From coffee cherry to your cup
Every bag we roast starts as a red cherry on a shrub in the hills. Here is what happens to it on the way to your cup.
On the estate
Only the ripest, deepest red cherries are picked, gently and by hand. How ripe a cherry is at this moment shapes the flavour that ends up in your cup. Inside each one are two green seeds: the coffee beans.
Once picked, the cherries are processed in one of three ways, each with its own character.
- Washed
- The fruit is removed before drying, for a clean, bright coffee.
- Natural
- The cherries dry whole in the sun, giving the beans a sweet, fruity, almost wine-like flavour.
- Honey
- Some of the sticky fruit stays on while the beans dry, for a rounder, syrupy coffee.
After days of drying, hulling and careful sorting, what remains are green coffee beans: raw, grassy and ready for the roaster.
At the roastery
Green beans go into the roaster pale and grassy, with none of the aroma you would recognise as coffee. As the drum turns and the heat rises, they turn yellow, then golden, then a deep brown, and hundreds of new flavours develop.
Partway through comes the first crack, a soft popping sound that tells the roaster the beans are ready. Go further and a second crack brings out bolder, darker notes. Every second counts, and the skill is in knowing exactly when to stop.
Freshly roasted beans then rest for a few days, so their flavours settle and their aroma fully opens up. That is why we print the roast date on every pack.
In your cup
The grind, the temperature of your water and the way you brew all shape what ends up in the cup. Turn a card to see how each method works, with a recipe to start from. Treat the numbers as a starting point and adjust to your taste.
From the farmer's hands to yours, every step leads to this one moment.
