Our Roasts
Selecting the perfect roast for our green beans is the most important job with each year's harvest arrival. We strive to highlight the best attributes that a bean variety can offer in the cup. We are eager to discover the subtle and delicate flavour characteristics that each harvest brings. When we think of our coffee, the plantations, the rainy season, and the hot days are never far behind. We continously remember that coffee is a fruit, with its flavours influenced by its climate, soil conditions and processing. When a fruit is picked at its peak of ripeness it offers a sweet aroma and smooth body. These seeds filled with sugars produce caramel and chocolate notes as they caramelize in the roasting process.
Roasting is a chemical process that yields different flavours at different stages,which is directly related to the caramelization of the sucrose in coffee. Some harvests, the beans are so complex, and offer such wonderful cup characteristics that we can offer them in a variety of roast profiles. Other years there is only one particular roast available for that specific bean.
So once we choose the roast profiles that we can offer you, how do you go about selecting the perfect roast profile for you?
Typically we don't like to generalize or simplify, but we will share with you a little tip that the ladies back in the farm say as they roast coffee on the clay pan on the wood fire. "Raw sugar is always sweeter then caramel and dark chocolate is always heavier and longer lasting then milk chocolate" With coffee these two anologies are generally true. As we roast from light to dark, what we might give up in sweetness we might gain in body.
Light roasts are great for appreciating the subtle flavours and sweet and bright notes in coffee. A light roast can exude a fresh citrus and flowery aroma. As we move towards the end of the roast spectrum those citrus notes can turn into caramel or chocalate.
Ask yourself these questions? Do you enjoy a black cup of coffee? If so, you might like to appreciate the bright, citrusy, notes of a great classic Breakfast roast. And if you are looking for more caramel notes? A medium City Roast would be great.
Do you generally enjoy your coffee with milk? Perhaps the chocolate notes and clean finish of a Viennese roast would suit you best. No? And if cream is what you add to coffee, then a smooth Continental roast would provide the heavy body you crave.
Darker roasts tend to have heavier bodies, longer aftertastes, and chocolately and smoky notes. Among coffee drinkers that enjoy their coffee with cream, the Continental roast is one of their favourites.
So have fun, let your cup talk to you. And please, drop us a line and let us know what it's saying...
