I love coffee! It’s the one small addiction that I have. I don’t drink lots of it, if I do I can feel my heart racing, I start to feel a bit on-edge and I definitely can’t get to sleep if I have one after teatime.
But I just can’t start the day without it.
I know it’s not that great for you, but neither is anything if you have too much of it so, although I’ve cut down on my intake from what I used to drink, for me it is one of life’s pleasures and I have no intention of giving it up.
Now I have a little secret. I can tell the difference between a good cup and a bad cup. I’m not a complete coffee snob. My morning coffee goes down so quickly it does not touch the sides so I just purchase a big bag of perfectly acceptable supermarket Italian espresso beans – £8 for 1kg. There is however one major coffee chain that I will not drink at, as in my humble opinion you might as well drink dirty dishwater. You can hardly taste the coffee it is so weak and transparent. It has no taste or flavour.
However, I will own up to owning a secret tin (possibly not so secret now I’ve announced it on here). It is an Italian Gianduiotto tin (a type of gorgeous hazelnut chocolate from Piedmont Italy, and another of my weaknesses!). Inside the tin however are no Gianduiotti, they went long ago, so yummy in my tummy. Inside the tin are my ‘top secret’ coffee beans. They are from a speciality coffee roaster called Darkwoods, who are based in Slaithwaite, in mighty fine Yorkshire of course.
I first came across them when I was in my favourite Italian Deli and I ordered a flat white coffee. It was one of those WOW moments. Quite simply the best coffee I have ever tasted, and it still is, and I’ve drunk a lot of coffee.
I thought, “I just have to have a bag of these beans for my machine at home!” You know, for those moments when I sit in the garden or reading my book and I have time to enjoy my coffee properly. So I asked where they were from and if I could buy a bag. They were from Darkwoods. The slight catch is that the amazing taste comes with a price; a price of £29.85 for a 1kg bag, so a massive 273% mark up on the supermarket bag. I did however, treat myself as they were just so good. Hence why , when I buy them, they are in my secret tin disguised as chocolate. My boys only drink the odd cup of coffee, usually only after an heavy night on the beer, and they don’t know a good cup from a bad one so I’m sorry, they are not having my beans! Mess with my beans and you are in trouble. Likewise, get offered a cup of coffee using my beans and you know you are very dear to me.
I have however, always wondered what makes them taste so good and why they cost so much. I’ve never really known much about how the coffee gets from the farm to my coffee machine. So when Darkwoods sent me a mailer about an ‘Evening with Sebastian Ramirez’ they were holding last Monday night, my interest was piqued and I thought I would find it really interesting, as you already know I like to know everything about everything. I’m like a sponge, I soak up knowledge and like to learn new things. So I booked my ticket and off I went. It promised an evening with a producer, talking and sampling all things coffee!
I thought I would learn a little bit about coffee production and what makes some coffees taste so good and command such a high price. I certainly did learn that, along with having a good old nosey around Darkwoods and meeting the very charming Sebastian Ramirez, who was so very obviously obsessed about all things coffee!
Darkwoods are based in an old mill in the former textile producing area of Yorkshire, alongside the river and the canal, and it was a glorious summer evening. They have been established over 10 years now by coffee fanatic who brought over an old dilapidated Probat UG22 coffee roaster from Croatia. The machine was brought back to life and Darkwoods was born. The business took off and they are now operating with much larger and more modern Probat G45 in addition to the old machine. They are the proud owners of over 70 ‘Great Taste’ awards for their coffees.
Their mission is to use only speciality grade coffees, all traceable to skilled farmers and their farms across the world. They buy the ‘green’ coffee beans from the farms and then they roast them in the mill at Slaithwaite. Sebastian Ramirez is one of those farmers who was visiting his clients in the UK and agreed to talk to Darkwoods clients about all things coffee.
Sebastin Ramirez is Columbian. He lives on a farm called Finca El Placer and is the fourth generation of his family to farm there. El Placer is in Calarca, Quindio in the heart of the Columbian coffee belt. He exports 80% of his coffee beans outside Columbia, 10% to a Columbian roaster and the other 10% which he calls his ‘second grade’ beans is roasted and drunk locally. He speaks only in his mother tongue, and I realised my Spanish is really not as good as I thought it was. But fortunately he had a translator who also stumbled from time to time so I can only assume Sebastian was speaking in some local dialect. A bit like I do after a few too many glasses of wine when I get my Spanish and Italian muddled up and speak in a whole new language I’ve developed called Spatalian. But it’s ok as my friend also learns both languages and we can actually understand each other and converse for hours in Spatalian without realising.
Sebastian explained everything about the process from the start, right to when the bean gets to Darkwoods. I learnt that the key to a good tasting coffee is not what happens at Darkwoods, but is all about what happens to the green bean before it gets to the UK. It was fascinating. Before it gets to the UK the bean undergoes various processing at source before it is stabilised and ready to ship.
He is also a sustainability champion and invests so much back into his local community. He has built a large new dry mill for processing the coffee beans which around 5 of the local family run farms use in addition to his own. By using this one processing plant for the green been they can guarantee the same conditions and quality by creating a stable environment with the same temperature and humidity. To ensure the beans do not get too hot or too cold, and to maintain a stable temperature, the facility has a charcoal underfloor which absorbs the heat of the day and then slowly releases it overnight. By setting up this facility he is also creating local employment and trying to encourage young people to stay in the area, rather than move away to the cities. He trains many young people in the whole process from the planting and horticulture side, from the scientific side of the processing, the engineering side of the plant and equipment and the business side of marketing, finding international buyers and exporting. In addition to having a well looked after happy workforce he is extremely committed to sustainability and the environment.
Sebastian is a little bit like a scientist, he is always experimenting with different beans and different processes as his end aim, in his words, is an “outstanding sensory experience for the consumer”. He harvests and processes coffee to order, it is fresh, he refuses to process, store and stabilize it for months before shipping it. He uses varietals of the arabica bean, which is known for its chocolate, caramel and citrus taste. However, he wants his coffee to be different and better than everyone else’s for taste, hence his experiments with his processing. He says he can undertake up to 5 experiments a week and every now and then he hits the jackpot with an amazing sensory taste discovery. He likes to take the basic Arabica varietals like Geisha Red, Pink and Yellow Bourbon and Wush Wush but then do something radical in the processing so that the taste is transformed into something quite extraordinary and different. He says he wants to “add extra value to ordinary varietals”.
His desire to create something different came about due to an economic crash in Columbia which impacted all the coffee farmers who in his words were “stuck in their ways”. He knew he had to do something different to survive, but the coffee still had to be tasty, drinkable and deliver that wow factor. When asked what the locals thought to this shift and his experimentation he laughed and said they just thought he was ‘weird’ and it all tasted like ‘vinegar’ but when they saw the price his beans were commanding they soon came around to his way of thinking.
He went on the explain how he operates as environmentally friendly and sustainably as possible and the impact that climate change is having on his farming. Just like us they are not having marked seasons any more. They are getting more dense rains and less sun and all of this presents a challenge.
So what does he do. He subjects different beans to different processes and techniques to create an extraordinary taste. He does not give too many secrets away. He uses extremely long (by industry standards) carbonic fermentation techniques and adds coffee ‘must’ from fruit such as cherries to aid flavour development through the long fermentation period. After fermentation the beans are then dried on patios and raised tables. Over the years he has worked closely with a local laboratory to help him understand more about the local flora, yeasts and bacteria and effectively uses selected micro-organisms as ingredients, extracted from the leached juices of the cherries.
By this time I’m starting to understand why not all coffee tastes the same, and am also starting to understand the price differential between my two bags of beans. I can’t explain the different processes to you, like the difference between anaerobic or carbonic maceration as I’m not a scientist but it was so interesting. Our first tasting was of El Placer Session IPA. He produces this using a basic Pink Bourbon Arabica bean. But he ferments it for 200 hours, compared to a ‘normal’ fermentation period of around 70 hours, using an anaerobic honey process and the addition of local yeast and hops. It was outstanding.
Next tasting was the El Placer Wush Wush Extended. This uses the Wush Wush variety which has undergone a 280 hour carbonic maceration in cherries. The beans are submerged in the cherry must (juice) during fermentation and the beans are then slowly dried. I liked this lots. You can actually taste the cherries. It’s not sweet, it’s coffee. And it’s not like a cherry flavour coffee. There is just a really subtle aroma and taste of cherries and chocolate, but it still tastes like coffee. I can’t really explain what I mean but it hit the jackpot for me.
The final tasting was El Placer Caturra ‘Submarine’. Called this because it has had a 200 hour carbonic maceration in cherries, but has then been submerged under fresh water for a closed tank fermentation. Another fabulous coffee.
So what is the difference from a supermarket bean. For a start, my bag of supermarket beans will probably be a mix of varietals from different farms and will not have a single origin. It will have been fermented for a short processing time, without the use of other natural ingredients and experimentation to enhance it’s taste. By the time it gets to the roasters it could be over a year old, having been stored and stabilized and will have a woody taste. It could have been harvested and processed by cheap labour, working in not the greatest of conditions, otherwise how would they be able to produce it for £8 a bag, and still no doubt make a hefty profit for the supermarket.
So it was an excellent evening. I now know all about how my coffee gets from farm to cup. All about the extraordinary process it goes through to create such an amazing taste. I understand why it costs £29.85 per kg, and now I know what it goes to support and fund I’m happy to pay it every once in while to fill my ‘secret tin’. And I could not help thinking what a fantastic thing, to live in such a beautiful place and almost do something that is your hobby as your job because this man was clearly devoted to his farm, his family, his people and his coffee and was so proud to be spreading the story of El Placer, his country Columbia, it’s culture and it’s coffee.
