

TODD: Good, good. That's good to know. mean, we need to see something like that on the East Coast. All right, so...

 

MARK: And there's actually a Nintendo game for the Game Boy, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes game, so you could play that.

 

TODD: So we have, partial sour, 3 to 1, full equivalent category 2 defect. Moving on, we have broken, chipped and cut. Now broken, chipped and cut is a really common defect to see in coffees that are washed and mechanically processed. This would be damage that might be introduced by a depulper and in this case, discolored, whereas you might get a different breaking or chipping, cutting in the process of dry milling green coffee, but the coffee would be low enough in moisture that you wouldn’t see the same dis-colorization. You, in grading, would identify all the physical issues, align them, count them together and you can recognize them as a category two defect when you have five individual beans. So it's a five to one full equivalent, category two defect. What is our movie, Mark?

 

MARK: The 1974 classic directed by Tobe Hopper, Hooper actually is his name. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Because he was a broken man who chipped and cut people up with a chainsaw. $140,000 budget for a movie that's made well more than that in returns.

 

TODD: My goodness, I mean, that is, there is no way. I mean talk about a cult film, there is no debating...

 

MARK: And a sequel, they had a sequel to that movie at one time.

 

TODD: Yeah, I'm surprised you would put that movie in a category two slot given its prominence and severity. But obviously, I mean, broken, chipped, cut is no joke. If we're talking the worst of the worst in this case, or grinder grade coffees, out of some origin country, these are almost entirely broken, chipped, and cut. And while some of them can have decent cup characteristic, they are no joke when it comes to managing in the roaster. If you have a perforated drum do not do it. If the gaping of your solid drum to your faceplate has not been thought about or managed in some time this could lead to fire and/or issues. Of course the more common sort of encounter here is just a disparity in density and development of the final roast color. Which you may seem very more in a heavily broken, chipped or cut coffee.

Our next category, category two defect is immature or unripe. This is an issue of coffee that has not developed. It may be due to agricultural or a nutritional issue. It also may be because coffee that being harvested is strip picked in the case of mechanically harvested coffees. It's just pulled at a point where it's not quite ready to be harvested or it shouldn't be for the potential quality that we're looking for in the case of specialty. These beans look, most typically that lime green color that can be undersized as you might imagine. And the silverskin is not quite ready to rub off. So whether with your fingernail or on that grading mat you use, you can always rub this and you can that silver wouldn't be quite developed enough to actually rub off. Enough with the boring stuff. Mark, where do you put ‘em right for us?

 

MARK: Well, you know, my initial thought was to go for the original movie Child's Play with the doll Chucky. But I'm actually going for the... what year was that movie? Oh, 1998 film, The Bride of Chucky, because the jokes were very immature as well as the characters were very immature. I'm going for the Bride of Chucky 1988 film. That kept the same character as Chucky but introduced a female doll which was voiced by the wonderful actress Jennifer Tilly who's also a professional poker player.

 

TODD: Wow, I did not know that.

 

MARK: Yes, she's very highly ranked.

 

TODD: Who you have on the team, digging all this stuff up? What a force.

 

MARK: People who also serve on the board of directors of the Criterion Collection, you the same, they are part of my advisory board for this show.

 

TODD: Where do we run into unripe coffee? Most typically in coffees that are plantation grown and mechanically harvested. The vast majority of coffee that a specialty roaster is probably going to see unripes in is Brazil coffee. This is not an unusual happenstance. If you're wondering what you might run into for a cup characteristics this is going to be rather hay like and these coffees would typically be associated with quakers or coffees that don't roast because they don't have constituents, the sugars and other organic materials to develop in the roaster at the same rate as a fully mature coffee seeds, but you're also going to see the potential of a stringency or a drying type of cup characteristic. If you are unfamiliar or curious to better calibrate your expectation around the description quote unquote astringency, go find a green banana, green as you can find it and take a bite of that. That is a great example of what astringent coffee would taste like. That is immature. Five to one category two full equivalence. And that brings us to withered coffee.

Withered is of course a nutritional deficiency or lack of water during the development the seed. These coffees would look on the back rounded side of the bean almost raisined and they of course undersized, lack the type of organic material to develop in the roaster typically would char or scorch and of course they don't look very appealing in the green. They are a five to one category two defect. Mark, where do you have us with withered?

 

MARK: Well, withered was easy because if you look at the classic pictures of withered beans, it reminds me so much of the 1932 Boris Karloff classic The Mummy. And nothing says Halloween like that movie. So yes, the Boris Karloff classic the 1932 The Mummy. Not the mummy meets Abbott and Costello. Not the Brandon Fraser nightmare that came out years later. You have to go to the classic.

 

TODD: This brings us to the next category two defect which is shell. Often called elephant ear for the sort of likeness of the outside piece of the shell. This is just a naturally occurring genetic defect that comes up in varieties more than others. It's not unusual to see these in SL varieties coming from Kenya now that they're being cultivated other places.

The shell of course is manifested as almost like a little S curve on the back of an oversized seed. Where two pieces essentially break apart. If they're separate, they can be counted each as an instance of the of the shell defect, five shells would equal one full category two. What should we be scared or use as our Hollywood reference mark for shell?

 

MARK: Well that would be the 1973 spooky film The Exorcist with Linda Blair. When she was possessed she was a shell of a human being.

 

TODD: I love it. I love it. Could do this all day long. The next category two defect is my personal favorite when it comes to category two, if I may say so.

 

MARK: You have a favorite?

 

TODD: This one’s a lot of fun. Just because it's such a clever name. We're talking about floaters. The reason these are called floaters is because they'll float. This is a seed that is of the green. It's usually gray, white, bloated, oversized, faded in color. But these coffees are not going to roast consistently. They're not as dense as a properly developed  seed and if you’re floating coffee as a matter of classification in the cherry form, this is what you would be skimming off the top. Now this defect is often over picked when it comes to new graders, so look out, and it's not often that it arises, but five of these would equal one full defect. Of course, the issues can be everything from early, moldy damp taste. You know, hay-like and musty characteristics, but they can also take on overly roasty and carbony characteristics as well.

What do you have for us, Mark?

 

MARK: Well, floater was an easy one because this was one of the out of the gate I knew how to match this one. It was the 1980 movie with William Hurt called Altered States where he was a psychologist who was experimenting with sensory deprivation tank where people floated and took hallucinogenic drugs to know nothing good happened and nothing good came of that. Yes. The film has or the poster for the film has people floating with these kind of tubes sticking in them. So it's a creepy poster. It's a very creepy movie. And being a child of California where a lot of people had sensory deprivation tanks in their garages. It was something that I was all too familiar of growing up.

 

TODD: I was going to say, it sounds like a normal Saturday afternoon.

 

MARK: Yeah, yeah, exactly. If this movie would have been set Marin County, I would have believed it.

 

TODD: Floater. There you have it, category two, five to one, full equivalent. Which brings us to parchment. What do you have for parchment?

 

MARK: Well parchment have a very terrible 2005 movie called Locust: The Eighth Plague the only star in that movie worth anything was MTV's Dan Cortez. Really bad film. If you remember Dan Cortez and The Locust came from these kind of I don't know what you would call it what the locusts are born from but yeah, they were they were they were hatched out of these parchment looking kind of eggs.

TODD: And that brings us to a fair kind of understanding of what parchment looks like. I mean this is the pergamino that coffee is inside. It's a seed skin, if you will, that protects the seed and would most typically the coffee would be dried in this in all but very few origins. And it’s supposed to be dry milled off or dehulled. That’s a part of the dry milling process that would remove the parchment. So the parchment defect actually when the seed is still inside the parchment itself. That, we call parchment coffee. It's gonna affect the appearance of the green, it's going to of course roast potentially differently or you know, introduce that thick papery husk that you would not want in your finished roasted coffee. So that is parchment, five to one equals one category two defect.

And related to parchment and related to pod that we talked about as a category defect one defect is the hull or husk. This is our final category two defect. It is a five to one full equivalent. And where did you point us, Mark?

 

MARK: Well, wrapping it up, I went back to Stephen King, one of his classics, the 1984 movie Children of the Corn. Because corn has husks?

 

TODD: Hahaha, because corn has husks! Classic. All in husk, the cup issues are potentially serious. Of course, roasting something like this is dubious. Low moisture, dry material, potentially small fragments. But we can get everything from musty, earthy character fermented potentially phenolic taste given the fact that you're talking in the case of the husk itself with the cherry skin and material. This is a high sugar fruit that has been dried and can enjoy these types of more agricultural and moldy flavors. But in the case that you just have you know, the hull, the parchment material, you know, this is certainly very flammable and will ignite much faster than a coffee seed would. characteristics to moldy damp.

So coffees that you might be lots of this material in would be a danger in the roaster that way. All that said, five of these would equal one full category two defect. Now just to wrap again and to remind the listeners, up to five category two defects are allowed according to SCA in a specialty coffee sample of 350 grams. So we're making essentially an account of the entire physical defect inventory. Every singular instance. We are tallying and doing our full equivalent crossover, if we have six holes or husks, we have one full category two defect. There is no rounding according to the standards, so I need 10 to make two. If there’s 11, I still have two. If there are 12, I still have two and so on. If we have category two defects of any kind, we do not have a SCA specialty coffee according to these standards. Keep in mind, these defects are going to be found  according any standard, whether you are looking at the typical fine cup preparation 17, 18 in Brazil all the way to a grade one, grade three in Ethiopia. These are going to be defects that are considered but they are going to be classified and the inventory would be analyzed a different way according to different grade. Certainly if you have requirements or needs in the prep of your green coffee, if you have things that you're more worried about given your, you know, infrastructure, equipment capacities, or lack thereof, you know, these are critical to engage people you're working with as we take very close look and understand grades that we’re contracting in a more intimate way and we can help you steer clear of things that can certainly be a consideration before you get into cupping at all. But any final words, Mark, for our listeners for this years Scary Defects episode?

 

MARK: Final word again at Blockbuster 20% off any of these films for the month of October. Just mention Todd and Mark and they'll be happy to do that and even throw in a free bag of microwave popcorn.

 

TODD: What a deal! Well I have a lot of watching to do as I’m sure many of our listeners do. I can’t thank you enough for another successful iteration of our Scary Defect episode. A laundry list of fantastic movie recommendations for us to chomp on leading up to and beyond this Halloween.