Tradition Meets Innovation: Mocha Java Coffee Blends

The backstory of the Mocha-Java blend is so memorable that it’s easy to become distracted by the story and overlook one of the main reasons roasters still produce Mocha-Java blends (and Coffee Review still writes about them): because the Mocha-Java concept seems to inspire original and exceptional coffees. The quality and distinction of this month’s top-rated coffees, all blends described by their roaster creators as Mocha-Java or Moka-Java blends, support that observation: We review nine samples with ratings running from 92 to 94. And those impressive ratings understate the originality of many of these coffees, which regularly surprised us with their unconventional aromatic juxtapositions and structural range.

In fact, I came away with a renewed respect for the potential value of blends, generally. Coffee drinkers are often suspicious of blends, and for good reason: Blends can be used to disguise aging coffees or someone’s buying mistakes, while simultaneously threatening to reduce our coffee experiences to please-everybody monotony. But the more idealistic rationale for blends appeared to prevail with the best of these Mocha-Java inspired blends. If you put distinctive but different coffees together in judicious combination, they can add up to a fresh coffee experience that has never existed in quite the same way before.

A Formula Created by History

The familiar Mocha-Java backstory, very briefly, is that in around 1740, when coffee was beginning to be solidified in Europe as a luxury beverage, all of the coffee in the world came from two places. The first was Yemen, where the systematic cultivation and selling of coffee began, and the second was the island of Java, Indonesia, where the colonial Dutch, who wanted in on the lucrative trade of coffee until then monopolized by the Yemeni, enslaved some Javanese locals and established coffee plantations. Since Mocha (or Moka, or Mocca) was the port through which all Yemen coffee was shipped at the time, the name Mocha came to be applied to all coffee from Yemen. The takeaway, then, is that Mocha Java refers to a blend that combined the only two coffee origins available to the world in the years from about 1720 to 1760.

But at what historical moment a blend of coffees began to be sold under the name Mocha Java is difficult to determine. It seems likely that the blend name came into use after coffees from elsewhere in the world — from the Caribbean first, then from continental Latin America — began to be marketed in the U.S. and Europe. In that broader context of availability, “Mocha Java” most likely connoted to coffee drinkers the authentic and traditional as opposed to the new and novel. It may still suggest that today.

The Power of the Mocha-Java Idea

But the real generative potential of the Mocha-Java blend as it is recreated in roasters’ cupping rooms today I think comes from the sensory principle that many roasters see behind the blend. That is, it combines a fruit-forward yet bright coffee from Asia/Africa (referencing the Yemen Mocha) with a lower-toned, richer Indonesian coffee. Or, to consider the formula separate from origin associations, a fruit-forward yet bright coffee with a lower, deeper-toned coffee.

Ethiopia Fruit, Sumatra Earth

The most common approach among the creators of this month’s 10 top-rated blends was to make the fruit-forward, bright component of the basic formula an Ethiopia dried-in-the-fruit or “natural”-processed coffee, and the deeper, richer component a wet-hulled coffee from Sumatra. Ethiopia natural-processed coffees are famously fruit-forward, often erupting with sweet berry notes. They are usually also vibrantly bright, or sweet-tart, owing to high growing elevations. This makes them ideal contributors to the fruit-and-brightness side of the Mocha-Java equation. For the rich-and-low-toned Java side of the blend equation, the most frequent roaster choice is a wet-hulled  coffee from Sumatra, a type perhaps familiar to readers for its admired “earthy,” malty character, a quality that can create pleasant surprises when juxtaposed with the brightness and fruit of a natural-processed Ethiopia.

Both of these choices also broadly reference the geography of the original Mocha-Java archetype. Ethiopia shares an entwined coffee history with Yemen, while Sumatra, the next large Indonesian island to the immediate northwest of Java, shares an analogous rough proximity and overlapping history with Java.

I suppose one other point we can make about blending these two coffee types is that both on their own are already proven specialty-coffee fan favorites. Yet both display a range of sensory possibility, wider than most other coffee types, leaving plenty of space for blender creativity.

Six Variations on an Ethiopia/Sumatra Theme

Of the six blends that share the Ethiopia natural/Sumatra wet-hulled pairing, the highest rated, at 94, is the Sumé Blend from Revel Coffee. Sumé is a playful portmanteau invented by Revel that combines references to Sumatra and Ethiopia. The Sumé strikingly juxtaposes a summery juiciness (watermelon, strawberry) with crisp sweet-savory suggestions of halvah and candy-cap mushrooms, the sort of original yet harmonious range of sensation typical of the best of the blends we cupped.

If the Revel Sumé excited with its originality, the Willoughby’s Mocha Java Style (93) blend impressed more with its overall lucidity and poise. This is a Mocha Java for purists. Distinctive and surprising notes still emerged — tobacco, bergamot, spice — but remained comfortably and resonantly enveloped in the vibrant completeness of the cup.

Silverfern Coffee Roasters’ (Taiwan) submitted a deep, forceful yet nuanced Mocha Java (93) driven by pungent earth notes and a tart, berryish fruit. The Silverfern also generated one of the more rare and ephemeral aromatic notes in beverages: petrichor, the aroma of fresh rain falling on hot, dry rock and earth. I remember this odor as a child in the Midwest and experienced it again for nearly an hour recently in Brazil, when a long but very light rain misted down on hot earth in the hills west of Rio de Janeiro.

The CoffeeBox Coffee Forest Bloom blend (92) also leans toward the Sumatra side of the blend equation, foregrounding fresh humus-like earth, nut, raisiny chocolate and the kind of deep, well-seasoned oak we associate with some wines and spirits. It maintains some sweetness with the dominant savory tendency, however, together with a backgrounded tickle of brightness.

Old Soul is a Sacramento, California roaster with a long and successful history of producing exceptional Mocha-Java blends. As I cupped its latest iteration, “Whiskey Dreams” (92), I found myself dreaming something a bit more orangey than whiskey—Cointreau or Triple Sec, perhaps. But regardless of association, the spirits note was a subtle and successful complication to the pineapple, pistachio-like nut and flowers.

Equator Coffees is another California roaster with a history of producing engaging variations on the Mocha-Java idea. Equator’s current Mocha Java (92) is unusual in that it splits the Ethiopia blend component between a floral-toned washed-process Ethiopia and a fruit-forward natural-processed Ethiopia, both from the same producer, Kayon Mountain Estate. The Sumatra is produced by the famous women-owned and operated Ketiara Cooperative in Aceh Province. All of the coffees in the Equator blend are certified fair-trade and USDA Organic. The Equator was another blend that struck me as particularly original in its aromatics: blood orange, fresh leather and a particularly fragrant lavender throughline gave it a feel both rustic and elegant.

A New World Mocha Java

Finally, to three departures from the basic Ethiopia/Sumatra pairing, all rather inspired. Roast House Coffee’s Organic Mocha Java (92) substituted two New World coffees for the African and Asian pairing. The bright, fruit-toned component here is a natural-processed coffee from Colombia, while the softer, rounder coffee is a washed-process Nicaragua. The outcome is a relatively delicate cup, lively and refreshing, without the deeper forcefulness of blends incorporating Sumatras. A subtle hint of spirits — white rum?—contributes to the lift.

Anaerobic-Nuanced Mocha Javas

Any reviewing of high-end coffees at this moment in coffee history would hardly be complete without an appearance by one of the great innovations, or maybe novelties, of current specialty coffee production: fermentation in low to no oxygen conditions (anaerobic fermentation, carbonic maceration, lactic fermentation), which typically nets very sweet-toned coffees with often intense fruit and floral notes.

The Oceana Coffee Moka Java (93) only lightly tiptoes into the anaerobic camp by adding what tastes like a very fine anaerobic-processed Colombia to a more conventional combination of a wet-hulled, Sumatra-like coffee from Bali (the famous island just to the east of Java) and a genuine Yemen natural-processed bean. The result of this three-bean blend is a coffee that is my personal favorite from the cupping. I am drinking it now and enjoying its intricate aromatics and fusion of pungent power and sweet juiciness.

But Coffee Review cupper consensus put the Mostra Coffee Pineapple Mocha Java a point higher at 94. This, as the Mostra website declares, “is not your grandmother’s Mocha-Java.” Nor is it your coffee purist’s Mocha Java. But an amazing coffee it is, with a vivid array of deep, resonant, original aromatics: pipe tobacco, dried pineapple, vanilla bean, fragrant honeysuckle, dry hops.

Another reason the Mostra blend would never make a coffee purist’s favorites list is because one component, a Philippine coffee, was fermented with natural pineapple added to the tank. The specialty coffee establishment continues to be divided over the practice of co-fermentation, or adding natural fruit, herbs or spices to the tank during (usually anaerobic) fermentation. Mostra combines the Philippines pineapple co-fermented coffee with a natural-processed Ethiopia and an anaerobic-fermented Colombia from trees of the Java variety. (The name of the tree variety of the Colombia coffee may vaguely tie this blend to the blend’s namesake Java, but history and genetics tell us that the Java genotype was brought to Indonesia in the early nineteenth century from, yes, Ethiopia.)

A Pretext for Creativity

At any rate, a lot of intrigue arrives with the Mostra blend, both in the exhilarating aromatics and in the details of its blend components. It appears that the Mocha-Java idea remains a potent stimulus for blending creativity. Overall, what a fine array of cup profiles and choices were generated by the Mocha-Java name and concept: from the complex but classic Willoughby’s to the rather baroque Mostra, through forceful, earthy cups to the juicy and aromatically extravagant.