BRINGING COFFEE TO LIFE

Coffee Roasting Profiles – what’s it all about?

Roasting coffee transforms the physical & chemical properties of green coffee beans into roasted coffee. The roasting process produces the characteristic flavour of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to change in taste.  Long before the fresh green bean hits the Roaster… Characteristics are defined via weather, altitude, and location of the farm and soil type… Notes (parts of flavour) are already established and can become distinctive to each coffee.

Roast types – This can become detailed, so we’ve kept it a quick read and generalised… all in all we hope you understand and help you make informed choices when tasting good coffee.

• Light – Roasted light brown in colour and also known as Cinnamon Roast, Half City, Light city and New England. We tend to like and it is our twinned preference with medium roasts for speciality coffee as it highlights coffee origins and complexities.
• Medium – Medium light brown, acidity is slightly subdued, however the original character is still preserved. Chocolates and caramel flavours are evident.  Medium roasts are popular in good coffee shops and is a again a preferred roast option for us.
• Dark – The range of Dark roasts can be described as; full city, French, Vienna & Italian and can range from medium dark to black shiny.  Natural oils are common and a slight sheen or oil on the surface of the bean can be seen.  Natural flavours are not commonly recognised and are replaced with dark coca and burnt tones become distinct.

Roasting beans add layers of complexity; …for us… (Everyone is different!) A light roast enables the natural flavours to push through, and a darker roast adds notes of caramel to chocolates and smoky tobacco.  Our aim is to roast each batch enhancing as much as the notes and flavour the beans can provide allowing you to recognise the distinctive taste of speciality coffees from around the world.

Coffee history snapshot

The ‘Chicken and the egg debate maybe easier to unravel and state true early facts… but whichever version you agree with, all are fun. Lets stick with the quaintest and hopefully the truth… but we doubt it…

Back in… 850AD, an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi noticed his goats became excited, energetic and jumping after eating cheery red berries and therefore tried the berries himself.  His exhilaration on eating the cherries led him to a local Islamic monk from Sufi monastery, unimpressed the monk threw the beans on a fire, resulting in the sweet coffee caramel aromas; with himself and now other monastery monks raking the roasted beans, grinding them to powder and dissolved the brown substance with hot water yielding the first cup of ‘qahwah’ or coffee…

The first substantiated evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree is from the early 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen^.  extending rapidly to Mecca and Cairo. During the 16th century, coffee had reached the rest of the Middle East, South India, Persia, Turkey, the Horn of Africa, and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to the Balkans, Italy, and to the rest of Europe, as well as Southeast Asia and then to America.

Coffee – simples !*??*!

What makes coffee so diverse is we all have an opinion and we all have a differing palate?   So play and enjoy coffee diversity explore, experiment and discover your own tastes…

A taster to get started

• Espresso – Espresso base – 3oz
• Americano – Espresso base (Long black) – 12oz – Milk on the side.
• Americano – Espresso base (Short black) – 8oz – Milk on the side.
• Latte – Espresso base 10-12 oz – Semi Skimmed Milk 2mm foam.
• Cappuccino – Espresso base 10-12 oz – Semi Skimmed Milk 4mm foam.
• Flat white – Ristretto base (restricted espresso) 7- 8oz whole milk 1-2mm foam.
• Cortado – Ristretto base 6-7oz glass whole milk 1mm foam.
• Macchiato – Espresso base – 3oz – 1-2-teaspoons of milk (stain/marked).
• Piccolo – Ristretto base – 3oz – whole or semi skimmed milk – stain…