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Sample Roasters

Sample Roaster

We’ve gone ahead and ordered a handful (and I mean handful) of some gas sample roasters. They are two barrel and will roast as little as 80g and as much as a lb in each barrel, or a profile of around 15mins or so.

We will be selling a limited amount of these, and we don’t know for how much yet, but I guess its going to be around £1400. They will be sold on a as seen basis, as they are not toys and certainly not your average home roaster, and will not have any warranty. So if I haven’t scared you off and your interested, get in touch with me to register an interest in these very limited roasters.

PS ignore the grinder attachment, they are rubbish and we didn’t have them added.

The Industry

Time for a rant. I’ve been participating in a juicy thread on my favourite forum tooomuchcoffee.com. Lots of this post is extracted from the post, but I wanted to get it off my chest here too.

The thread basically started out as a do you use robusta in your blend (for those who know me I have been partial when the cup negates to use high quality robusta). Then it kind of veered of (as these things do) to talking about how true quality coffee has no place in the commercial “real world” and that the reason the worlds coffee is crap is because the “bigger boys” are aiming for consistency, and value for money. This forum is European based in membership (either in Europe or when they joined they were living in Europe), so thats where we are coming from.

Well firstly cost as an issue is ridiculous. How much extra would the consumer need to pay for a good cup 1 may be 2 pence a cup. And for the retailer 50 pence maybe a £1 a kilo (in fact it can be quite often cheaper).

The second point of consistency is flawed. Consistency can be found with better quality far easier than lower quality tripe the “real world” are throwing out. The amount of bad coffee I’ve tasted recently from wholesale customers swapping across to us has been scary. If they want to be constantly bad then they achieve it with flying colours.

The only reason the quality coffee is of no use to the “industry” as the majority industry doesn’t care about cup quality and hasn’t got the balls to pay good money for good coffee. I mean they may have to ask there customers for an extra 50p a kilo, and that cant possibly happen.

There is money to be made in the “Industry” with a model of quality consistency and still maintain value for money. I think recent developments with the NCA (national coffee association) and the cup of excellence in America have shown that the big boys (and these are the real big world market boys) in the USA have woken up to true quality coffee. It’s only a matter of time until it’s replicated across the world.

There is proof out there that a company can source quality coffee at a fair price and still maintain constancy. You only have to browse across the pond at Intelligencia to see a model that a big boy can do it right, and make a lot of money and success at the same time.

All I see are excuses “we cant do it this way because….” “its too tough to maintain because….”, “we have always done it this way so …” the truth is they don’t want to, or are so far up somewhere they shouldn’t be that they think they know best.

Home Brew of a different kind

home brew

I’m into taste, funny that being in the coffee trade, but I do like to taste things. I love coffee, good food, good wine, single malt whiskey and I love real ale. But real ale is getting harder and harder to come by as the smaller breweries are closed or become successful and start to take there eye of the ball. Also you just can’t get it at home, so I had the idea of home brewing.

Now I’m at the very beginning of my journey in the home brew stakes, and have yet to produce anything I can drink (dam patience and waiting for stuff to ferment), but I see so many similarities with home roasting. It’s trying to actualise a sense of personal achievement with your beverage. Taking control but also adding a personal touch. Will it be as good as a micro breweries beer, probably not. Will it be better than the mass produced chemical “cream flow” offerings, I hope so. The same with coffee, will the home roast taste as good as the micro roasted, probably not, will it taste better than the mass produced offerings, for sure.

The similarities don’t stop there, we have a local shop that just sells home brew stuff,  a true specialist in today’s pot noodle, instant coffee, microwavable world. I stood in the shop for 20-30 mins today asking questions looking reading and there must have been 5 people come in over that time. Each said hello, each very nice and pleasant, all willing to share information. One went as far to talk me through what he did the first time he siphoned from the fermentation barrel into the bottles/barrel. The owner also very keen to impart knowledge, a community of people wanting to help.

I’ve been thinking what a coffee ale maybe like. Swap all the water involved for brewed coffee. The joining of two beautiful things
So I’m now officially a geek in another thing. This time is staying a hobby and not becoming my life, but beware if you ever come around my house, you may get offered a cup of dark brown liquid that’s not coffee. Any one who has any home brew knowledge please share.

Royal Mail Price Rise

Some of you may have seen in the press about the changes to the postage rates and Royal Mail. Alas it works against the humble small company as always, meaning higher postage rates. For the immediate short term we are not changing our prices and swallowing the rates until we see the full impact, but ultimately we may have to. We may look into using other methods of shipping too.

If you have a specific method of shipping you prefer (i.e. Royal mail or ANC parcels) please let us know in the comments box before placing an order. We can not Guarantee we will use this method, but if possible we will try.

Death by Caffeine

From too much coffee gelandenwagen found this little gem that made me smile, so I thought I’d share it with you guys.

Interesting results

After 124.89 shots of Espresso, you’d be pushing up daisies
After 86.13 cups of Drip Coffee, you’d be pushing up daisies
3568.18 cups of Decaf Brewed Coffee + You = Death
After 156.11 cans of Red Bull, you’d be pushing up daisies

And the one I’m safe from is

After 108.60 cups of Instant Coffee, you’d be pushing up daisies

After 108 cups I’m be very ill without the caffeine