Choco Rouge – Microlot from India with berries and dark chocolate

Choco Rouge – Microlot from India with berries and dark chocolate

First, dark chocolate melts on your tongue, then a whole bouquet of berries breaks open beneath it. That's how Choco Rouge tastes, a microlot from India.

It's that moment you may know from chocolate-coated berries: the dark shell slowly gives way, and suddenly the fruit shines through. Not a single berry, but many at once – a bouquet you perceive a little differently with every sip.

We roast this microlot light to medium in our coffee roastery in Zurich, as an omniroast for espresso and filter. It comes from Amruthavarshini Estate in Chikmagalur, India – a farm run and worked by women.

What makes Choco Rouge a microlot?

A microlot is a small, carefully selected lot of coffee that is processed separately from the rest of the harvest. This preserves its own character, and it can be traced back to the farm.

For Choco Rouge, that means a single farm, Amruthavarshini Estate, a single variety, Hemavathy, and a single processing method: fermented anaerobically twice and dried in the shade. None of it is blended with other lots or smoothed out.

What the farm, its landscape and the fermentation have put into this bean therefore reaches your cup undiluted. For us, that's exactly the appeal of a microlot: it tastes of a place and of a decision, not of an average.

How does Choco Rouge taste?

As with a chocolate-coated berry, the dark chocolate settles on your tongue first – round, deep, and soft. Then the berry bouquet opens up, fruity and lively, different berries at once. Fruit and chocolate don't take turns; they're woven into each other. It's exactly this interplay that defines Choco Rouge.

Why you taste both begins with the roast. Roasted light to medium, the bean keeps many of its fruity aroma compounds, while the Maillard reaction and caramelisation are already building the roast aromas we perceive as chocolate. Choco Rouge sits deliberately in between.

Much of this happens in your nose: as you swallow, the aroma compounds rise retronasally to the olfactory mucosa, and only there do berry and chocolate unfold in all their richness. Coffee carries more than 800 such compounds.

And the cup changes as it cools. When it's hot, more body comes to the fore; a little cooler, the picture becomes more layered – it's worth staying with it until the last sip.

Perhaps Choco Rouge reminds you of something: berries from a summer, a praline after a good meal. That's no coincidence. The sense of smell is closely linked to the limbic system, the part of the brain where memory and emotion are at home.

Where does Choco Rouge come from?

Aldur lies in the Chikmagalur district of the state of Karnataka, in the hills of the Western Ghats. UNESCO describes this mountain range, together with Sri Lanka, as one of the eight most significant biodiversity hotspots in the world; parts of it have been a World Natural Heritage Site since 2012.

At around 1160 to 1250 metres above sea level, the coffee of Amruthavarshini Estate grows in the shade of trees. Monsoon rain moves through the treetops and feeds streams and ponds on the estate. The name carries this landscape within it: “Amrutha” stands for nectar, “Varshini” for rain.

The farm is run and worked by women. It processes four Arabica varieties separately from one another, in small batches and with layered fermentations – drawing on local farming tradition and on modern specialty coffee practice. Choco Rouge is one of these microlots, from the Hemavathy variety.

What does the processing do to the flavour?

Choco Rouge is natural processed: the coffee cherries dry together with their fruit pulp. In between, they ferment twice in the absence of oxygen. First for 24 hours with jaggery in a dark room – jaggery is unrefined sugar made from boiled-down sugarcane juice and is deeply rooted in South Indian agriculture.

After that, the cherries rest in the shade for a week, ferment a second time for 24 hours with sugarcane juice and finally dry in the shade again, more slowly than in full sun.

In the absence of oxygen, microorganisms such as yeasts break down the sugar in the fruit pulp, forming alcohols, esters and other compounds that help shape the later aroma profile. Jaggery and sugarcane juice give them additional sugar. What you end up experiencing as a berry bouquet has part of its origin here.

At a glance

How do I brew Choco Rouge?

As an omniroast, Choco Rouge works just as well as espresso as it does in a filter or pour-over. For espresso we extract by weight: we grind fine, start at 14.5 grams and work our way up from there, usually to 17 grams, at a ratio below 1:2. Time is a by-product, not the goal.

From there, your palate leads the way. There's no right or wrong, no espresso police – the coffee has to taste good to you. The bean, the humidity, and you yourself change every day, which is why no cup is ever exactly like the last. That's exactly what makes every new cup a small discovery.

Who is Choco Rouge made for?

For anyone who loves chocolate and is curious what fruit does with it. For anyone who reaches for the dark one first when it comes to pralines. And for anyone who'd like to experience what origin, fermentation, and roasting make of a bean together. No prior experience needed.

A microlot like this isn't a must, it's a pleasure. If you want it, you know why – and our opinion is just one of many. Feel free to tell us what you discover in your cup, via [email protected] or on your next visit to Bern or Zurich. You'll find all our roasts among our coffee beans.

What goes with it?

Particle size and uniformity determine how evenly a coffee extracts – and with it, how clearly berry and chocolate come through in the cup. For anyone who wants to grind affordably and precisely: the VS3 from our Varia coffee grinders or a hand grinder from Comandante or Timemore. If you want more range, you'll find the Varia VS6 or the Weber Workshops EG-1 among our coffee grinders.

For filter and pour-over, the V60 from the Hario Collection or the AeroPress are a good fit. If you want more, the Weber Workshops range has the BIRD.

To get the weight ratio right, a scale helps: compact and precise from Normcore, with app, Bluetooth, and flow-rate display from Acaia. If you're still looking for the right machine, you'll find an overview in the coffee machine advice tool.

Buy Choco Rouge – in Bern, Zurich, and online

You can buy Choco Rouge in Switzerland online, delivered throughout Switzerland and to Liechtenstein in 2 to 4 working days, or via Click & Collect in Bern and Zurich.

Our showrooms: Bern, Gerberngasse 44 (map), and Zurich, Hagenholzstrasse 50b (map). We're happy to answer questions by [email protected] or by phone during business hours, more at coffeecoachingclub.ch.