Small Batch Coffee Blog

Syphon Coffee is Coming

2011-10-26T11:24:00.001-07:00

Syphon coffee is coming. from Small Batch Coffee on Vimeo.

Small Batch @myhotel

2011-10-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

We've been hatching a bit of a plan for a while now which some of you will already know about, but now that work has begun we can officially announce the impending opening of our new shop in myhotel Brighton on Jubilee Street.

Work is underway and we will be opening the doors bright and early on Monday November 7th. We're stoked to be working with a great independent company like myhotel and to have a central Brighton location. The shop will become our flagship store with more space than ever before and room for 60 covers.

We will be roasting on site in a little 1kg roster, brewing syphon coffees on a dedicated brew bar and rocking two different espresso machines, one for blends and one for single origins. Coffee cupping (tasting) and barista training will be a big part of the new shop for both professional and recreational coffee heads.

In conjunction with our catering partners The Flour Pot the food offering will be much expanded from our other outlets. I saw a sneak peak of the menu the other day and all I'm gonna say is lamb harissa and almond sausage rolls (and maybe passion fruit tart with soft meringue!!)

All in all it's gonna be awesome and I'm very excited about going to work there for the next few months, we've got some great new additions to the Small Batch staff alongside some familiar faces and we can't wait to see you down there.

We'll be keeping facebook and twitter updated as the fit out develops so keep an eye out and in the meantime get ready to come see us next month.

New Coffees

2011-09-19T05:41:00.000-07:00

A week of new arrivals at Small Batch with new retail and espresso beans rolling in from Peru, El Salvador, India, Kenya and Guatemala

From India, an outstanding coffee from the Balmaadi Estate in Nilgiris. This is one of the best Indian coffees I've had and is a lot lighter and more subtle than the rich heavy Indians we are used to.

Balmmadi is one of India's most ecologically sound coffee farms carrying both organic and biodynamic certification.

The owners pay great attention to the localbiosphere ensuring the coffee is shade grown next to indigenous plant species and that the estate remains a natural haven for local wildlife including panthers and monkeys.

This is a fantastic coffee that we missed out on last year as it sold so quickly and we are very excited to offer it.

From Guatemala we have another great Central American coffee from the 2011 harvest, this one a bourboncillo or Dwarf Bourbon varietal from Finca Santa Clara in the Antigua Valley. We bought some of Santa Clara's main crop last year and are very excited to offer the Bourboncillo microlot this year.

The dwarf bourbon offers the classic sweet citrus flavours of a good Guatemala bourbon but is gentler and more delicate than its big brother with a lighter fruit flavour and overall mouthfeel. This is a great little coffee and if you liked last years Santa Clara or the recent El Retiro you'll love this.

From Kenya we have the first peaberry we've had for a while from our old favourite the Gethumbwini Estate. This is super fruity and full of life, I think it will be a love it or hate it coffee, but personally I think its delicious.

We have several more coffees arriving over the next few weeks including a great coffee from Peru which we will be offering as a single origin and some new component coffees for our winter espresso blend which is on its way very soon.... In the meantime all the new retail coffees are available from the roastery, Wilbury Rd or online at www.smallbatchcoffee.co.uk

LONDON TRIATHLON RAFFLE

2011-06-21T11:41:00.001-07:00

Roll Up! Roll Up! It's Small Batch Raffle time! 4 of our baristas, Mike, Mel, Pete and Nick are taking part in the London Triathlon on July 30th. The guys are competing in aid of the Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign a cause that is very close to a lot of us at Small Batch. To help them raise funds (and to inspire Nick to do some training) we are offering up a pretty sweet raffle prize.

The guys took part last year and looked very fetching in their Lycra Mantards

We are giving away a hand made Hario cafetiere, an 8oz KeepCup, a bag of our Nicaragua Finca Santa Maura and 10 free cups of coffee worth a grand total of £70... All you have to do to be in with a chance of swiping this booty is make a donation to the guys JustGiving page

http://www.justgiving.com/cduncs

and leave the note 'SmallBatch' next to your donation. There is no minimum or maximum donation, give what you like. The draw will be made on Monday 1st August. Good Luck!

New Coffees

2011-06-20T11:35:00.001-07:00

Some great new arrivals this week at Small Batch with fresh crop coffees from Central America flying in alongside some mid crop Brazil and Rwanda.

Fresh from the mountains of Santa Ana we have an awesome Red Bourbon from Finca El Retiro in El Salvador. I love coffees from El Salvador and they are bang in season at the moment. We used El Retiro in our espresso blend a few years ago so we know this is gonna be good. You can expect big juicy sweetness from this one especially in espresso or on a stovetop. The World Barista Championship was recently won by Alejandro Mendez from El Salvador, the first champion ever from a producing country. El Salvador, it's so hot right now.

Our second new arrival from Central America is a pacamara varietal from Finca Santa Maura in north central Nicaragua.

Pacamara is one of the famous varieties of Central America renowned for its large bean size and delicate sweet flavours. This lot from Nicaragua cupped really well when we sampled it and we are very excited to be offering it.

I'm sure many of you will be sad to hear we have run out of the Brazilian Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama, it's been our most popular coffee to date, however we have another outstanding pulp natural Brazil from Fazenda Rainha, a neighbouring estate just a few miles from Cachoeira, with a similar taster profile and quality.

(and if you're desperate for more Cachoeira we're using the last few bags in this years Filter Blend)

Finally we have another Red Bourbon from the Musasa Co-operative in Rwanda. This is another outstanding example of bourbon coffee at its finest with strong juicy fruit flavours and a big tangy body.

Musasa is one of many co-operatives in Rwanda that has benefited from the help of the PEARL organisation, a non-profit organisation set up to aid the restoration of the coffee industry in Rwanda. Before the civil war that raged in the 1990's coffee was Rwanda's most lucrative export crop but many coffee farms were destroyed and many workers killed or displaced during the conflicts. Through careful reconstruction and with the help of organisations like PEARL many farmers are now making a sustainable living and growing outstanding coffee in Rwanda once again.

These coffees will be available at Wilbury Road and the roastery in the next few days and in the webshop on thursday.

Enjoy.

drop4drop in India

2011-05-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

Our charity partner drop4drop just got back from trip to Hyderabad in India, building new wells and bringing clean drinking water to people that need it.

Check out the video diary below

For more info or to donate check out

www.drop4drop.org.uk

www.twitter.com/drop4drop

Homebrew 2: Aeropress

2011-03-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

The second video in our series of homebrewing guides, this time it the Aerobies little brother, the Aeropress.

Homebrew 2: Aeropress from Small Batch Coffee on Vimeo.

Recap:

-Rinse Filter

-16 grams coffee medium coarse grind

-135 grams/ml of water

- Invert Aeropress

-Brew time 90 seconds

-Stir coffee for first and last 10 seconds

-Revert and press

Ps. Aeropresses coming to the webshop soon....

New Coffees and changes to the Webshop

2011-02-24T06:35:00.001-08:00

Its been all action this week at the roastery with a whole heap of new coffees arriving. With the new crops landing from South America we have fresh offerings from Brazil, Peru and Colombia as well as a coffee from Tanzania that goes by the name Ngorongoro Blue AB.

Named after the nearby Ngorongoro crater which is a UNESCO world heritage site, this is a lovely fruity bourbon from Tanzania's northern highlands.

From Brazil we have a 100% yellow bourbon from Fazenda Cachoeria da Grama. We just finished last years crop from Cachoeria last week so its great timing that the new crop is in and ready to roll.

From Peru is a new coffee for us from a group of smallholders in the Quebrada valley and from Colombia another another growers association coffee from the town of Viota.

We're particularily excited to have Colombian coffee back on the menu as it has been in short suppy for the last few years. Certain varietals of Arabica coffee are very susceptible to a plant disease known as Coffee Leaf Rust Disease and this along with heavy rains has decimated the last two Colombian crops. Although production is still lower than average, this year there is thankfully more Colombian coffee on the market and we are thrilled to be able to offer the Viota lot.

With all these new arrivals we've made a few changes to the webshop. All internet orders will now be roasted and shipped on Mondays and Thursdays. Orders received before 11am on roasting days will be shipped that day, orders after 11 will go on the following roasting day.

With the recent severe price increases in green coffee we can unfortunately no longer offer free shipping on internet orders. To combat this we now sell all our retail coffees in 335 gram bags rather than 250 grams to make sure you get the most coffee for your shipping buck. Check out the shop for full information on roasting days and shipping costs.

Take it easy

Small Batch and Drop4Drop

2011-02-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

It is our great pleasure to announce that we are signing up for drop4drop a global charity initiative that works with drinks companies to bring clean drinking water to the developing world.

drop4drop works by collecting a small donation from drinks manufacturers based on their output and puts this money into projects that help deliver clean water where it is needed. For every £1 donated drop4drop promise to deliver a minimum of 500 litres of clean water where it is needed.

drop4drop work with established charities such as Christian Aid, Potters for Peace and Water.org to help fund projects that build wells, deliver water purification kits and build and deliver water filtration systems. Every project funded must meet the 500 litre minimum and many hugely exceed it as long term sustainable initiatives. A lot of these projects are in coffee producing areas; drop4drop has recently supplied water filters to communities in Nicaragua, protected a natural source of clean water in Tanzania and built wells in India.

We believe this is a fantastic idea and have pledged to donate £1 for every box of coffee we produce whether sold as wholesale, retail or in our shops. This means that for every litre of water that is used brewing our coffee 10 litres of clean drinking water are delivered to people that need it.

For more information please visit www.drop4drop.org or check out their Facebook page

GoProasting

2011-01-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

GoProasting 101 from Small Batch Coffee on Vimeo.

So I recently got a GoPro mountable HD camera primarily for skiing, although I think it could have some cool coffe uses. Heres the first attempt, roasting some coffee yesterday

Some News...

2011-01-06T02:45:00.001-08:00

So as some of the more regular visitors to the Roastery will already know we have some big news, we'll be opening our second shop at 67B Church Road in Hove in early February.

The new shop will be quite different to the Roastery, focusing a lot more on a drink in coffee experience. With more space and no roasting department on site, we will be offering a range of brewed coffees and loose leaf teas alongside coffee tasting and brewing classes.

We will of course still be offering an espresso based takeaway service but the idea for this site is to provide a more traditional cafe environment to enjoy our coffees. The site's coming along nicely already, Graham has been in there for a couple of weeks already sanding and painting and plastering and we hope to open the doors early next month

I'll post some more pictures here as the site takes shape and give more detailed opening dates when have them

Christmas Opening Times

2010-12-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Fa la la la la la la la.

Just a quick note on christmas opening times across the company

Last day for internet orders will be Monday 20th December for delivery before the big day.

The Shop will be open as normal until 3pm Christmas Eve and then:

Christmas Day: Closed

Boxing Day: Closed

Monday 27th: Closed

Tuesday 28th: Closed

Wednesday 29th: 8am-4pm

Thursday 30th: 8am-4pm

Friday 31st: 8am-4pm

Saturday 1st: 9am-1pm

Sunday 2nd: Closed

Monday 3rd: 8am-4pm

Tuesday 4th: Business as usual

Last day for wholesale orders will be Thursday 23rd for delivery Christmas Eve morning. Deliveries will resume on Tuesday 4th January, but you can collect orders from the roastery on the 29th, 30th and 31st if you're desperate

Merry Christmas from all at Small Batch

Sao Silvestre Christmas Blend 2010

2010-12-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

Tis the Season.

The tree is up in the shop, there was snow last week and I haven't bought any presents yet, Christmas is upon us my friends and to celebrate we'd like to present our 2010 Christmas Blend from Fazenda Sao Silvestre in Brazil.

Following on from the success of last years blend we are blending the coffee with cinnamon, cardamon, chai tea and a sprinkle of sugar and suggesting you add your own tot of brandy on Christmas morn. This year we are selling the blend in lovely little presentation boxes ideal for wrapping up and giving as gifts, the boxes will hold two bags so you can put another bag of coffee in there as well for when you're all christmassed out.....

Christmas Blend is available at the Roastery and online now.

Merry Christmas, Al

The Roastery Last Thursday

2010-12-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

Small Batch 365

2010-11-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

So I've been a bit quiet on the blog and Twitter front recently. We've been exceptionally busy here not least with training Kawe as my new assistant roaster since Tony went back to Australia. Another little project I've been working on (which admittedly hasn't taken up much time) is Small Batch 365 a tumblr I set up with the intention of posting a pic every day from Small Batch or wherever we may find ourselves hawking coffee.

The site is meant primarily as a memory aide for us to hopefully look back on over time but I thought some of you might be interested so thought I would share it here. I haven't quite been able to keep up to the picture a day manifesto but it is updated regularly so give it a look.

Look out for the next brewing guide video coming soon alongside our annual Christmas blend. Ooh and we also have a new ad in the next edition of Edible Magazine which I believe is released December 1st as well.

Keep on Trucking....

Unblended Espresso Blends

2010-10-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

I was playing around with some of the new single origins we’ve had in recently, trying a simple 50/50 blend of Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama and El Salvador Santa Barbara. The blend worked well, the sweet body of the Cachoeria went nicely with the big red cherry flavour of the El Salvador.

However as a blend these attributes didn’t seem as huge and didn’t shine as much as they did when drinking the two coffees as single origin espressos. I liked the blend very much but wanted more from it and hit on the idea of pulling one shot of each as a single origin but into the same cup. The result was outstanding; there were massive cherry notes in the cup just as if I was drinking the Santa Barbara on its own but they were underpinned by the sweet balanced body of the Cachoeria as if they had been blended.

I was very intrigued and yesterday applied the same principal to the components of our House Blend. Again the results were impressive. The creamy chocolate body of the India Sarathay was everywhere while the nutty balance and hint of sweetness from the Nicaraguan El Quetzal cut through it beautifully and the delicate citrus notes of the Sidamo lingered long in the mouth. It was akin to the very best shots I’ve had of the blend with every key attribute magnified.

I don’t know if people have experimented with this before, I’m sure someone has but it was all new to me. I don’t know what the practical use of this would be outside of maybe a signature drink in competition but I feel it could be a useful technique for me in creating and tasting blends. Obviously as an on-bar drink it’s hugely impractical which is a shame as I thoroughly enjoyed the espressos I drank.

I’d love to know if any else has experimented with this or to hear what others find from deconstructing their blends in this way. Like every experiment it seems to raise more questions than answers but it has given me something to think about over this wet weekend.

Al

El Salvador Cup of Excellence 2010 Lot 26 Santa Barbara

2010-09-17T08:15:00.001-07:00

We just received this coffee this week and it is another fantastic example of the outstanding quality of both coffee from El Salvador and the Cup of Excellence programme.

As espresso it bursts with super sweet cherry and apple flavours and has an oozy syrupy body that made me want another one straight away.

Im not always a fan of sweet coffees with milk but as Flat White the cherries cut through the milk and for a nice balance of creaminess and acidity.

I love coffee from El Salvador, especially the coffees we've had from the Apaneca Ilamatepec Mountains and this is another example of the excellent coffee that grows in the region and the mastery with which it is grown and processed.

The Santa Barbara will be available at the roastery and online from monday. Nick has drawn up a great label for it which I'd love to post here but I cant work out how to save a pdf as jpeg so you'll have to wait for that...

Have a good weekend

Brighton and Hove Independent Cafe Guide

2010-08-31T13:51:00.000-07:00

I was away last week when this was released but i got a look at it today. Assembled, written and produced by two local coffee lovers with no affiliation to any of the premise concerned, the book is a beautifully presented and very informative guide to the best of the ever growing coffee scene here in Brighton and Hove.

Authour Alex told me they hope to produce a new edition annually and introduce the concept into other cities alongside an interactive website that would be updated more frequently.

It is an honour for us to be included in such a project alongised some of our favourite wholesale cutomers and other outstanding coffee shops in the area and we all wish the guys the best of luck.

Looking through the guide it really highlights how the coffee scene has flourished here in Brighton and Hove in the last couple of years. There are now pockets of great coffee all over the city; Taylor Street, 9Bar and Coffee@33 near the station; Mange Tout, Brighton Coffee Co, Tic Toc and M0ksha in the Lanes; Redroaster, Frankies and Ground in Kemptown and 9Bar, Ethels and Treacle & Co in Hove to name but a few.

Its fantastic to see all these great sites flourishing and with ourselves and Redroaster roasting locally and a healthy supply of Monmouth and Union theres a lot of great coffee being served in our fair city. Brighton has long been renowned for supporting local and independent businesses and its nice to see this reflected in the coffee scene. When i've got more time i'd like to put together a coffee map of Brighton and Hove using Google maps.

For the time being you can get more info on the guidebook's website, have a gander at the copy we have in the roastery or pick up your own for a fiver at Taylor Street, Marwood, Coffee@33, Mange Tout, Ground or Waterstones.

Bond Likes Pourovers, They Must Be Cool

2010-08-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

Conclusive proof that brewed coffee is and always has been cool.

On the train back from Amsterdam this morning i was reading the James Bond novel 'From Russia with Love' and near the start of the novel Fleming describes Bonds breakfast routine as thus:

"Breakfast was Bond's favourite meal of the day. When he was stationed in London it was always the same. It consisted of very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black and without sugar."

As the chemex was invented in the late forties it is entirley plausible that a gourmand such as Bond would use one in a novel first published in 1957. Bond's predeliction for coffee over tea, and specifically Jamaican coffee is well known but I had never seen mention of a specific brew method or purveyor before.

Nice work Bond.

New Arrivals

2010-08-17T03:02:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful time of the year for a coffee roaster. We may be having a rubbish end to summer but August and September mark the arrival of the bulk of new crop coffees from Latin America.

In terms of regions, Central America is definitely my favourite origin: Classic El Salvadors, Guatemalas and Cost Ricans pretty much sum up everything I love about coffee and we have two great Central Americans arriving in the coming weeks.

I was sad to see the Finca Santa Clara go but we've just received a great new Costa Rica today, Finca La Candelilla from the Tarrazu region. This is a beautiful, rich and complex espresso with plummy notes, perfect for the early autumn we seem to be having.

We also have a Cup of Excellence lot from El Salvador arriving next month. This light and sweet cherry espresso is a real standout lot and a great example of Salvadorian coffee at its finest. I'll have more info when it arrives but expect to see it in the webshop and roastery from mid september.

Two other coffees arrived with the Candelilla. A yellow canario (a rare hybrid of traditional yellow bourbon) from Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama in Brazil and from Kenya a AA from the Mtaro estate.

The Mtaro is a beautifully fruity filter brew, it has the full bodiedness of a traditional Kenyan but with huge tropical fruit flavours, a really interesting and different coffee.

The Cachoeira makes a lovely sweet espresso, rich chocolate and toffee flavours paired with a lovely thick, coating mouthfeel that also stands up as a filter and is fantastic in the aeropress.

The Candelilla, Cachoeira and Mtaro will be available in the webshop and at the roastery from Friday, and the El Salvador Santa Barbara Cup of Excellence from next month.

Enjoy.

There's an Awful Lot of Coffee in Brazil

2010-08-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

I was listening to the coffee episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour again today and felt the need to share this little known banger from 'ol Blue Eyes, especially as I was looking at new Brazilain coffees at the time. On that note I'm currently selecting our new retail range as we are all but out of the current selections and new Latin and South American crops are arriving this month. We'll be introducing a new filter blend and hopefully a Cup of Excellence coffee from El Salvador. Stay tuned for more details and if you want one of the last bags of Wara Wara you'd better move quick......

Al

Home Brewing Lesson 1: Cafetiere/French Press

2010-07-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the first of the home brew videos, starting with the simplest of brew methods, the mighty cafetiere.

Weigh your beans, time your brew and scrape your bloom.....

Home Brew Lesson 1: Cafetiere/French Press from Small Batch Coffee on Vimeo.

Home Brewing

2010-07-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

Me and Sacha spent a very enjoyable afternoon visiting Square Mile’s pop up shop Penny University in Shoreditch yesterday, a fantastic place which focuses purely on the art of brewed coffee and which got me thinking about my own adventures in the world of brewed coffee. Like a lot of coffee folk I cut my chops as both barista and roaster with espresso as there wasn’t much of a market for brewed coffee in this country until recently.

In the last couple of years and since buying first an aeropress, then a pourover and recently a siphon pot I like many others in the coffee industry have begun to move away from espresso as the be all and end all and to explore the wonderful and varied world of brewed coffee.

The recent resurgence of these methods has been attributed to many things, the rise in quality of green coffees, the overabundance of bad espresso at the big chains and the ever growing and ever more international coffee culture of this country. While all of these undoubtedly have aided the rise of brewed coffee I believe the real reason for its comeback lies in its greatest strength: The fact that anyone can make fantastic, stand out quality brewed coffee at home, for a very moderate investment of money and time.

There is a certain amount of romance for me in brewed coffee in that it was the first way I experienced ‘real’ coffee as a child, being allowed a small cup from my parent’s cafetiere on the weekend. This was I think a common experience for many people but one which may have attached a negative stigma to filter coffee from large pots of over or under extracted supermarket coffee that had been roasted and ground many months before it was drunk. Brewed coffee can be exceptionally bad when it is not made correctly, but even in its simplest form, the cafetiere or French Press, it can with just a little care and attention, make fantastic coffee.

This is the beauty of brewed coffee for me and is the reason I fell back in love with it. After drinking espresso-based drinks all week long at work I began to cherish the relaxing long cup of coffee I would brew on Sunday mornings on my day off. As my knowledge grew and my brewing technique became more refined I got more and more from every coffee I brewed. My cafetiere technique is precise but hardly complicated and it produces coffee I make in my kitchen at home that is every bit as satisfying and interesting and does as much justice to the coffee as the espresso I work so hard to produce all week long.

In the coming weeks I will post a series of videos of various brew methods from cafetiere to siphon pot, all made at home. My knowledge and methods are neither exhaustive nor perfect; in fact they are far from it, but the point is that making great coffee at home needn’t be hard and can be very rewarding

Exciting Times!

2010-07-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

Big things are afoot, there's every chance that you've found your way here through our all new website. It's taken a while but we finally have a fully functional website and webshop up and running at www.smallbatchcoffee.co.uk beautifully designed by Jack Hughes. Check out his design portfolio at otiscurtis.com and his sweet clothing company Seven Eighty Eight

In other news, the shop will be closed this Saturday, July 3rd as Brad and Sacha are getting married! Yay.

Have a good weekend

Open for business!

2010-04-29T00:49:00.000-07:00

The webshop is now up and running here Happy Shopping

Another nomination.....

2010-04-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

So it turns we've been nominated for two categories in the Brighton and Hove Foodie Awards, Best Cafe as well as Best Food Shop. I was too excited about being nominated once that I missed the second nomination. If you haven't done so already vote here and make us happy.

Vote Small Batch!

2010-04-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Leaders debates are cool but politics isn't as fun as food or drink. As part of this years Brighton and Hove Food and Drink Festival a new range of awards have been launched, the Brighton and Hove Foodie Awards. We've been nominated in the best food shop category which we're very proud of, primarily because its lovely to be nominated but also its great to be recognised as more than simply a cafe but also for our roasting and retail coffee sales.

I'm assuming that if you're reading this you probably like our coffee and we would massively appreciate it if you could take two seconds to vote for us here. There are also several of the cafes we supply nominated in the best cafe category so if you are voting you can share the love!

PS. I saw the best shot of someone in the audience of the leaders debates doing a massive yawn tonight.

Al

Welcome

2010-04-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Ive just returned from a two week jaunt through the alps which sadly I was able to return from on time as we were driving, and it's all go here at the shop.

I was working on our web shop before I went away and its just about ready to launch now so the time seemed appropriate to launch the Small Batch Blog as well. The web shop isn't active just yet but will be very soon. You can view it currently at smallbatchcoffee.bigcartel.com though it will soon flip over to smallbatchcoffee.co.uk which will also be hosting this blog once we figure out how computers actually work...

So anyway, as means of a quick first post to get the ball rolling I thought I would share a few thoughts on my favourite coffee of the moment, Finca Santa Clara from Antigua, Guatemala.

I took a bag of this coffee away with me on my trip along with my aeropress and at the expense of sounding like a total douche, 'really got to know it'. I don't often drink the same coffee day after day or get through a whole 250 gram bag of one coffee at a time as we usually have so many samples and blends to try. Drinking this coffee for a week straight from the same brew method only enhanced the initial loving I'd had for it from cuppings and early tastings.

I am a big fan of Latin American coffee, I love the light body and citrussey flavours as a nice alternative to a dark rich espresso, and the Finca Santa Clara delivers these but with massive, juicy tropical fruit flavours as well (note the pineapple on the label). It's quite a 'different' coffee but if you're up for trying something very fruity and fresh during this soon to end April heat wave, the Finca Santa Clara is available at the roastery, £4.95 per 250g

Thanks for making it this far, check back soon, hopefully the blog will look a bit tidier and more small batchey next time your here.