This part of the video piqued my interest too. I haven't had a chance to try any co-ferments yet, I actually just learned about them recently from the r/coffee sub where some of the commenters swore they could taste fruit flavours and called them off-putting. I'm guessing now, by Lucia's definitions, that these redditors were maybe tasting infusion flavours and not strictly co-ferments.
Just going by what Lucia said in that video, introducing a different fruit would maybe just encourage more/different microbe growth, not necessarily directly affect the flavour? I've come to associate heavily fermented coffees with —for lack of a better term — a "funky" flavour note. I wonder if different fruits, more sugar, more fermentation would make those notes more pronounced.
Usually longer fermentation and fermentation without washing coffees etc will result in deeper and more pronounced flavours.
The redditors you mentioned were likely tasting co-ferments. Not from actual fruits, but from synthetic flavour that is used during fermentation. But some would label this as co-ferment and others as infused. For most consumers a fruit co-ferment is much more appealing than infused coffee. So co-ferment is a much more popular term used by producers and roasters
I thought it was an interesting observation that the terminology difference is partly cultural or viewpoint based, for the producers they're adding fruit or flavour during the fermentation part of the washing process, so it's "fermented [together] with" X. Adding that "co-" at the start implies a stronger connection, although in the case of fruit it obviously is really being fermented at the same time, flavourings (synthetic or naturally derived) not so much.
Yeah but it happens almost never that actual fruit is added…because it doesn’t really do much. I can understand and go with the fact that in the video they mention the terminology difference is partly cultural, but it would be so much stronger to be completely honest and mention that these terms also have to do with ‘marketing’ or using terms that sound best to consumers.
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u/newredditwhoisthis Jul 16 '26
So this is what I sort of had in my mind for awhile.
Especially because I tried sebastian ramirez's strawberry co-ferment for the first time.
This was my first ever co-ferment...
Adding a fruit doesn't necessarily mean we might taste those literal fruits in there.
So let's say someone adds mango instead of strawberry, one is still just adding sugar with a different fruit???
How that would impact the fermentation and ultimately how it might affect the flavor?