The number of variables and decisions wound up in a single cup of coffee is staggering. And most of those critically important variables are to do with the coffee beans themselves. From the varietal of coffee plant, through to what altitude they are grown. From the soil composition they are grown in, to the origin. From how they are processed, to the roasting style. From single origins through to simple and complex blends.
Below are a few aspects that we thought you may be interested in.
As previously noted, where possible we deal directly with coffee farms, and the farmers that run them. This helps with traceability, from origin to origin, from farm to farm, from crop to crop. And even for the regions or origins where we can’t deal directly, we do everything possible to understand what we are buying, from whom, and how it was grown/ harvested/ shipped.
Relationships with coffee framers are a critically important aspect to our roasteries, which is why we value them so highly. Seeing the farms firsthand (origin trips), gaining exposure to the struggles that they face at origin (workers, environment, cash flow) and also the values our partners hold is critically important to us.
Collectively we source coffee beans from close to one hundred different origins around the globe; from different regions within Mexico to Columbia, from Nicaragua to Brazil, from El Salvador to Myanmar. From these exotic/ amazing/ intriguing places comes different varietals, from different altitudes, grown in different environments delivering an incredibly diverse range of flavour notes.
A single origin roast is one who’s beans come from the same processing station (and often the same farm) in a region. These origins when kept separate (I.e. not blended), roasted in a specific way, produce vastly different taste profiles. Each roastery explores the treatment of origins in different ways.
A blend is simply a combination of single origin beans mixed/ blended together. Each roastery has its own unique collection of blends, mastered over many years, with very unique flavour profiles. These are driven by the philosophy and opinions of the head roaster, and of course the intended consumer’s taste palate.
Each region within origins, and even down to each farm, produces coffee beans that have quite distinctive natural flavour properties. When roasting these we want to keep the flavour notes and enhance their ‘brightness’ through the roasting style, which includes a consideration around the eventual brew method. Some origins we would roast much lighter than others to expose and enhance flavour notes like floral, or citric, and some would suit being roasted darker to draw out more caramel and chocolatey notes. Again, each roastery has its own set of roasting profiles it uses to get the most out of the coffee it roasts.
If you haven’t come across the term before, a Q Grader is a trained and Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) licensed coffee cupper that can evaluate coffees based on the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) practices. They help guide and maintain quality and consistency over different roasts over time. We have close to twenty Q Graders across the different roasteries.
Each roastery has a variety of equipment to help with quality and consistency. These include numerous foreign matter detection systems, including magnets, destoners, metal and Xray detectors, moisture and water detection meters, Agtron coffee analyzer (colourimeter analysis), to name a few. The Roastery at Twenty Three, and the Preston roastery has the latest technology built into the newly installed roasters (including afterburners).
If you haven’t come across the term before, a Q Grader is a trained and Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) licensed coffee cupper that can evaluate coffees based on the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) practices. They help guide and maintain quality and consistency over different roasts over time. We have close to twenty Q Graders across the different roasteries.
