Sonrisas "Smiles"

Bell Lane & Evalynn - Origin Trip to El Salvador 2023

Completing the coffee circle, producer, roaster & coffee partner. Goran, our account manager, along with Niall, owner of Evalynn Coffee shop, recently travelled to El Salvador to meet coffee producer Fedrico Pacas of Santa Petrona.  How it Began I think, if you are reading this story, you might want to read the beginning of the story in our Coffee Journal called “Evalynn” because this is pretty much chapter two of the same story. But let’s do a little recap here. Niall opened Evalynn Coffee last year and started his coffee journey with Bell Lane. Needless to say, Drogheda gained a  specialty coffee shop. (much-needed)  With both of us starting out as baristas, the idea of “let’s do something more”, was brewing in our minds. Niall sparked the thought to have an - Exclusive roast and offer something unique for Evalynn’s customers. Finca Santa Petrona's black honey-processed Bourbon from the Pacas family in El Salvador had all the desirable attributes for an exclusive coffee - rich, sweet, dark-chocolatey coffee with enticing cranberry and cherry acidity. So, with great assistance from Niko, our head roaster and green coffee buyer, Santa Petrona was soon offered exclusively to all who visit Evalynn.   Chapter Two - El Salvador Fast forward a few months, Andrew from Volcafe extended an invitation to Bell Lane and Evalynn to travel with him to El Salvador and meet the Pacas family, and just like that, we were on our way from Dublin to Toronto to San Salvador.While on a layover in Toronto, we managed to briefly explore the city's coffee scene and just HAD to give a quick mention to Fika Coffee after having a delicious brew by Yady (owner of Fika Coffee) – amazing guys!  We arrived in San Salvador after midnight and got some much-needed rest. The next morning, we were greeted by Federico Pacas himself! it sounds unreal, and it felt unreal! We were then joined by Lily, Federico’s sister, and began the journey toward Santa Ana volcano, where Santa Petrona is located. Immersed in the Pacas family’s history and the coffee culture of El Salvador, Lily detailed some of the joys and also, some of the difficulties that coffee producers in El Salvador face these days, - all while maintaining a smile on her face. Lily is deeply rooted in the coffee growing community, advocating for countless coffee farmers by advising good practices of coffee farming and finding buyers. Due to road works, we could not access Finca Santa Petrona, so we continued to Finca San Jose which was a short journey to the far side of the mountain. At the foot of San Jose farm, Lily collected a few bourbon coffee cherries and gave them to Niall and me to taste. They were surprisingly sweet and tasted something between watermelon and pomegranate and a tiny, tiny bit peppery. We continued deeper into the farm, where some Pacamara coffee trees grew, and finally, we summitted the farm where beautiful Gesha coffee cherries grew and we were treated to breath-taking views of Santa Ana. Just to give you an idea about picking, the bottom of the farm is quite manageable, but as you ascend it becomes very steep and challenging. I can only imagine picking requires a lot of skill. Each picker can pick approx. 80kg-100kg Coffee cherries per day. After processing, drying, etc. this results in around 16kg of specialty-grade coffee. To be honest, I lose my sleep over that.   Next on our schedule was the coffee mill “Beneficio Tuxpal” which is also the Pacas family’s home. The mill is where all magic happens which includes processing, drying, grading, packaging, etc. We toured the facilities at the mill and were then treated to lunch with the entire Pacas family. It’s really hard to explain generosity, kindness, and hospitality! The day closed with a “blind” cupping session in the coffee lab.  14 coffees, some of them from the same farm, but processed differently, were laid across the table for us to try.  At the end of the session, the coffee from Santa Petrona was favored among all and received the highest score on the table.  At that moment I looked at Niall and he just looked back with a smile. 😊 We said our goodbyes and handed Fedrico a small token from Ireland.  - Their coffee!, roasted by Niko in Bell Lane and served in Evalynn. It is hard to determine who was happier with this meeting - us, for going “to source” and experiencing the farm or the Pacas family, seeing their family name and legacy on our blue bag full of coffee.  Behind the dream is a vision, behind vision is idea, behind idea is passion.

Showcasing Mullingar Town

Verona's Seasons Working with so many talented creatives in Bell Lane, the opportunity to showcase their work is our honour. Outside of the coffee professionals, Roasters, and amazing Baristas, the talented creatives behind our brand are just as important.  Verona has been our photographer in Bell Lane for the past four years, giving life to our coffee through creative imagery.  Verona has an impressive back catalogue of local photography from our beautiful town of Mullingar. We decided to highlight the seasons over the coming 12 months from our surrounding area that you can share with friends, family, and loved ones The project will highlight our local area, the home of Bell Lane, and where most of our staff live. With the help of The Factory for printing and pulled together by Daisy, we are excited to share this work with you.   Pic: Verona McQuaid   How it works: For every online order, we will include a postcard. Once received, the choice is yours. We would love you to share this with someone special or to keep and build your collection. We will release each set of seasons online at the end of each quarter; they are free. You can donate when buying, Bell Lane will then donate all proceeds to a local charity at the end of the year. This project is about showcasing our beautiful town, sharing our natural surroundings, and hopefully, making you smile.  

Evalynn

If you ever worked as a barista, there is no doubt you fantasised about having your own coffee shop. To design the look and feel and apply your very own philosophy is a dream that takes blood, sweat, and tears to come to fruition. Niall realised his dream! Established in early 2022, Niall Weldon chose the name ‘Evalynn’ for his café.  Evalynn, much like the name suggests, has an elegant interior influenced by Asian contemporary design. The café welcomes you with a bright, spacious, and minimalistic aesthetic, while functionality plays a pivotal role right through to the finer details. A striking feature in the shop comes in the form of beautiful works of art from local artist and Glebe Gallery Prize Winner, Jenny Campion. Entering the cafe, you are greeted by friendly staff, the sight of fresh flowers, and the aroma of just-baked goods by Grace, the in-house Baker. To top off the senses, a choice of specialty coffee that caters to all taste buds awaits your order. From your favourite milky coffee beverage to a range of filter, home-brewing options, Evalynn truly is a welcomed addition to the local community and a big step up for the coffee scene in Drogheda. An amazing team, coupled with exceptional coffee equipment shows that Niall cut no corners when it comes to offering you the best. Nicole, Abigail, Adam, Lorcan, Niall, or Rachel, will make your perfectly extracted, perfectly steamed, and perfectly presented coffee to brighten your day. While Effie, who is front-of-house will make sure your order arrives at your table Niall seems like a shy person, but he is not hiding his smile while he is talking about his team, he is very proud of them and the family-like bond they created – especially when we talked about Rachel. Rachel ‘The Boss’ (as Niall says) has been involved since the beginning, working tirelessly alongside Niall to coordinate the shop design, installation, and final touches. What makes Niall and Rachel such a perfect duo is their alignment when talking about Evalynn’s mission – to strive for perfection and make coffee that sparks smiles and creates core memories. Niall and Rachel are no strangers in our roastery. We are more than happy to see their faces and have been known to look for any ‘excuse’ to meet up and chat about coffee, work on recipes, or cup some new arrivals. Throw our head roaster Niko into the mix and we could end up spending hours immersed in coffee convos! For Niall, Specialty has influenced many new friendships and he has some great stories connecting with like-minded people from coffee-loving capitals such as Dublin, London, and Milan. Specialty is a community that loves to share passions and experiences and it is evident Niall has truly been captivated. Evalynn’s relationship with Bell Lane started as a spontaneous conversation between Niall and Bell Lane’s Head of Sales, Gail Henshall, in 2021, which kickstarted a relationship that quickly grew to new heights for both parties. Through many passionate conversations, it became clear that Niall was a man with incredible vision who had his heart set on pushing the boundaries of Evalynn’s already exceptional reputation. Paired with Bell Lane’s desire to challenge its capability as a roaster, we began to discuss the possibility of a collaboration. Fast forward through months of planning, Santa Petrona’s black honey processed coffee is now available as an exclusive roast for Evalynn. The driving force behind this collaboration was to offer something unique to Evalynn’s customers, giving them the ultimate specialty experience. And by doing so, we also set an example of what an ideal roaster/specialty coffee shop partnership looks like. It is a delicate job to keep the green beans in ideal conditions on their journey from farm to roaster. From this point on, both coffee roasters and coffee shops have a shared duty to capture and highlight the coffee aromas - justifying the hard work of the coffee farmers. The slightest error or slip of the hand can compromise quality - and we are not willing to compromise anything! If you are reading this while you are holding a cup of coffee from Evalynn you might notice the rich body of Santa Petrona with subtle Cherry and Cranberry acidity, wrapped in a dark chocolate finish. We hope you enjoy 😊

#KeepGrinding - SCA Professional Course

  It was about time to get this done, and finally, I did it (or better say WE did it!) 😊 It took three days of intensive training with Alin who owns and runs Coffee Laboratory which offers coffee training and consultancy. Coffee Lab is the only institution in Ireland to hold an SCA Premier Campus license for all modules. Let’s say that again: All modules! And I think that says a lot… but, not everything about Alin Giriada! After passing SCA Intermediate, SCA professional was the next logical step and with support from my colleagues and Bell Lane itself, that bucket lister is done! Day one was all about Coffee and Espresso: - Green and roasted beans, terroir, coffee plant, varieties, processing, fermentation, roasting, decaffeinating, etc. Day two was all about Espresso and Milk:- Espresso quality, acids, EBF, TDS, equipment, Water quality, Milk, etc. Day three was about coffee shops and of course the practical exam.- Café location, layout, staffing financials, etc. The exam was really interesting, I got coffee that I had not used before and I had to set up the recipe by taste, explain it and at the end confirm it by measuring TDS with a refractometer. Enjoyed every step of this process. What is next? – We’ll see, but I’m 100% sure that this SCA journey is not ending here, and that’s another reason why Coffee, with Coffee learning and developing is never-ending so #keepgrinding is there for a reason.

Gesha

Gesha became very popular after it was first presented on the WBC stage and that’s how all the “Gesha hype” started.  However, it is important to say that the variety originates from Ethiopia and carries beautiful floral, delicate, and sweet notes that I, as a roaster, love.  Although today with different fermentation techniques some lots in my opinion are taken to a different level where Geisha profile is muted, and we taste the fermentation style in the cup over the variety. Saying that this was my guideline when I was choosing the lots for us. Since this was our first Gesha release I was looking for lots that in my opinion are free of any “modulated” flavours. As I can recall, I first tried Gesha 7 years ago. It was a natural from Finca Hartmann. It was beautiful and I can still remember the time and place when I had it. Trying so many coffees over the past decade, it is amazing that I can still recall it so well. From that moment on I had this goal that one day I’ll be roastingit myself. So here we are 7 years later and I have three different lots, guess when you work towards something it has to happen one day. Logging more than 20k batches and with so much experience it came to me as a reward and a new challenge that I very much looked forward to. Every roaster has their style so now it was my moment to say this is the way it needs to be done. Timing for premium coffee came naturally to our roastery. We have roasted some beautiful coffee over the last few years that when we were brainstorming about bringing something special we all agreed it had to be Gesha to start with. Since I am a green buyer for the company this was my chance to choose the lots that highlight the characteristics of the variety. The Initial idea was to bring only washed and natural but I was asked to cup La Mina for feedback, it was outstanding - and that’s how we ended up with a washed, natural and honey processed Gesha.   Monteverde was the obvious choice for me, as an advocate for washed process Monteverde was just beautiful, super floral, delicate, and pretty. Finding a natural was a bit of a challenge as the majority of lots I’ve cupped were not free of “ferment”. The amazing team from Colombian Spirit called and said “we have the natural that you are looking for” and they were right. Inmaculada is beautiful! The natural process was done so gently that you might ask yourself.. is it a natural?  The honey processed La Mina brings a unique experience for those looking to try something with a bit of “funk” When it comes to brewing, I always recommend to everyone to explore and see what works for them when it comes to ratio, water temp, and brew time but we have added our suggested brew guide in the tasting notes for those looking for a guideline. However, I do highly recommend a good grinder like Comandante and using soft water for brewing.   When drinking Gesha, expect coffee with no bitterness. It is very delicate and layered and should be enjoyed slowly allowing the flavours to unfold as it cools.  

MayBee 🐝

Alone we can do little, together we can do much more… These are the words that came to mind when we were thinking about what we could do to both involve our community of coffee drinkers and do something positive. being a young, conscious company, we always choose the most sustainable paths available to us such as reducing our carbon emissions where we can - and offsetting where we cannot. We focus on reducing paper use and wastage in our office and choose recyclable or compostable packaging where it is available to us. This year, we wanted to create a project that would have a positive impact beyond our practices. So our challenge was to get creative.!  We deliver to doorsteps and coffee shops across Ireland every day of the week and when we did our calculations, we thought how great it would be to include our coffee community to work together and have a positive impact on the environment. – much like the honey bee who on its own, cannot do much, but together.. well, we all know how important they are.!. We also know that the overuse of pesticides, and the destruction of the honey bee’s natural habitat through farming along with many other factors have threatened bee populations and diversity.  A world without bees can devoid humans of their favourite cup of coffee, their meals, salads, their almond- and honey-topped chocolates, and strawberry ice-creams. Their absence would remove a host of nutritious food from our diets, including apples, strawberries, pumpkins, potatoes, onions, cauliflowers, carrots, papayas, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, almonds, sunflowers, cocoa, and.. we will say it one more time… coffee!  This is when we got our idea to distribute bee bombs across the country as we send out our coffee. So we looked into a company called bee bombs Ireland- located in our neighbouring county Meath and ordered in bulk. What is so special about these particular bombs is that they contain 27 native Irish wildflower species with many of them being endangered and some classified as extinct. So we are not only helping bees, we are helping to restore biodiversity across Ireland!  We then sought out compostable packaging and hand-packed each bundle – enough to make sure that each home that placed an order in the month of May would receive a pack.  All you need to do is press the bombs into the ground and let nature do the rest.!   How to: Bee garden wildflower seed bombs are suitable for planting in flower beds and containers from September to early April for summer blooms & May to end June for Autumn blooms. If planting in Springtime, soak seed bombs in water for a few hours. Plant 1 seed bomb per sqft of cleared soil. Water the area in dry weather, and remove any grass or weeds. If planting indoors, water regularly and pre-soak before planting. Contains: Beeloving native wildflower annuals: birdsfoot trefoil, chamomile, corn marigold, corncockle, cornflower, corn poppy. Bee loving native wildflower perennials: devils bit scabious, field scabious, lady’s bedstraw, lesser knapweed, meadow buttercup, meadow vetchling, ox eye daisy, plantain, purple loosestrife, ragged robin, red campion, red clover, scentless mayweed, sorrel, st johns wort, selfheal, tufted vetch, wild carrot, yarrow, yellow rattle.