Seed Chocolate Guatemala Polochic Spiced Latte Dark Milk 55% 90.5/100

This bar is made with cocoa beans from the south eastern area of the Alta Verapaz around the Polochic river in eastern Guatemala. Once harvested they’re shipped to Stoke on Trent where James Walter turns them into one of Seed’s chocolate bars.

Barbers Peru Mocha Dark Milk 40% 88.5/100

This bar is made with cocoa beans from Peru. Once harvested these beans are shipped to Kingsteignton in Devon where Michael turns them into one of Barbers chocolate bars.

Ethicoco Caffe Mocha 70% 88/100

This bar is made from cocoa beans blended with coffee beans from Peru. Once harvested they’re shipped to Titchfield near Portsmouth where Ethicoco turn them into one of their single origin chocolate bars.

Tosier Chocolate Colombia Tumaco with Colombian Coffee 70% 89.5/100

This bar is made with cocoa beans from Tumaco in south west Colombia. Once harvested they’re supplied via Uncommon Cacao – There’s some neat little infographics about the beans on Tosier’s website https://www.tosier.co.uk/ – to Ipswich where Deanna Tilston turns them into one of her chocolate bars.

London Coffee Festival 2019 Part 2

Hasbean

Hasbean had all the coffee on, literally. Their menu read like their website with something in the region of 18 coffees on offer to be tried through either espresso or brewed on the Clover. More commonly found in a Starbucks, there’s very few clover machines used in the specialty industry, but as a self contained brewer of filter it’s a pretty nifty piece of machinery. At the time I had a Bolivian Bebeto Mamani washed caturra at home that I was brewing, curious to see the differences in brew I asked for the very same coffee brewed on the Clover.

London Coffee Festival 2019 Part 1

This was due to be my fifth London Coffee Festival in a row, a dive once again into the madness, chaos and high energy that comes with a caffeine driven festival. As a welcome bonus to my usual last minute ticket buying and travel planning, on the morning of the evening I planned to purchase my day pass, I was announced the winner of LCF X Radio Alice Pizza’s Instagram competition and became the recipient of two VIP day tickets, along with a bunch of coffee related prizes, not to mention some free pizza! So, it was with an extra rosy glow that we made our way down and into the festival on the Thursday, the first of LCF’s industry days (a slightly slower, less busy opening day for those more familiar with the coffee industry).

Pump Street Bakery Ecuador Hacienda Limon Workshop Coffee Ecuador Murray Cooper 66% 91/100

 

This bar is made using Nacional Arriba cacao beans grown at Hacienda Limon, which is situated in central Ecuador inland from the coast in Los Rios. You can read more about the farm on Pump Street Bakery’s website http://www.pumpstreetbakery.com/chocolate/ecuador. Once processed these beans are shipped to the small Suffolk coastal town of Orford for turning into one of Pump Street’s single origin chocolate bars at Pump Street’s new chocolate factory.

Manchester Coffee Festival 2018 Part 2

North Star x Oatly

I don’t drink a lot of coffee with milk in, I mostly drink black filter coffee as I feel this offers the most honest expression of a coffee, but with North Star collaborating with Oatly, I was a little curious to see how one of the newer milk alternatives held up next to espresso. North Star were serving their El Salvador on espresso a coffee I’ve become familiar with and it’s good in milk without being overly expressive of individual flavours, so it seemed like a perfect coffee to see how the milk performed.

Manchester Coffee Festival 2018 Part 1

Manchester Coffee Festival

Coffee festivals of the past – and still some of the present – have been loud, exciting and more akin to a party atmosphere than to the natural relaxed ambience of a coffeeshop. They were about the discovery and the excitement of something relatively new; great tasting, ethically sourced and lightly roasted specialty coffee. This year at Cup North or Manchester Coffee Festival, as it’s more commonly referred to these days, it was a little different, it was relaxed, somewhat casual and of a slower pace, which isn’t to say it was boring, far from it, just considerably more comfortable. It was less amped up, there was more seating and the exhibitors were more at ease welcoming conversation, compared to the strained voices of Sunday afternoons gone by. It felt like being in one big coffee shop, admittedly with more coffee than it’s possible to drink in one day, but it felt more like the places we already love, friendly and familiar, although still a showcase event, just with less of the noisy distractions.

Best of Athens: Specialty Coffee Part 2

Mr Bean

Waking up the next morning we headed out for some more coffee and made our way to Mr Bean coffee roasters, making ourselves known and then taking some seats outside on the deck. We asked the barista what he would recommend from his lengthy list of origins, we were suggested to have an Indonesian on chemex to share. A coffee which was fermented and soaked, much like the monsooned process applied to Indian coffees.