MEDIUM ROASTED

This is a coffee of great complexity, with cupping notes observed by SCAA cuppers that included: great body, zest, almond, walnut, honey, caramel, sweet citrus, star fruit, floral aromas and chocolate. We buy these small 'lots' from an estate that engages in practices that exemplifies all that is meant by the term speciality coffee. This current batch is made on the Fazenda Rio Verde farm on the Ipanema estate. This unique lot is processed using the 'natural' sun-dried method, although they also produce fine coffee by the 'wet' method too. Sun drying ensures the sweetest flavours. Roasted to perfection for a filter or cafetiere it also offers a smooth espresso. It can be blended with our 'espresso' roast version of this coffee 'Espresso de Sol' to add nuance and for personalising your perfect espresso blend. One thing very few people argue with is that you have the best coffee for making espresso in the world however you blend it. Artisan roasted in our 2kg micro-coffee roaster. The farm is situated in the Mantiqueira Mountains. It is translated as the Crying Mountains.

This fine, silky bodied coffee's complex character is described as having: notes of peach, apricots, lemon, butter, vanilla, mandarin, citrus, red apple, pear. It is considered one of the sweetest, fruitiest coffees in Colombia. Artisan roasted in our 2kg micro-coffee roaster. This fully washed coffee was grown on 'La Esperanza' farm owned and worked by Gerardo Carvajal in the Bruselas, Huila region of Colombia, 1,600 meters above sea level.

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffees are famed for their beautiful fragrance. The coffee taster's lexicon is used to it's full in striving to describe some of the aromatics that are glimpsed in the coffee's aroma, both roasted and brewed. One of perhaps the most unusual is that of black tea. Others include: tangerine, stone fruit, red currant, lime, raspberry lemonade, floral, lemon, sweet, lavender, jasmine, blueberry, blackberry, bergamot, apricot, almond, wildflowers. It might be a surprise to find that it still smells and tastes of coffee! The coffee grown in this lush, green, mountainous area at altitudes up to 8,000 feet is referred to as 'garden coffee' due to most of it being grown on small-holdings of less than 1 hectare producing something up to 5 sacks of coffee beans.

Hawaiian coffee can only be called Pure Kona if it is grown on island's Gold Coast in Hawaii. Kona Gold is grown at high altitudes on the mountainous slopes of active volcanoes. The island's rich, volcanic soil lends an unmistakable character to what is regarded as the most beautiful coffee bean in the world. Although growing at a lower altitude than the world's other great coffees, the clouds that appear like clockwork each afternoon, plentiful rain, good shelter and the mineral-rich soil, more than compensate for this. What gives the coffee grown on this small estate the edge is that it is so carefully selected that workers can only harvest around twenty pounds of beans on a good day. This adds more expense to already high American labour prices but along with the equally impeccable processing, guarantees a smooth, rich body, sweet flavour with notes of tropical fruit and chocolate.

No collection of coffee would be complete without a prizewinning offering from Kenya. Recently, coffee from this co-operative won the Specialty Coffee Association's Blind Cupping Competition, scoring 98 out of 100. Some notes on the flavours when medium roasted included: Vibrant grape acidity, sugar cane sweetness, tropical fruit, pineapple, blackcurrant, mandarin, orange, nectarine, apricot, stone fruit, brown sugar, rhubarb, pink grapefruit, rose florals, lime, milk chocolate, nectarine, black tea, honey and fresh cherry. Our Kenya coffee is grown by the smallholder farmers of the Bisembe co-operative in Kisii County, a mountainous region of western Kenya famed for evergreen farms.

A festive favourite since 1991. Chocolate-rich seasonal blend with notes of orange and spice, roasted fresh in-house and sealed to perfection. 100g packets.

If you give this coffee to someone without telling them it's decaffeinated-coffee you will always be greeted with the same look of astonishment when they find out! Firstly because we apply the same criteria for excellence to the coffee we choose to decaffeinate as we do to all of our Grand Cru coffees. Expect flavours of chocolate, biscuit, peach, apricots, lemon, butter, vanilla, mandarin, citrus, red apple, pear and caramel. Secondly, the method of decaffeination is designed to remove only the caffeine and not the precious flavour compounds that give coffee its character. The natural Mountain Water Process method uses clear, pure water from the glaciers of the Pico de Orizaba Mountain to float the coffee oils and caffeine in a solution.