We don’t usually cover coffee or hot beverages at Hand Crafted Drinks Magazine, but we do get through quite a lot of coffee.
So, when we were offered the chance to review The Art and Science of Coffee Fermentation, we accepted.
It is a fascinating read, especially if, like me, you didn’t realise that coffee was fermented.
We’re all aware of the importance of the fermentation process for beer and wine-making, and in the production of kimchi and sauerkraut, but it is just as important for every coffee producer.
Authors, Marcel Hackler and Vinzenz Särchen (pictured L-R, below), explore this fascinating subject mostly in accessible language, but inevitably there is a need for the science of fermentation to be explained in more technical terms.
But, this doesn’t detract from a well-written book that takes the reader through the subject, from how coffee flavours develop and the basics of fermentation, to how coffee is processed and issues of sustainability and the environment.
There is a chapter that brings all the concepts and processes together, and left me with perhaps even more respect for a drink that it’s all to easy to take for granted.
The book touches on the health benefits of coffee, but there are other resources that cover this in more detail(1).
With regard to the importance of coffee, economically, this also isn’t really covered, but having done some of our own additional research, we found that coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world (oil is the number one commodity) and for the year 2022/23, over 10 billion tons of coffee were produced(2).
In conclusion, this is a well-written book that introduces the reader to coffee fermentation and explains the importance of a process that many coffee-lovers are probably not aware.
The book provides a fascinating insight into the importance of microbes and bacteria in the production of one of the most popular drinks on the planet.
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