Say hello to our new Collab Series of coffee!
This is a project we’ve developed, in conjunction with our wholesale customers to allow cafes a deeper way to work with us on the coffee they brew, stock and sell in-store.
Our first collaboration is the El Limonar coffee we’ve picked in conjunction with the team at Store Street Espresso.
During the first stage of working on a Collab coffee, we invite the cafe team here at our roastery and cup a range of coffee samples. We’ll take the baristas through the characteristics of the various coffees, and how that will translate into an espresso, and from that, the team will decide on which coffee they want to move forward with and purchase a full lot of.
It’s then our task to go off and carry out a pair of full-size test roasts of the coffee. Here, our roasting team will start from a basic roast profile, based on their knowledge and expertise, varying it slightly across the test roasts to try and tease out extra characteristics from the beans.
A week later, once the roasted beans have had time to rest and de-gas, we’ll have the cafe team back in again to taste shots of the test roasts blind. Again, they’ll pick the roast profile they prefer, and at this stage, the team will also brainstorm and vote on the tasting notes they think should go on the final coffee label.
Then, once we’ve added the taste notes onto the label, we’re ready to start full production roasting of the coffee and the cafe can start selling it in store!
We’re marking our Collab Series coffee with special labels that include the cafe’s logo, and the coffee will also be completely exclusive to the cafe that worked with us to develop the coffee.
Our collaboration with Store St is our first step in this project and has served as a pilot for how the series will work as we go forward. We’re excited to see how the project evolves, and hope to work with cafes on more Collab Series coffees over the course of 2018.
Look out for their distinctive labels in both their flagship Store St location and Continental Stores location, or maybe even get in touch if you work at a cafe and think this is something that you and your team would be interested in.
