Vietnam Yellow Bourbon Anaerobic Honey

Coffee Profile

Continent: Asia

Country: Vietnam

Farm: Vuong Farm

Process: Anaerobic Honey

Region: Lam Dong

Roast Scale

Light Medium Dark

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Tasting Notes

Lemon, caramel, Jackfruit. A citric acidity livens the cup. The cup fades to caramel and milk chocolate in the finish.

About Yellow Bourbon

 The Bourbon variety is one of the two major cultivated varieties from which most coffee growing around the world today descends (The other being Typica) 

In 1718 seeds from Yemen were brought to the French colony on Reunion Island near Madagascar, The called Bourbon Island after the French House of Bourbon which ruled France at the time. Around 1860 plants from Reunion were brought to mainland Africa and to Brazil. The coffee depended from these plants came to be known as the Bourbon variety after the name of the island at that time.

Bourbon can still be found fairly commonly in Africa, Brazil, and some countries in Central America such as Guatemala and El Salvador.

The bourbon variety usually produces red fruit, but mutations have ocurred where the fruit color is yellow. There is a cultivated variety called Yellow Bourbon which is rarer but still not too uncommon which resulted from a natural cross of Red Bourbon and a Yellow fruited Typica plant called Yellow de Botucatu in Brazil in 1930 and was released commercially to growers in the early 1950's. 

As far as to how Yellow bourbon came to Vietnam, we aren't sure. Vietnam being a former French colony used to have lots of Bourbon variety coffee growing there in colonial times. Whether Yellow bourbon came there from the Brazilian material or it was a local mutation producing yellow fruit on bourbon plants there (which would make it more of a true yellow bourbon than the Brazilian variety bearing that name which is a hybrid with typica) We don't know yet. But we are sending samples for Genetic comparison to see if that question may be answered. Bourbon varieties are now very rare in Vietnam, most of the old trees having been replaced with higher yielding, disease restart hybrid varieties in the past 3 decades.

Yellow bourbon has a cup profile that is typically higher in acidity than red bourbon and a flavor profile that leans more towards citrus and caramel.

Vuong Farm

A 12 hectare farm at 1360-1520 masl in Lam Dong province not far from the town of Dalat. They grow a few specialty heirloom varieties beyond the common catimor derived strains planted in the region such as Longberry, Yellow Bourbon, and Orange bourbon. 

This coffee was fermented in Cherries anaerobically for 85 hours before being pulped and then put out to dry as a honey with the fruit still attached to the parchment.