Under One Roof

Cupping and tasting coffees are a great way to understand your own palate and preferences, and learn more about coffee overall. However, what if we dig deeper - why does one coffee have such vast differences in flavour and taste? What extensive work was done to achieve it?

A special event hosted by Cata and Jim of Sweven - brought the very coffee producers responsible for the amazing coffees on the cupping table. Often there are posts about roaster’s visit to coffee producing farms, but little of the opposite. On somewhat rare occasions do coffee producers visit the places where their products are used, and how much they are adored by many enthusiasts and connoisseurs.

Coffee are carefully crafted by the baristas to showcase their unique tastes, and spectrum of flavours and quality. With producers seeing their product handled in such care, and vice versa - baristas, fellow coffee enthusiasts and daily drinker listen on the time and effort put into producing such coffees. Nestor shared the process of cup number 7 (blind cupping), experimented through trial-and-error over the course of three years, use of kilos of cherries during experimentation (most of which were unsellable, resulting in lost income), to find the right recipe of extended fermentation. With such rich insight, and the huge investment and effort in making it can the cup be truly appreciated.

This experience was one to remember, where every member of the coffee chain fall under one roof - the producers, the exporter, the roaster, the coffee house baristas, right to the consumer. A bridge from across continents, to a coffee house in Clapton, London.

Special thank you to the Producers - @nestornefferlasso @oscarfernandohernandez09 and @patiobonito.coffee, @cataexport and @swevencoffee for the wonderful insight of their Colombia travels, and Duo of @lodestarcoffee for the welcoming and warm hospitality