The Fermentation Project Collection (Coming Very Soon)

James Hoffman is planning to do a live, global tasting event with these coffees online in the second half of September, with the exact date to be determined in the coming weeks. We will update this page when we have that date. This coffee set will roast and ship approximately 3-4 weeks before the tasting event in order to give the coffees adequate time to rest and to ensure any shipping carrier delays do not prevent anyone from receiving the coffee in time. We will update a precise ship date when we have it. 

La Barba Coffee is proud to be one of a select group of roasters worldwide participating in The Fermentation Project—a collaborative exploration of coffee fermentation organized by James Hoffmann and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis.

This limited-release tasting collection is designed to demonstrate how fermentation alone can shape a coffee's flavor. Using coffee from the same farm, harvest, and lot, four distinct processing methods were applied, isolating fermentation as the only variable. The result is a rare opportunity to taste the remarkable differences that emerge from each approach.

Each kit includes 100g of each coffee:

• Mechanically Demucilaged
• Wild Fermentation
• Lactobacillus Inoculated Fermentation
• Yeast Inoculated Fermentation

About the Coffee

Produced by Hector and Lilian Leal at Finca San Miguel Urias in Guatemala's Antigua Valley, each coffee begins with the exact same lot before undergoing one of four carefully controlled processing methods.

The control coffee is Mechanically Demucilaged, where the mucilage is removed without fermentation, allowing the coffee's inherent varietal and growing characteristics to shine.

The Wild Fermentation undergoes a traditional 48-hour submerged fermentation using naturally occurring local microbes.

The Lactobacillus Inoculated coffee demonstrates how targeted bacterial fermentation can enhance organic acid production, increasing brightness and complexity.

The Yeast Inoculated coffee uses Saccharomyces yeast during a 48-hour submerged fermentation to encourage the development of flavor precursors, resulting in greater body and complexity.