It’s late and this topic could fill several books, but its been bugging me for a while, so lets make a start
We often see comments to the effect that some of the green coffees we use are not as highly regarded (read expensive) as roaster ‘so and so’ uses, and therefore we are over charging for our coffee
The first bit true, but the second bit is not. How so?
We’ll happily tell you that the premium you pay for Londinium coffee bears very little correlation to the cost of the green bean. This is in no way a secret, or something we are ashamed of. Why?
Simple. Not so long ago the northern Europeans drank all the ‘high quality or ‘fine’ coffee and it was all filter coffee. It was these countries that developed the ranking and grading systems for evaluating, and by implication, valuing coffee. The Italians developed the espresso process and found that the beans that were considered ‘inferior’ were well suited to the process, and with time the consumer came to accept the high robusta content as what coffee ‘should’ taste like
‘Should taste like’ is a key concept in any kind of food or drink offering. I think notions that coffee should taste like this or its bad lead you into a difficult corner. It is beyond argument that around the mediterranean and most notably Southern Italy, that people like a high robusta content in the roast, they like it roasted dark, they don’t generally take milk in their coffee (milk is difficult to preserve in their climate so it hasn’t become a big part of their diet as it has in many other countries). You can argue that its because coffee has become commoditised there, or because those markets won’t bear the cost of more expensive coffees, or whatever you like. The point is I have taken a wide array of coffees roasted in the UK to some of those countries and they are almost without exception reviled as being far too sharp
At the other end of the scale we have the ‘third wave coffee crew’ using very ‘high quality’ coffee to make espresso with, and then in response to what their customers demand, adding plenty of milk to create superbly fruity espresso based beverages. If you drink your coffee with a high proportion of milk, then the traditional high robusta italian roasts do taste flat and dead. Again, its difficult to say who is right & who is wrong
What we are 100% clear on though is bright & brassy third wave roasts are getting heavily marketed to consumers as being what espresso should taste like, and in our experience a lot of people disagree – they end up becoming Londinium Espresso customers
Lets be clear, we’ve been roasting since 2004 and we feel like we have barely scratched the surface of what there is to learn and discover about roasting coffee. For this reason we are drastically reducing our equipment offerings so we can spend more time just roasting and discovering new coffees
So, looping right back to the start. The price you pay for a bag of Londinium Espresso coffee has very little to do with the cost of the green beans. Why? Because the grading/pricing/ranking system for coffee is all pinned to the cupping system. That works extremely well for evaluating filter coffee, and equally poorly for identifying espresso coffee. Anyone who can pick a good coffee for espresso from cupping has far greater coffee perception than we have. Additionally a lot of coffees are not available as a sample – you take a full bag, or you walk away. This isn’t an issue for a large coffee roasting business, but it is for micro coffee roasters like Londinium
As a result the only way to discover which coffees are suitable for espresso is to buy a bag. This is particularly the case for single origin espresso. When you blend most of your roasts it gives you a lot more wriggle room to jettison the coffee that didn’t work out by adding to a blend at 5% and most people are none the wiser, sad but true
So a significant cost for us is ditching the coffees that we consider unsuitable for espresso. It is also very time consuming to discover new coffees – it is far more efficient to find a coffee that works for you and run with it – it takes time to perfect the roast for every new coffee you introduce
When you go to a restaurant you are paying for what the chef does with the ingredients to make them taste a certain way, the cost of the ingredients is a tiny part of the cost of the meal. Anyone can buy the ingredients that Heston Blumenthal uses, indeed one supermarket chain in the UK invites you to do just that, but good luck with achieving the same taste that Heston manages from the same ingredients.
We’re suggesting is its much the same with coffee. Indeed we think many participants in the coffee industry spend a lot of time pointing out the deficiencies of espresso equipment, which may be valid, but precious little time discussing the shortcomings of espresso roasts. To consistently offer roasts that are up to the mark is a task that requires constant attention – being a natural product it is very easy for variations in the coffee to skew the roast, which requires a response from the roaster to compensate for these fluctuations if customers are to be satisfied with the finished product
Finally, the coffees that often work well for espresso carry fairly humble labels, often SHG/SHB (strictly high grown/strictly hard bean). Many third wave coffee practitioners will be instantly dismissive of these coffees. Its true, there are many poor examples, as the classification doesnt really mean much. The coffees will often, but not always, come from all the coffee growers in the region and if the beans pass a certain grade they are all tipped in together. And if it is close to the border of a neighbouring country, and the price of coffee on the other side of the border is higher, the coffee will mysteriously find itself trucked over the border and sold for the higher price 🙂
This week I have discovered a ‘SHG’ Costa Rican coffee, but from a single estate, that was the least expensive of 3 different costa rican coffees that we have tried in the last month or so. What’s the problem? It stands head and shoulders above the others when prepared as an espresso. To all intents and purposes it is a no-name coffee, a nobody. The trouble is it is super sweet and smooth, which no biting grassiness in it that generally needs to be roasted out with a higher roast temperature, which isn’t optimal. But because this coffee is free from all such unpleasant characteristics we can roast it in the sweet spot, with minimal carbonisation occurring within the bean
We are by no means dismissive of all coffee grown at high altitude, which is a typical characteristic of coffee that does well in the cupping process, but when it is put through the espresso process it tends to be overly acidic. If you like your espresso to taste that way there is nothing we can write or say to persuade you otherwise. But to our taste overly acidic espresso (no milk) is unpleasant. Similarly we aren’t fans of roasts with a high robusta content either. We are somewhere in the middle
So when you pay the premium that we ask for our coffee you are paying for our proprietary roasting process, our attention to consistency and detail, and the time and money we have invested in identifying coffees that give the kind of taste that we think is desirable in espresso
Our taste won’t find acceptance with a palate that is attuned to third wave coffee, but that’s OK, we are here to serve a niche audience – espresso drinkers. For that reason we only sell roasts that we like. In this way we are very comfortable defending what we like about a roast if we are ever challenged. We are also able to quickly detect if a roast isn’t tasting the way it should as we are in the habit of drinking the odd lots that batch roasting inevitably produces
For us the identification of coffee that is suitable for single origin espresso is one of the few remaining great discoveries, and we feel we’ve only just begun. The established commercial classification systems for coffee are in no way helpful, so that has created a niche opportunity for Londinium Espresso. Stick around as we go in search of new tastes in coffee