Coffee Journal

#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.

London Coffee Festival

We caught up with Goran, our Sales Manager who attended the 2022 London Coffee Festival. Her Is what he had to say 😊 Overcrowded Dublin airport didn’t stop us in our goal to visit London Coffee Festival 2022. Festival itself attracts over 30 000 visitors, and it hosts around 250 coffee or coffee-related stalls. Being first time here, I have to say London is definitely place to be, at least in this part of the Europe. LCF started for first time 2011 and from then it's been a platform for many well known coffee roasters, micro-roasters, farmers, coffee enthusiasts, foodies, coffee machine manufacturers and all sorts of people from coffee industry enjoying good vibes and good coffee. It was great to see how much the coffee industry advanced towards sustainability. ‘’Compostable, recyclable, reusable, sustainable’’ were words that were spoken from every single presenter at the festival. It’s was nice to see the responsibility of everyone involved in this coffee world. In the end, we have to preserve this planet as much as possible, this is only planet where coffee is growing😊. At the festival, I spent most of my time talking with coffee roasters, such a great feeling being surrounded with all those amazing people who share the same passion. I wish the rest of Bell Lane team was there with me, but all I could do is share some pictures and bring some coffee so we can taste together and discuss. Vibrant coffee scene of London has a lot to offer and as well as going to the festival, we got to experienced few iconic coffee shops. Kaffeine was one of them and we found the secret behind their success. Secret is: there are no secrets! Amazing customer service from everyone especially Jess (manager), Simplicity in offer but everything they serve is fresh, and quality over quantity is definitely their policy. Whatever I tried, it tasted like holidays 😊 If I have to sum up my experience in one sentence it might sound like cliché but: Coffee is not just beverage, Coffee is lifestyle. Goran Gojic

Roasters Notes - COLOUR

Recently I was asked by a fellow roaster how do I use colour tracker in the roastery and how important is it to have one to achieve consistency? ❌ If your curves are not perfectly aligned matching colour doesn't mean much.  A 9 minute roast will taste different to a 10 minute roast even if they are the same colour. ✔ It is super useful when sample roasting ✔ I find its best use when transferring profiles from in my case 500g Mill City roaster to a production roast on a Giesen.  Although worth mentioning curves look quite different in this case.   So in short it is a great tool but definitely not important as matching your profiles day to day 👌   #coffeehunter #coffeeroaster #coffeeaddict #lifeistooshortforbadcoffee

Roasters Notes - Espresso Love

After sharing the taxi in Berlin 2018 we have been working with Nathalia @Ourcoffees.   This Red Catuai still continues to surprise me.  Doesn't roast like any other Brazil and it was quite challenging to find the perfect the perfect profile as it had tendency to crash so I had to use the "gas dip".  Also it doesn't taste like the usual Brazilian espresso, Nectarine ans Strawberries at the start with Cholate ganache finish!  #coffeehunter #coffeeaddict #lifeistooshorttodrinkbadcoffee