This is an exciting moment for me, as releasing this super delicious coffee solidifies the decision to carry on with the Roastersaurus brand, which had initially been created to raise funds to compete in the World Roasting Championship. I am super happy to be locking this decision in with a washed Pink Bourbon from Don Gabriel Castaño Buendía, where we can continue with our adventures together, exploring flavour, story, and science.
This coffee is truly special as it has been produced by Don Gabriel, who is commonly referred to as the godfather of Pink Bourbon in the southern Huila region. Having been an early adopter of the variety at a time when it was not well known yet, he has been a key person in developing its quality, as well as sharing his learnings with other producers who became inspired to produce their own.
Pink Bourbon, the now little darling of the competition world, is quite a unique variety. For a long time the industry thought that this was a spontaneous cross between Red and Yellow Bourbon, but recently we learned it is actually an Ethiopian Landrace variety. This would definitely explain the Ethiopian and Kenyan-like flavour qualities it has, despite being grown in Colombia!
When I tasted this coffee, I asked myself what dinosaur it would be and immediately saw the image of a Velociptor racing around collecting coffee cherries! Something about the coffee’s zippy & bright yet sweet & complex nature made it clear to me. I contacted the wonderful Santiago of @kill_beef and he got to work on the idea, beautifully capturing the vibe perfectly yet again and producing our newest edition to the collection:
Also- I know you might have thought it was extinct…not the Raptor…not Roastersaurus… rather the washed process, but I am happy to confirm that washed coffee does still exist. This Pink Bourbon has been washed, and that choice beautifully showcases how complex, refreshing and actually juicy the Pink Bourbon variety can be.
To showcase the juicy character, while bringing forward a sweetness to support the brightness in the cup, I went for quite a long soak followed by a swift kick of gas to get the roast sailing to a high rate of rise. The coffee is roasted on a relatively lower drum speed as well, contributing to the complexity in the cup. I have essentially approached this coffee in the same way I approach Kenyan coffees, due to its character.
This cup is complex! It’s profile beautifully represents the feeling of being on an adventure, lending well to the overall vibe of a Roastersaurus event or content, and is layered with wonderful range of notes. The journey begins with jammy and sweet notes like raspberry and strawberry, and continues on into bright and floral notes like hibiscus and lime, creating an incredibly juicy pink lemonade-like sparkling cup. Along this little pilgrimage, I also found more exotic notes like lychee, kiwi, and dragon fruit, and I’m sure there are more layers to uncover as it rests further.
Grab your bag here and watch this space as I’ll be looking to write more about Don Gabriel, as well as look deeper into the Pink Bourbon variety!
Our third release in the ‘Roastersaurus Road to Taipei’ project, which was designed to simultaneously bring you along the journey by providing a memorable and educational product, whilst raising funds to support the costs involved in preparing for and competing in the World Roasting Championship in Taiwan. And as expected in the third act of the play, we reach the climax!
I am excited to be introducing you to an Anaerobic Natural TR4 from the Ea Tân cooperative in Vietnam.
This time we have chosen the iconic Archaeopteryx (designed by @kill_beef ), from greek for ‘ancient wing’, as we think it represents everything that is simultaneously heritage and innovation. This winged dinosaur also felt appropriate since I’ll be flying to Asia for the championship in just over a week!
Until now, we have explored innovation in cultivation for the purpose of the combined goal of high cup quality and sustainability, as seen in the F1 Centroamericano and the H3 (my blog for more on this). We have also explored innovation in processing via utilisation of methods from other industries, such as the inoculated washed process of Pineapple Candy. As we continue to look toward the future with open mind and widened perspective, I am excited to roast an anaerobic natural TR4 from the Ea Tân cooperative in Vietnam for you.
You are probably wondering what the heck TR4 is! The TR4 variety is a clone from the ‘Congo group’ of the Canephora species. What? ‘Robusta’?!? Yes Robusta– specifically specialty grade robusta that has been anaerobically processed- and that sits in this set to challenge the biases we might have as well as look toward a possible future! But more on all this in a future blog. For now, I am including a small sample of commercial grade Robusta, so that you can taste that alongside this beauty and appreciate how far specialty robusta has come.
Now, roasting Canephora means different rules. For those who do not know, Canephora roasts tend to be about 15-20% longer than Arabica roasts, as this lengthening of the total time tends to soften the rougher characteristics of the species. In order to maximise the softening whilst still showcasing the fruitier notes from the anaerobic process, I extended the total time of the roast slightly, but maintained an arabica style shorter time after crack.
When I first plucked a roasted bean from the cooling tray, having a little chew as I usually do, I was blown away by the experience. From fruity to chocolatey to winey and back- explosive and cyclical- yet like a wave. In the cup those chocolatey attributes combined themselves with a strawberry note, resulting in something akin to black forrest gateau. As the cup cooled, dried fruits, such as prune and dried fig, sweet pipe tobacco, and puffed rice surfaced. Winey undertones and a kirsch retro nasal aroma added a further complexity to the cup, and were followed by an aftertaste of black sesame ice cream, and a velvety mouthfeel.
To grab yourself a bag of this coffee, please go to Sense It London web shop.
If you haven’t read my last piece ‘An introduction to selection, stabilisation, propagation ‘, definitely do so as it dives into the detail around why and how hybrid cultivars, like our last two, and this Canephora are selected, stabalised and then propagated via cloning.
As we continue on our journey, exploring the innovations within green coffee via the propagation of new cultivars, we now take a look at how an F1 can be stabilised. In this blog, we look at how selection of the optimum plant takes place, why cloning is the optimum method, and what methods for cloning exist.
A short recap on how coffee cherries come about:
Although it would seem an obvious thing, it is important to remind ourselves of how we end up with the seeds which will produce the plants in the first place. For all coffee species, it remains the same that the plant’s flowers must be pollinated in order to produce fruit. A pollen grain from the stamen’s (male part) anther must get to the carpel (female part) and create a pollen tube for the sperm to travel down the style to the ovary within the flower. The ovules within the ovary are then fertilised by the sperm and develop into seeds, marking the death of the flower where the pericarp surrounding the ovules will then mature into what we consider the fruit.1
While many plants require cross-pollination, where pollen from one plant must be distributed on the style of another via a pollinator, some plants are able to self-pollinate! In these plants, pollen from the anther is distributed to the style of the same flower or a flower within the same plant. Whether a plant is able to self-pollinate depends on timing of the maturation of stamen and carpel, as they must mature at the same time, as well as their positioning in relation to each other.
Within the coffee species world, C. canephora requires cross-pollination while C. arabica plants are fully capable of self-pollination, making them unique. This is relevant as it impacts how propagation and variety stabilisation differ between the two, but more on that at another point.
Producing genetic variation and selecting the F1:
In a previous blog, we spent time discussing various waves within the cultivation of new varieties but all of them remain the same in their goal: to combine the genetic information from two parents to create an ideal combination of traits that solve a particular problem. There are a few ways to produce genetic variation, in order to then select the optimum plant which has the best combination of characteristics.
The first is called mass selection, where a large amount of plants from random seeds are planted and the offspring with the best traits are selected. This method is the simplest method but depends heavily on chance, however because the population is initially very heterogenous, the best adapted trees should perform best. Caturra was actually selected using this method. 2
The second option is the pedigree method, which is where controlled pollination between two selected individuals is performed, thereby forcing the desired combination of traits. ‘Breeders will cross two plants with complementary traits in the progeny. The goal is to select the offspring with the best phenotype that has ideally all the desired traits’.3 This controlled method will increase the success rate, and was used for the production of Catimors.
Stabilising the variety:
Both approaches will require stabilisation, so that the traits are fixed in the next several generations. To achieve this, self-fertilisation is commonly used in Arabica, however this process takes a minimum of 15 years!
15 years: 3 years for coffee plant to bear fruit + at least 5 offspring generations. F1,F2,F3,F4,F5
This is because the next generations (f2, f3 etc) will show segregation, where the offspring of the parents will not look like the parents/individual plants will showcase different characteristics of the parents (phenotype vs genotype). In order to avoid this longer 15-25 year process, clonal propagation can be used instead.
Clonal propagation:
There are a few methods which can be used in order to produce clones, though not all are equally optimum and some depend on whether the plant is a homogenous pure-line variety, a hybrid cultivar, or of the C. canephora species.
By Seed:
The first method is by seed method, which can only be used for pure-line arabica varieties that are homozygous and have little genetic variability otherwise the result will not be a ‘true to type’ variety. This method is not suitable for C. canephora as canephora require’s cross-pollination, so the resulting seed will contain 50% of each parent genetic material which will change the genotype. It is also not suitable for modern day hybrid cultivars, as this method will introduce the segregation described above and in the last post.
Cuttings:
An option which is possible for C. canephora and hybrids is cloning via cuttings. A plant is allowed to grow a suckers of orthotropic shoots, and these are then trimmed and placed in conditions where they will produce roots of their own. This process takes around two to three months, where these plants are then transferred to nurseries and is the most efficient method for producing a clone.
Grafting:
Another method is grafting, which is used to propogate a clone of two species. This is where a scion of the preferred species is grafted onto a robust species; ie a grafting a disease sensitive arabica onto a resilient robusta rootstock.4 New Varieties can also be grafted onto branches of old trees! This technique is often also used in wine- where European varieties are grafted onto American vines due to their disease resilience.
Microcuttings:
This is where coffee is grown from plant tissues such as the leaf, thus no seeds are needed. Small pieces of different parts of the coffee plant are taken and treated with hormones that act as growth regulators to produce new plants (see above image from Thomas Baumann at ZHAW). This method can be used for robusta or hybrid cultivars, as no seeds are needed, and can be achieved at scale.
Somatic embryogenesis:
The final method (see image above taken from a ZHAW lecture) is a modern in-vitro method. It can also be used to propagate Robusta and Arabica clones of F1 and F2 generations, and in high numbers. The embryo of the plant is derived from a single somatic coffee cell which is not normally involved in the production of embryos such as ordinary plant tissue, that is altered to grow into a new coffee plant. This is a highly technological method requires high levels of skill and appropriate labs in order to be successful, but if an option, offers a much quicker way to the propagation of these unique coffee plants that are identified in breeding programs.
Conclusion:
If you recently ordered my second release, the yeast inoculated washed H3 called ‘Pinapple Candy’, you will have had the pleasure to experience an example of a cultivar which was likely stabilised via cloning. As per Dr Ch. Montagnon’s wheel shows here, H3 is a clone of an F1. And while I am sure that was something you found interesting when you initially read about the coffee either on the card you received with your parcel, on my web-shop, or online here in a previous blog, you now understand just how interesting this topic can get! So interesting that I look forward to continuing this conversation and opening up forward thinking conversations with the third release…coming soon!
P.S. There is a small quantity of bags still available now- so get yours before they go.
Sebastien Opitz, ‘Lifecycle: Fruit Fetilization’ (Coffee Excellence, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Life Sciences and Facility Management, Zurich, Switzerland, 2021-2022) ↩︎
Sebastien Opitz, ‘Lesson four: Plant breeding & variety’ (Coffee Excellence, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Life Sciences and Facility Management, Zurich, Switzerland, 2021-2022), p17 ↩︎
Sebastien Opitz, ‘Lesson four: Plant breeding & variety’ (Coffee Excellence, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Life Sciences and Facility Management, Zurich, Switzerland, 2021-2022), p23 ↩︎
Sebastien Opitz, ‘Lesson four: Plant breeding & variety’ (Coffee Excellence, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Life Sciences and Facility Management, Zurich, Switzerland, 2021-2022), p224 ↩︎
As promised, we continue our journey together exploring interesting coffees that highlight innovation at the farm. This coffee does that in two unique ways; in its processing method (inoculated washed) and in it’s unique cultivar (H3).
This time we have chosen the iconic Triceratops (designed by @kill_beef ) as we think it represents this H3 inoculated washed ‘Pineapple Candy’, due to the coffees big complex character. This coffee is smooth and creamy, and deliciously candied yet tropical; with notes of vanilla, grilled pineapple, and nectarine- cooling into a rich cherry-chocolate finish.
On the back of the last release, a first generation hybrid, we continue the journey of F1 by exploring H3; a ‘clone’ of an F1. As introduced in a previous post, the first generation of a crossing will be unique and any offspring (F2 or second generation) from that F1 plant will not behave like the original F1 plant due to segregation. A handy reference tool is Dr Ch. Montagnon’s cultivar wheel at https://rd2vision.com/the-arabica-coffee-cultivars-wheel/.
This segregation continues for about 25 years of breeding, until the sixth or seventh generation, before it becomes a stable cultivar. This is a significant amount of time, so a way to replicate that first generation more efficiently is by ‘cloning it’ by either replicating the exact genetics or by taking ‘cuttings’. This H3 is a clone of the F1 crossing of Caturra and an Ethiopian landrace from the CATIE collection (accession E531), and is known for its smooth creamy body and overall high quality cup profile.
This coffee is washed, but with the unique feature of having been inoculated with the Sacchromydies Cerevisiae yeast, a yeast commonly used in wine-making and brewing. It has been fermented in a controlled environment with these yeasts, before being washed and then dried at 45c. These yeasts bring forward and highlight the tropical notes in the coffee and add a further layer to its complexity, hence why they named it ‘Pineapple Candy’.
I have then profiled this coffee as part of my training toward the World Championships, aiming to highlight its complexity and mouthfeel through an extension of the maillard phase via a soak, whilst simultaneously holding onto its refined acidity by using pace in certain parts of the roast.
I found a distinctly candied fragrance of cherry, tropical fruit, and chocolate, followed by an aroma of candy floss, taking me straight back to childhood! As expected with a name like ‘Pineapple Candy’, this cup is tropical and sweet, with notes of grilled pineapple and vanilla, cooling into peach and nectarine. It initially coats the mouth, before descending into a deliciously creamy cup, leaving you with a cherry and chocolate finish.
To grab yourself a bag of this coffee, please go to Sense It London web shop.
If you haven’t read my last piece ‘An Introduction To Breeding and Coffee Plant Genetics‘, definitely do so in preparation for future blogs as we dive deeper into hybrid stabilisation and cloning, as well as dig deeper into topics around processing and roasting.
This post will walk through the basics around species, genetics, waves of breeding, and then step into what the F1 hybrid is, leaving space for a follow up which will explore propagation methods of F1 hybrid cultivars.
Whilst some of the information in these blogs has been acquired during my time in green coffee at DRWakefield, much of my knowledge within this piece has also come from my time spent studying at ZHAW under Sebastien Opitz et al., and thus credit is due. In addition, these and some future blogs will have been inspired by or somewhat catalysed by conversations with Aaron Davis at Kew.
Grota Funda, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Coffee Plant Kingdom and The Species Within:
We should start with the coffee tree itself, of which 124 species have been identified.
Two of these 124 species are of particular significance, as they compose most of the coffee which is consumed across the globe, and those two are C. canephora and C. arabica.
The usual definition of a species is a group of individuals that create fertile offspring however in the plant kingdom this is not as clear cut, particularly due to modern breeding methods as well as natural mutations in the field. In fact, C. Arabica is just that, being a cross that naturally occurred between two species: C. canephora and C. eugenioides.
Let us then first explore a bit about genetics and coffee, to be able to better understand why the event was so significant.
Genetics and Coffee
The first thing to understand is that most coffee plant species have 22 chromosomes, including Robusta, but Arabica has 44 chromosomes. How did this happen and why is it significant?
As noted above, C. arabica is the result of a spontaneous hybridisation event, where two separate species C. eugenioides and C. canephora crossed in nature and created a new species C. arabica. This example of an interspecies hybridisation also resulted in a special polyploidization event, where Arabica combined the two sets of chromosomes from its parents, resulting in a four-fold set known as tetraploidy. This is unique, as normally most species only have a double set of chromosomes; diploidy. The doubling thus caused a reduction in genetic diversity.1
Source: Lashermes P et al. Diversity and evolution of coffee trees in light of genomics, Cahiers Agricultures 21/2-3(2012)134–1422
How? Because only two genome genotypes, one from each parent, merged into one reducing diversity. This was then further reduced due to the fact that it was a handful of individual plants which were redistributed and bred worldwide during the age when coffee went through global expansion.
What then is a Genome? It is the entire set of the DNA instructions found in a cell. And what is a genotype? The sum of all possible genes, and thus the genetic makeup of the plant. The genotype decides every possible combination in terms of yield, resistance etc.
A genotype will have multiple possibilities, and so the way the genotype represents itself or is externally expressed is called the phenotype. If you consider the colour of a flower, the genotype will hold the possibilities for the plant, i.e blue or yellow, and the phenotype will denote the actual colour ie. blue. Interestingly, a phenotype can also be affected by the environment it interacts with!
A coffee plant usually has a double set of chromosomes which will have the same genes in them, but the information in each gene can be different as within each gene there are alleles. If the same allele is on both chromosomes, then it’s considered homozygous, and the allele is different than it is considered heterozygous.
Because Arabica has a double set of chromosomes, it theoretically can have 4 different alleles for the same gene!
Varieties and Cultivars
The next taxon one would note is that of its variety, as varieties exist within the taxon of species. These variety groups are identified by the fact they share genetic similarity, which suggests they will have similar characteristics. This means that these plants showcase traits that differentiate them from other plants of the same species. Variety is not to be confused with cultivar, as a variety refers to a ‘naturally occurring or spontaneously arisen variation within a species and tend to arise via natural selection, a genetic mutation or geographic isolation.3
A cultivar, the combination between the word ‘variety’ and ‘cultivated’, refers to one which has been artificially created rather than one that has arisen spontaneously. This means a cultivar does not have a natural origin, and will have been selected by a breeder because it has specific attributes that would be beneficial (i.e. high yielding or disease resistant). Simply put, a cultivar is human-made via genetic engineering, selective breeding or hybridisation.4
Nursery at Wahana Estate, Indonesia
Waves in Plant Breeding
Most of the commonly known ‘varieties’ out there today are actually cultivars, having been created for specific purpose such as increasing yield or cup quality. In fact, there are three main historical waves when it comes to breeding in coffee, and each have their own significance and aim.
First Wave: An Era of Productivity
Around the middle of the 20th century, the demands for volume in Brazil rose and so did the need for higher productivity. Because of the low genetic diversity of traditional Arabica cultivars which were being used in producing countries, there was a need to create new varieties which could adapt to these demands. This is the era where Caturra, Mundo Novo and Catuai were selected and cultivated, due to their potential for higher productivity. Catuai and Caturra, being dwarf varieties, were selected ‘for higher plant density while Mundo Novo was selected for higher vigour’. 5 These were then distributed across Central and South America, but have had susceptibility to disease which ultimately called for another wave and approach to selection and breeding.
Second Wave: An Era of Catimors
The emergence of diseases like Coffee Leaf Rust in Brazilian farms in 1970 called for a new approach to cultivation, one that looked toward solving this particular issue through creating cultivars that could be more resilient. It was around this time when a spontaneous natural crossing between C. canephora and C. arabica was discovered in Asia, commonly known as Hibrido de Timor. Because of its natural resistance to Coffee Leaf Rust, it become quite popular as it required less fungicides and thus lowered the cost of production. This attribute, alongside its higher yields, come from the C. canephora parent but along with those positive attributes were the less desirable ones; the cup quality of the Robusta was not as pleasing as the Arabica.
The solution to this was to cross the Hibrido de Timor back with Arabica varieties which have more desirable cup qualities, thus creating the era of Catimors which have since been distributed since the 1980’s. Some of those include Colombia (HdT x Caturra), Castillo (a selection of the Colombia cultivar), and Icatu (C. canephora x Red bourbon). All of these would be considered ‘interspecific hybrids‘, denoting the crossing between species.
Third Wave: An Era of Flavour and Pragmatism
In more recent years, and largely thanks to the acquisition of experience, information, and technology, breeding has been able to take focus toward combining all desired attributes alongside targeting that breeding toward terroir and environmental considerations. World Coffee Research are currently participating in multi-location breeding trials to find new varieties which work well and take into consideration the environment they will be grown in. At the same, trials in this era aim to combine high yields, disease resistance, and high cup quality, with resilience against more recent environmental pressures like temperature changes or droughts.
In addition, breeding is aiming toward widening the genetic diversity by crossing varieties from the Ethiopian landrace collection, due to that fact they naturally have more diversity than the others and thus can bring more to the final cup. This is because of what we spoke about earlier in this post, where we discussed the fact that most of what we know as Arabica today came from a small handful of plants. By contrast, many of varieties in Ethiopia went through natural breeding and mutation and thus these wild strains are more unique in their genetics. Added impact of environment further promotes this stated above, a phenotype can be impacted by environment.
The coffee I recently released, the F1 Hybrid of Centroamericano, acts as a perfect example of this as it is an intentional crossing between an high cup quality Ethiopian variety ‘Sudan Rume’ with the disease resilient T5296. For more on this please see: https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/centroamericano
So… what is an F1 Hybrid?
It’s actually pretty simple:
F stands for Filial
1 represents the first generation
Hybrid is offspring from the cross-breeding of two genetically distinct individuals, often aiming to combine the best characteristics of the two parents. There are two types of hybrids:
Interspecies hybrid: cross between species i.e Timor hybrid is crossing between Arabica and Robusta species
Intraspecies hybrid: cross between individuals of the same species, and thus at the variety level
This means that all F1 Hybrids are the first generation of a crossing between two genetically different parents, but some will be interspecies and some will be intraspecies. Regardless of whether inter or intra, the aim is to combine the best characteristics i.e higher yields, high cup quality, and disease resistance. Hybrids are particularly special because they tend to have much higher production than non- hybrids due to the heterosis effect. The heterosis effect is when a hybrid carries two different variants of a gene, leading to higher vigour and yield.
And what is special about an F1? Because it is the first generation, it will exhibit qualities that are highly unique. These attributes will not necessarily show up in the offspring of the F1 (referred to as F2) due to segregation, and the new cultivar will continue to be unstable until its sixth or seventh generation…which will take around 15-25 years. This means that when you are sipping on an F1, you are likely experiencing something unique to it’s time and place, but more on that in a future blog!
In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying the F1 Natural from Costa Rica that I released a few weeks ago, and if you haven’t yet tried it I have a few remaining bags still available.
Sebastien Opitz, ‘Green Coffee From Tree to Trade’ (Coffee Excellence, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Life Sciences and Facility Management, Zurich, Switzerland, 2021-2022) ↩︎
Lashermes P et al. Diversity and evolution of coffee trees in light of genomics, Cahiers Agricultures 21/2-3(2012)134–142↩︎
UK 2x Champion? Does that mean there is a World Champion?
I imagine there may be a few different audiences that will end up reading this, which presents the challenge of where to start with explaining it all. I think, before going into details around training for the championship, or anything surrounding roasting and green coffee, it would make sense to bring the readership to one single digestible point of what this whole championship thing is.
Some of you will be fully new to this whole world, and wont even realise that there are championships within coffee. You wont have realised yet that there are national championships, in various disciplines, who’s winners then go on to represent their countries, competing for the title on a world stage.
Yes! Stage.
People actually come to watch these things happen.
Did you know that there is even a national, followed by a World Aeropress Championship, where people get together and compete in who can make the best Aeropress. You might even be thinking…what the heck is an Aeropress. Youtube it. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much this simple coffee brewing device (designed by the maker of the Aerobie flying disk) has taken storm in the lives of even the average person aiming for a nice ‘cuppa joe’. For those who fall into this category; I will aim to walk through it with full consideration of how crazy it all may seem to you 😂.
Some of you are fully aware of the competition scene within the coffee industry, having potentially competed or watched one of the other disciplines, but have no idea what exactly happens in the Coffee Roasting Championships. And to be fair, there is likely only a handful of people that would enjoy watching us roasters stair at a screen, droplets of perspiration on our foreheads as we watch what looks like a a series of random numbers sitting next to different coloured lines moving across a grid or graph of some sort.
Sometimes I think it looks a bit like when you can track planes and their flight path as they are moving through the sky… but that might be the 5 year old in me that is still convinced I should be a pilot flying planes. I’ll settle for flying green coffee through a spinning drum full of energy for now, and place the pilot license on a bucket list. But so we can all visualise what i’m talking about: this is what a screen typically looks like in front of us:
For those of you who are part of this group, I look forward to sharing with you some of the various intricacies you likely didn’t know about, alongside providing insight on how exactly we train for this one since its not a competition with a presentation, and overall stands a mystery to most coffee professionals since roasting is quite the sub-sect within the industry.
The last group are the ones who plan to or already competed beside me here in the UK or the World, or those who are competing or intend to compete in this particular discipline in another country. For you, some of what I will write in this blog and any subsequent blogs about training up for and competing in the roasting championships will take you down memory lane. But for you I hope this posts bring clarity to the rest of the community, so that they have a greater understanding and respect toward what you are doing! I also hope that somewhere along my journey and through my learnings around competition in general, I might have a nugget of valuable information that helps you on your next roasting championship endeavour.
Let this blog be then dedicated to the basics, as to not write a book. There is so much one could cover, but in the words of a childhood friend- use the KISS model. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
First thing to know:
regardless of whether at the UK or World Level, this competition is a long one. It lasts 3-5 days, and every single competitor will have some sort of task they must do on each of those days! This is different to some of the other competitions out there in the industry, such as Barista Championships, where the competition lasts the amount of rounds you make it through, and the amount of time you spend actually competing is the one hour preparation slot backstage and the 15 minutes (plus set up) on stage. It is not to say Barista Championships are easier to prep for, rather that the endurance factor during the actual roasting championship is different, and that the opportunity to win a roasting championship is down to how well you do several tasks over 3-5 days, rather than whether you can duplicate the routine you did the day before. So when you train for the roasting competition, your run throughs of the whole plan need to be over days rather than 15 minutes. More on this and how training for this competition v.s. others is different in another blog soon.
What is the end product then? What is it you have to do?
Placed as simply as possible, you need to produce two final products; 1.5kg of roasted coffee which is from a Single Origin, and 1.5kg of roasted coffee which is a blend of origins. And you will have had to submit a roast plan and cup description for each before you actually roast either. These two products will need to be designed and roasted during the actual championship and in front of the timekeepers, organisers, and audiences.They will be judged from a technical perspective, alongside from a sensory/cup quality perspective. And, like Barista Championships, you will be also judged against how well you describe the coffees.
So do you just bring the coffee you want to roast?
If only it worked that way! 😂 This is one of the biggest differences between the Roasting and Barista Championships; we do not get a choice in the coffees we will use to produce our final products. In fact, we will only find out what coffees we will be expected to roast on the first day of the competition! We arrive to our orientation this is where we are told which coffees we will be given to roast.
We are provided with a specific coffee for practise roasting, another coffee for the single origin product, and three more coffees for the blend. We cannot interchange which coffees are used for what (i.e. we cannot decide to use the designated single origin coffee in the blend etc), we will be given only 6kg of each for production roasting, and we must use these and only these coffees.
For the blend, specifically, we must use at least 10% of each of those three coffees that were designated, and have full freedom on the ratio of each of those three beyond that one small rule. This means one could chose to even dominate their blend with one of the three coffees at 80%, and the remaining two at 10%, if they so choose. These decisions, alongside how we choose to roast the coffee, are part of what we are playing with during the championship.
What happens across the three to five days:
First, we will have an orientation where we will meet our fellow competitors and be introduced to the organisers. In this meeting we will also get an introduction from each of the sponsors, as we will be required to use their equipment. We are also given demonstrations on how the judges will use the equipment to measure our results, so that we are all on the same page. This is the point at which we are told what coffees we must use, as well as what grind size they will use to taste our coffees. Being fully present, aware, and prepped with questions is essential here, as it is the main opportunity to gather as much information and clarity as possible before the competition clock starts.
On the national level (no longer required once you make it to the World stage), one will also be scored on their ability to evaluate the quality of the green coffee via the Specialty Coffee Association/CQI standard. In our industry, we call this green grading. During the first day of the competition, we are given a sample of green(un-roasted) coffee, and must provide moisture, density, colour, odour, screen size (size of bean) and find all defects within a given time limit. This section is often a make or break for those who have little experience around green grading, but a pleasure for those who hold a Q grader License.
We are also given lab practise time, which competitors use for different purposes as this is designated time to use any of the equipment or assess any of the green that you will later roast. I’ll be honest and say that what I do in this lab time acts as a major part of my strategy and has likely been one of the reasons I have managed to win twice. But more on that in a future blog- cant give away all the secrets as there is a World stage heading my way.
In addition to the lab practise we are allocated a practise roasting slot, which is un-scored. That is not to say it is unimportant! This is the first and final moment we will have to experience roasting on the production roaster we will end up using to produce the final product. For those who do not know much about roasting, every roasting machine, even from the same manufacturer/model, will interact differently. This means, even if you have been training on the same model of roaster up to now, this roasting machine may have its own idiosyncrasies. In the UK, we have 30 minutes– which is not a lot of time. It means you will only get to roast two batches of coffee, and keep in mind the coffee you will be roasting is not the same as the coffee you will have to roast for the final product! Again…what I do during these 30 minutes is a large part. of my strategy in terms of how I gather the data I will need to win.
The only time you will get to roast and taste these coffees before you create and submit your final product, is when you get to sample roast them. The allocated sample roasting slot is just enough time to do one 100-150g roast of each and, since you will have never roasted them before and will have never roasted on that specific sample roasting machine (mini version of the big roaster which usually roasts 100-200g or so of coffee), the roast is likely to not have been nailed. And yet again, this is crucial as this is where you will gather the data you need about how these coffees behave when roasting, what their potential is, and how they taste.
After you have sample and practise roasted, you will be given a set time to taste your coffees and this is where the magic happens! You finally get to find out what these coffees you are going to be working with taste like! Which means you will also finally be able to formulate your choices around your blend. Everyone approaches this differently, but ill give you a hint on what I do: wet blending, scoresheet commentary, white tape.
And then there is the night before you roast… the moment of truth… the moment you produce and submit your roasting plan. This is the moment when you need to put it all together: the data from the lab sessions and green grading, with what you learned from the practise roasting and sample roasting, with the knowledge you gained training up for the comp in the first place.
With plans submitted and an evening of solid rest, which was not my case this year as i ended up getting food poisoning on day 1 of the championship, you awake to production roasting day where you will execute everything you promise. On the world stage, this part goes on for two days, but at nationals. it is one day long. You have a half hour for the single origin, which amounts to enough time to roast maximum two batches to match what you promised, and one hour for the blend during which within that hour you will have had to actually blend the coffees to the amounts promised as well. That means, if you blend after you roast each coffee individually, you will likely have enough time to re-roast one of those coffees and will have had to nail the roast on the other three. Maybe now you understand why we have little beads of sweat when we are up there, and often look so unsure what to feel when we walk off stage!
So what are we scored on? What do we need to match?
In our roast plans we make promises on what will will do technically, as well as what sensory experience we intend to bring out in the cup through roasting and blending choices. May sound easy, but I can tell you it is not. We will have never tasted or roasted these coffees before those days, and will have had to make predictions based on previous knowledge and experience, alongside our ability to collect data.
From the technical: we will have noted at what temperature we will ‘charge the coffee’, which means what temperature the roasting machine will be at when we drop the coffee in, and what temperature we exit the coffee, or what temperature the coffee is brought to before we take it our of the roaster. We will also have noted how much weight we believe the coffee will loose, as coffee looses moisture when roasted and thus weighs less than when you first put it in the machine. And will given an agtron number denoting the colour of the coffee, which acts a numerical value from the industry standard system. This number essentially tells you how light or dark the colour of the coffee is when ground. And all of these technical parameters correlate to the sensory experience of the final cup. Higher marks for more accurate execution of the roast plan we submit, and lower marks for less accuracy.
From the sensory perspective, we will have provided a description of the sensory experience the judges will have for each product. On the evaluation day, the judges will taste and score each product, noting any roasting defects along the way, and then compare to our notes and give a separate score for accuracy of what we say against what they find.
In conclusion…
The competition is complex and it requires a certain type of preparation and knowledge.
In my run up to Taipei, I will be training hard. My experience at World’s last time, coupled with my experience at nationals, has taught me what resources and regime I will need in order to create the best opportunity. I will need to roast several different coffees, under various conditions, on a array of roasting machines that match the sponsor. I will need to work closely with my coach, alongside spend time others who may have specific expertise, so that team UK has the best chance of bringing back the gold.
And while the SCA UK kindly covers flights and accommodation for myself and one coach, they are a volunteer organisation who have limitations on what they are able to further provide.
This means that I will need to cover all other expenses of preparation including costs of green coffee, usages of space/gas/energy, training kits/resources, sustenance whilst in Taiwan, etc
And so I am aiming to be creative here, in finding a way to involve the community on this journey whilst generating further support. And so I thank you for being part of this whether it has been through supporting any of the Roastersaurus’ Road to Taipei events to date, and/or by purchasing these Roastersaurus releases.
Today we are pleased to be releasing this F1 Natural from Tirra Estate in Costa Rica, the first of a series of exciting limited edition (100 x 200g bags ) coffees on my road to the World Roasting Championships. In wanting to bring you something unique to your coffee table, each of the releases will aim to capture an innovative aspect of our industry which has been driven through sustainability.
We have chosen the T-Rex (designed by @kill_beef ) for this particular release as we think it represents this F1 Hybrid Natural Costa Rica well. The coffee is big and chewy, yet elegant and complex, with tropical notes of pineapple and mango, cooling into a rich madagascan chocolate.
As you may or may not know, coffee producers face many hurdles and challenges, including issues with crops being wiped out due to leaf rust disease, alongside issues with low yields. As coffee is often a producers bread and butter, research institutes have been trying to find solutions for these problems, without compromising cup quality.
Thats where this special cup of coffee comes into the picture: it is an F1 Centroamericano ‘hybrid’, which is a cross between two genetically distant varieties; leaf rust resistant ‘T5296’ and the well known and extremely tasty Ethiopian landrace variety ‘Rume Sudan’. The result: a high yielding, rust resistant coffee that produces an incredibly delicious, high scoring, and complex brew.
The F1 stands for ‘first generation’, marking that this is a first generation of it’s propagation, and it will take 5 more generations of breeding (roughly 15 years) before it will become stable. This means that the flavour experience is unique with every next generation, and so you will never have this particular experience from this specific plant again! Only a small amount of these F1 hybrid varieties have become available to farmers, predominantly within the last 15 years, with Tirra Estate being one of the leaders to bring it to you, the consumer.
Tirra Estate has dried this coffee in cherry for 23 to 25 days, before hulling and resting for 90 days on parchment. I have then profiled this coffee as part of my training toward the World Championships, aiming to balance and showcase the qualities of this unique variety with the overt sweetness we desire in the cup.
To grab yourself a bag of this coffee, please go to Sense It London web shop.
I used to have a blog called Baristasaurus, named after a funny nickname that came about when I was still on bar when I was thinking about what it would be like to try to make coffee as a T-rex. Such short arms, I thought. Latte art would have certainly been a challenge.
In that blog, I began to document my competition journey as I embarked on a quest to enter every competition possible within the year. I managed 10 competitions in 9 months, but only a handful of posts, and it was just over five years ago that I stopped writing. Not all types of writing; mostly just writing about coffee and competition.
I often reflect on why I stopped, and I think it was because I felt there were already so many voices out there and I didn’t know if i had much to add.
Now, five years later and after several career challenges and successes, I have shifted a lot of my focus toward the world of roasting, green, and business. I have spent four years working in green importing, as the Head of Quality for DRWakefield, before moving on to start my own business ‘Sense It London‘ which focuses on training and consultancy. I also stepped up to the plate and took on the role as COO of Saint Espresso x Saint Coffee Roasters, taking on the new challenge of running an already established business and working with its founder, Leon, to take it to the next level. I also went back to defend my title, this year, at the UK Roasting Championships and managed a win, making me the current 2x UK Roasting Champion!
All of this has brought me great amounts of growth and perspective, in a wide range of areas spanning from business, to green, to roasting, to competition, and I felt it was time to share again. I am also now embarking on a new journey to return to the world stage, to represent the UK in hopes of bringing back the trophy, but with a surety that, no matter what, this process will bring growth. I have also started to coach others, aiming to help them achieve their dreams in hopes I might be able to pay forward some of the knowledge I have gained.
Please join me on this new Roastersaurus era, as I blog about all things competition, coffee, and in particular this ROAD TO TAIPEI.
Watch this space and please share and support. #roasttotaipei
It has been ages….absolutely ages since I have posted. And in some sense I feel like I didn’t fully commit to what I had initially set out to do…which was to write about the experiences of competition. It all started out pretty great…but then life happened…and radio silence followed. There is no good excuse for that.
When I first started this blog, my intention was to write about the experience of competing. I wanted to share all of the challenges associated with competition, and be open about the ups and downs a person has. I also wanted to explore the metamorphosis of mind-state of the competitor, in hopes it would provide a more transparent view for others who want to compete.
I began that endeavor by pushing myself to compete in every competition possible, with the belief that it would a) provide me with a well rounded understanding of competition itself, b) allow me to dig deeper into my own psychology and c) enable me to give those experiences back to the coffee community in hopes it might inspire or help others compete. While I do believe that I achieved some of those goals, primarily a and b, I am left with the feeling that i haven’t given back enough yet. My commitment to writing about my experience become overshadowed by the very nature of experiencing.
Some people seem to be really fantastic at that thing called self-discipline. They are really great at forcing themselves to sit down and write the posts they committed to. They manage it like clockwork, despite the chaos of life. I really admire that, and hope that I can become better at it. I have to say that one my fellow coffee professionals, Kasjan Orzol, has that discipline. And its probably him that has reminded me the most of this little commitment that I made. Thank you Kasjan…your words and constant belief in me is what has got me to finally sit down write this. In fact…its what also inspires me to keep competing.
I have this little notebook full of all the draft blogs that I intended to post during the last year of competition. Some of those are fully written, while others are simply a collection of thoughts. So many little realisations that never made it here. And for that I am selfish, so it is finally time to share those. As I enter preparations for UKBC 2018, I find myself reading through and reflecting on it all. While there are notes that are intelligible, some stuff just looks like chicken scratch on a page. But after all this reflection, I think it is time to get this stuff up. I recognise that the pieces will be less ‘raw’ and in the moment, and far more reflective. But I hope they might at least resonate with some others who experience the same.
So what I guess I am trying to say is that I apologise for not sharing enough, and intend to remedy that by posting as much as I can from that little notebook. I believe that doing so will allow me to share insight into the mindset of competition, but also give others reason to compete.
Throughout that year I realised the many benefits of competition, to which I believe fall under four main levels:
Why a brand new coffee professional should compete
Why a seasoned coffee professional should compete
How competition helps a business
How competition helps the industry.
I also realised the types of support a person needs to do well, and am thankful for those who have been there for me through this journey. My boyfriend and coach Jokubas Morkunas, my mentor Jamie Treby, Mat North and the amazing UK SCA who make all of this stuff happen, all my fellow competitors (so many to name), my colleagues, and all of those involved in the seed to cup journey.
I hope to cover these topics, among other things, in the next several blogs. Through this I hope I can teach myself the discipline that so many others have, and hope my words are useful. Please note that the blogs may not be in the order that the competitions took place. The old experiences may also be inter-spliced with new ones, as I am currently prepping for yet another competition. If there is anything that you would like to know more about, please ask and I will try my best to achieve that.
Thank you for reading these thoughts…I look forward to writing more.
In life, we have a choice. And along every step of the way. And when we choose path we can keep walking to see where it leads, or take a journey back to the place we started and choose another. Either way…we run into the same thing. Sometimes the path gets difficult. Sometimes the unexpected twists and turns force us into undefined spaces where we wonder if we made the right path choice. And sometimes we find that the path leads us up a mountain. Which forces us to ask ourselves whether we are prepared for what is ahead and whether we can make it to the top.
Some of us choose the path that begins at the base of a mountain, because we know that climbing that mountain will make us stronger. The journey will be long and hard, but the idea of running away is not an option.
We start to climb this mountain and all goes to plan.
So far…so good. It’s an uphill battle, but the views along the way are spectacular.
And then it begins to rain. It begins to pour. The wind presses the little drops of rain into our face like shards of glass. We push through…climb higher. And it gets colder. And we are further and further away from civilisation. The hail. The snow.
We are suddenly frozen.
One thing after another. None of which one can prepare for. Nature has its way of teaching us lessons we do not understand unless we make it through.
Trapped in a mind space.
And with the decision: to continue or to admit failure.
To lay in bed and be defeated…or to get up and fight for the thing you knew you could accomplish if you just put your mind to it.
Completing it. That’s all you need to do.
This…is pretty much how these last weeks have felt. I set out to climb this crazy mountain. I set out to do this long race. I set out to do something that so many told me was insane. And then I almost let it all fly away.
I signed up for UKCIGS and UK Latte Art on the morning of the final day of the roasting championship. The timeframe seemed generous. And the challenge looked exciting. Two competitions in one day. What a rush. I was terrified to compete in latte art, because I have always been nervous when pouring in front of judges anyway. But it was part of the point. To put myself through that experience so I could get over it. CIGS, on the other hand, was a return event for me. I have competed in it before, so it was an opportunity to try to do better this time. Mainly try to smile more, and be more myself on stage. So, the goals for these competitions were quite different.
Running up to the competition, my life became a bit chaotic. Nothing new for anyone who knows me. Work projects began to take off, and time management was tricky. On top of that, I was trying to keep a personal life steady and balanced. I had planned to practise for these competitions several times a week, so that the routines would be polished and ready to go by the week before. Seemed logical and totally feasible. But alas…it didn’t happen.
Instead of practise sessions for the competition, this last November was filled past and present personal situations creeping into the evening hours of my life. On one hand, I was trying to devote myself to a relationship that needed focus, and on the other I was trying not to lose focus on all the projects at work. Amidst this it was November…which is one of the hardest months I experience every year.
Why? Well I could probably write a book about the various November’s in my life, with each new November adding another difficult memory to my little charm bracelet of perseverance. And while it’s true that I have gotten through each of them, it also must be noted that for each one there is a new scar. Some things I have lived through are far too much to write about in this particular post. Some who know me well, know which ones I am talking about. But there is one I will share, which was a major struggle this year, but was a major catalyst for deciding to compete in everything.
On November 30th 2012 I got married. And I got married to someone I thought I would be with forever. I believed that, as a team we could conquer the world. But on November 30th 2012…in the evening…I saw the foreshadowing of the future of our marriage. It was one of the most painful and emotionally breaking memories of my life. And yet we stayed together for a few more years. Ups and downs. Until the collapse in 2014.
Every November since has been difficult. The memories from even before that event, and some of the extremely painful things that happened the November’s after, have piled upon each other to hit a threshold. And this November…I received the divorce papers. Now you would think that this would be a good thing considering everything, but the reality is that the timing of November coupled with the painful memories that receiving these papers triggered, had a crippling effect on me. My mind space was all wrong.
The week of the competition quickly arrived, and id still not done anything I would call productive. I was too busy trying to balance out all the weights I was already carrying on each of my shoulders. And there it was again. November 30th. It had been four years… and yet it still resonated inside me so intensely. I cried through out the night…knowing I should be training as I only had a few days left but feeling my every inside falling apart.
And then December 1st came. And my boyfriend broke up with me.
I was a mess. I sat looking out the window realising that I’d let it all turn to shit. I called my best friend, Kuba, to tell him the news. I’ll never forget what he said to me. ‘Diana…you lost yourself in him. And the woman I know will not just lay in bed defeated. She would get up and fight. I can be in the training centre to help you in an hour. Let me know when you are on the way’.
Wow. How well he knows me. How he could still see me…even when I couldn’t see myself.
I got up, packed my things, and went straight there. And he was waiting for me. And even his day wasn’t going well…as you can see …
We spent the afternoon creating the two beverages, hot and cold, for the preliminary rounds. The drinks were inspired by an exam I gave to one of our baristas, Nibs, whereby he did the gutsy thing and served me a shot of espresso at 14.5g-44g when most baristas go for the `15g-34g safe-spot. This open cup is what I have been looking for from them for some time, particularly with highly complex coffees, and he’d done it. AWESOME. This was the reason I’d chosen this coffee in the first place: its complexity and versatility. Kenya Karura. And now I wanted to build a whole routine around this inspiration. So, the two drinks we created were designed to showcase the two sides of this coffee.
Roasted by Sir Jamie Treby
We left the training centre that Thursday night feeling happy with the results. I thought ‘perfect…I have one more day to run through it and design drinks for finals in the case I get through’. I went to sleep.
FRIDAY MORNING. Oh, I’ll never forget that Friday morning. I woke up to a text from Mat North asking where I was. I was beyond confused. I’d thought that the preliminary round was on Saturday and the final was on Sunday. Mind you…looking back this makes no sense. Turns out the preliminary round was that Friday. It was 10:00am when I saw the text. I’d slept through my latte art slot and needed to be dialling in for the CIGS at 2:30pm. HOLY CRAP. I jumped up and gathered my things and headed to the training centre. Id not even run through this thing once! I quickly smashed out three run throughs and then packed and headed to the venue.
Surprisingly everything went quite smoothly considering. I was gutted I had to miss out on Latte Art, but happy I’d managed to do my CIGS routine. To be honest, I was just happy that all the drinks ended up in the glasses and that I was able to communicate the concept to the judges. But this was as far as any expectations had gone. So, when they announced my name as a finalist I was completely shocked. Quickly followed by the shock was the realisation that I had no finals routine prepared. So Kuba picked me up from the venue and raced with me to the training centre again. We stayed there until 1:30am…whereby I managed to develop an Irish coffee concept and run through the new routine twice. We were just gonna have to roll with it.
You would think that this is the end of the ridiculousness, but it’s not. This time I made sure to arrive early to the call time, being quite mindful of the trend of events so far. I polished all of glasses, and neatly set out all the equipment. I double checked that I brought the right coffee, and set it on the table next to my nicely polished competition gear. I made sure that all my stuff was on the allocated table that said my name. And for luck’s sake… I checked for everything again. Everything was good. It was time to relax. So, I left the competition training room and took a stroll around the venue to say hi to a few people. The mates from Taylor St were arriving, so I figured I could catch up with them as long as I was back 45 minutes before my dial in slot.
Like a good competitor, I stuck to the schedule. My colleague Jordan and I went back up to the prep room 45 minutes before my dial in and started scanning over my things in preparation for the dial in. Glasses polished…tick. Speed pourer on…tick. Equipment present…tick. Coffee in its place… NOT TICK! NOT TICK? NOT TICK?!! Yep. My coffee had gone missing. 40 minutes before I had to dial in. No joke. It was there when I left. And now it’s gone. And I promise I am not mental. I had shown the bag to Maxwell earlier that day, just before placing it on the table. And here is where JORDAN, one of our awesome Taylor St Baristas, saves the day. As soon as we realised it was missing… I remembered I had a spare kilo at our Monument shop. He jumped up and sprinted to the shop to collect it, while I watched the clock tick down and began devising plans in the case he didn’t get back in time. But like a BOSS, Jordan arrived literally ONE MINUTE before my dial in slot began. What a Legend (That’s Jordan sitting on the couch there).
By the time I was heading to the stage…I was thinking that at this point anything could go wrong. I was feeling nervous…but only because I knew that the odds were against me. Luck was not on my side. And then, as I arrived on stage, I realised that half of the audience were from Taylor street. They were everywhere! Lisa Laura even made a mini banner. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time… as I have never been so supported in my life. WOW. Immediately the storm inside of me was calmed and I was ready to rock and roll. I knew it was going to be okay no matter what happened.
I went on stage…and those ten minutes flew by. I can still remember the clinking sound of my spoon against the glass as I was trying to pour my Irish coffees. I can sound extremely calm, by my hands tend to show the nervousness that I don’t even realise I am experiencing at the time. And at 9 minute 59 seconds I call time. They still tell me I made them so nervous with how close I was to the 10-minute time mark.
To be honest… seeing them all in the audience made every moment worth it. I didn’t think I was going to place, but I didn’t mind. I had been given something greater: my first experience of having a team there to support me. It was beautiful. So, when they called my name out for 3rd place…I didn’t know what to. After all that had happened. HOW? How?
And walking off stage from receiving the most awesome looking trophy ever, I began to cry. There to greet me was my Taylor St family. I couldn’t hold back the tears. I would have never made it that far without them. They kept me focused. They rescued me when I was drowning me. They reminded me of who I am. They believed in me…when I didn’t even believe in myself. They supported me. And then they celebrated with me. The victory was sweet.
I now understand why every great competitor has a team behind them. It makes the world of a difference. I would be nothing without them. I would probably still be lying in bed…crying. Competition is hard. But we don’t have to do it alone. Thank you to Kuba, Jordan, Kasjan, Lisa Laura, Jamie, Andrew…and everyone else who has given me a moment of their time.
Roastersaurus 