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.

Continue to watch this space for more soon…

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