About Our Coffees
About Our Coffees
We get quite a buzz from coffee. And we want you to as well. Our range of coffees is made using only the finest beans from around the world, with every variety being lovingly selected by our master roasters.
Each coffee is tasted to guarantee that it is the finest coffee of its type. Each variety has its own distinctive character, developed by careful blending and roasting to deliver a unique, full flavour time after time. To find out more, simply click on the boxes.
+ Sourcing and Blending
There are only two main species of coffee commercially grown in the world, arabica and robusta.
What makes coffees taste different is a combination of factors including soils, altitude, climate, and the way that the coffee has been harvested and processed. Coffees from different countries often have intrinsic qualities and flavour profiles, a little bit like the concept of ‘terrior’ in wine.
We select our coffees to bring you the very best of each coffee origin – when you buy our Java, for instance, it will be rich, luxurious and full of dark chocolate notes.
We source our speciality coffees through companies that have been working with coffee growers for many years. We work with these companies to make sure we bring you the best quality coffee, and only source the best grades available from each country. Part of our commitment to a sustainable coffee industry is to buy Fairtrade, and Fairtrade Organic coffees from specific grower co-operatives, and these coffees are the very best in quality.
Blending coffees is an art and makes sure we can deliver absolute consistency in flavour, week in week out, to our customers. Certain coffees work well together and good blending develops complex flavour profiles, with the qualities of one origin complementing the qualities of another in the cup. Our taster and buyer utilises his knowledge of this to bring you a range of blends with unique flavour profiles.
We still roast coffee in an artisan way that marries craft and science to deliver a perfectly roasted bean, time after time. Every coffee is drum roasted in small batches, and is slow roasted at temperatures up to 220ºC over 14 – 18 minutes to bring out all the flavour possible. Our roasters roast by eye, watching the coffee turn from blue green, through yellow, to cinnamon and then to rich brown colours. Only when the beans are fully plumped up and developed and roasted to just the right colour do they end the roast.
+ Roast Levels
Very Dark
These very full-bodied coffees possess rich, smoky flavours and are only for people who like their coffee seriously powerful.
Dark
Dark roasted coffees are rich, full-bodied and complex in their flavour profile with dark chocolate notes sometimes present.
Medium Dark
At this roast level, coffee starts to develop a full smooth body, often balanced by red berry notes, and sweet caramel.
Medium Plus
Just on the darker side of medium, this roast level emphasises a balance of nutty flavours, sweetness and body whilst retaining a little citrus tang. Coffees roasted to this level make great, all-day drinking coffees.
Medium
These coffees are lighter in body, clean and often have a pleasant citrus acidity on the finish. Best when drunk black, they are perfect first thing in the morning.
+ Coffee Preparation
Coffee preparation isn’t as daunting as it first seems. Success comes down to a bit of physics and chemistry.
Don’t worry, we’re not going to give you a science lesson. If you get the grind size, dosage, and brew time right the result will be a rich, well-flavoured cup of coffee.
Every type of coffee machine has a different way of brewing, so here’s a few tips for the most popular machines.
Once you have brewed, you can put your used coffee grounds on the compost heap. The residual caffeine acts as a slug deterrent. Just the thing if you grow hostas or courgettes.
+ Cafetière
Cafetières are probably the easiest way to consistently make a really good cup of roast and ground coffee. Here are a few little pointers to help you make the perfect brew.
- Make sure your equipment is clean and dry.
- The ratio of coffee to water is a major factor. For people who want accuracy, 55g per litre is just right. This can be a little hard to manage in practice so we recommend one rounded dessertspoon per person adjusted to taste.
- The grind of coffee is critical as well, and we recommend a cafetière or omni grind for perfect extraction.
- Use freshly drawn water, boil it, and then leave it for a minute before pouring onto the coffee grounds.
- Fill the pot half way, give the coffee a little stir, and then fill to the top.
- Leave the coffee to brew for five minutes. Making use of a timer for this is ideal. This allows the full range of flavour molecules to be extracted.
- Slowly plunge the press to push the grounds to the bottom of the pot.
- Pour and serve.
+ Filter
Filter machines are still favored today, and these guidelines will suit the increasingly popular Chemex® (www.chemexcoffeemaker.com), too.
- Make sure your equipment is clean and dry.
- The ratio of coffee to water is a major factor. For people who want accuracy, 55g per litre is just right. This can be a little hard to manage in practice so we recommend one rounded dessertspoon per person adjusted to taste.
- Our omni grind, or a coffee ground for filter is recommended for that perfect cup.
- Only use freshly drawn water for your machine.
- Watch how long your filter machine takes to brew. If it takes less than 4 minutes to brew, your coffee is a little too coarse. If the brew takes more than 6 minutes, it’s too fine. This will give either a skinny brew or an over extracted brew, neither of which are tasty.
- Serve and pour.
- After 20 minutes any coffee left on the hotplate will be getting a little bitter.
+ Mokapot
The moka pot, or stove top espresso, is a little trickier to use than a cafetière, but it can make a fantastic cup of coffee when brewed correctly. A lot of it is down to complicated physics, but here are a couple of quick tips to help:
- Use a grind coarser than espresso – our omni grind is great for this.
- Pre-heat your water most of the way to the boil before pouring into the reservoir at the bottom of your moka pot.
- Only fill the reservoir to just below the valve.
- Fill your filter basket right to the top. If you want to tamp the coffee we recommend a gentle tamp only.
- Screw everything together and put your moka pot onto a moderate heat on the hob.
- When the coffee starts to brew into your top pot, take it off the heat while it is coming through as a steady flow. There will be enough heat in the moka pot to finish the brew.
- Once the coffee has finished coming through the brewer, pour immediately to prevent over extraction.
+ The Coffee Plant and Growing Regions
The coffee plant is a slender, evergreen bush that grows to approximately 2-3m in height when pruned.
Clusters of fragrant white flowers produce red berries, each usually containing two green seeds, which when dried and roasted, form the hard, brown coffee beans that we all know.
The best coffee is generally produced from bushes planted at an altitude of between 1400 – 2000 metres above sea level, with a full crop only reaped following maturity, after five or six years. The average annual yield per bush is about one pound of beans, which must be carefully harvested by hand.
Although native to Ethiopia, the arabica coffee plant is now grown in many tropical countries. Brazil is the most prolific producer with some seven million acres given up to coffee plantations.
We offer coffees from all of the major coffee regions, from the acidity of KENYAN, to the smoothness of COLOMBIAN and the richer JAVA. We’re also now proud producers of dual certified Fairtrade and Organic varieties.
+ Coffee History
Coffee has been enjoyed in Britain since the mid-Seventeenth Century when coffee houses emerged as centres for political discussion and commerce.
In Edinburgh, the lure of the coffee house attracted the majority of businessmen to the City’s High Street. It was where merchants traded, financiers and politicians discussed the issues of the day and contracts were signed and exchanged.
It could be said that if you wanted to know what was brewing, the coffee house was the place to go.
+ Fascinating Coffee Facts
- The word ‘coffee’ comes from the Latin name of the genus Coffea. The genus is a member of the Rubiaceae family, which includes over 500 genera and 6000 species of plants, most of which are tropical trees and shrubs.
- The coffee plant originated in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa and even today it still grows wild in these regions.
- It was the country of Yemen (next to Saudi Arabia) that is credited to be the first country to begin to cultivate coffee for drinking purposes. Certainly by the 15th Century, the cultivation of coffee in Yemen was highly developed. The country was one of the busiest places in the world, with its main port, Mocha being its main centre.
- The earliest coffee drinkers are thought to have lived in Ethiopia, with references to a beverage known as ‘buncham’ found in Arabic scientific documents dating from AD 900-1000.
- The first coffee houses were established in Mecca, known as Kaveh Kanes. They were originally religious in purpose, although they quickly developed into centres for socialising: playing chess, gossiping, singing, dancing and playing music.