Let’s Play: The Spark of Precision

Posted on by Diana Johnston Ledezma

Roastersaurus keeps growing alongside me, one coffee at a time. With each release, I find another piece of its world taking shape — another creature, another feeling, another story the cup wants to tell. None of it is planned in advance. The coffee leads, and I follow.

After the bright rebellion of Slipwing and the rare stillness of Mythic, this release brings something more deliberate. Quickfang carries a sharper kind of grace, all movement and intention. It’s a reminder that strength doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it’s found in clarity, in rhythm, in how gently something can strike.

Basha Bekele, Quickfang Raptor

The newest addition to Roastersaurus is Basha Bekele, representing the Quickfang class, the raptors of the cup. Quickfangs are sharp, agile and deliberate, defined by movement, control and clarity.

This lot from Basha’s Gonjobe site in Bensa, Sidamo, Ethiopia, shows the precision that defines his work. It is a natural process that behaves with the control of a washed, guided by slow shade-drying and exact sorting. The altitude keeps sweetness and clarity in balance, giving the cup high, sparkling acidity and clean structure.

Mandarin cuts through with focus and elegance, followed by guava, apricot and a lingering papaya finish. Floral, tropical and refined, it carries the sparkling bite we expect from a Quickfang — energy expressed through clarity and poise.

About the Producer

Basha Bekele is part of Ethiopia’s new generation of producers, known for his patience, structure and discipline. Working with Mecota Trading, he sources only ripe red cherries from farmers around his site in the highlands of Sidamo at 2,450 masl.

In 2024 he won first place in the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence. In 2025 he was nominated for Notable Coffee Producer at the Sprudgie Awards. His precision and transparency have influenced other farmers across the region, with many adopting his methods of slow drying and consistent sorting. His work shows how one producer’s focus can lift an entire community.

The Art

Illustrated by @kitsukaizen, as inspired by original @killbeef artwork + imagery of Bekele and the farm

The artwork shows the Quickfang Raptor beneath shade nets, a woven basket of flowers and ripe cherries in its claws, a straw hat shading its eyes. The pose is calm but alert, a quiet readiness.

When placed beside the photo of Basha Bekele, the translation becomes clear. The hat, the nets and his careful posture all appear in the design. The flowers nod to the cup’s floral undertones, while the raptor’s composure mirrors Basha’s own precision and care.

It is not a fantasy portrait, but a visual translation of his process and presence, reimagined through the Roastersaurus world.

From the Lore

Basha Bekele is the first Quickfang of Roastersaurus.
Quickfangs are built on definition and intent. They move with purpose, every strike measured, every sip clear.

What Quickfang Represents

If Slipwings are disruption and Mythics are rarity, Quickfangs are refinement.
They show that precision can be just as powerful as experimentation. A Quickfang does not shout. It cuts through the noise, reminding us that mastery often speaks quietly.

Skill: Floral Feint

His card skill, Floral Feint, reflects that same idea. When Agility exceeds an opponent’s, Quickfang avoids the next strike but loses one Power the following turn. In the cup, it appears as softness before impact, a floral veil before the bright mandarin edge. A moment of elegance before precision lands.

Attack Types: How Processing Becomes Play

This release marks the first time I am decoding Attack Types, the next layer in the Roastersaurus system.

Every card carries not only a class and stats, but an attack type that connects directly to how the coffee was processed. Processing shapes sweetness, clarity and body, and in the Roastersaurus world that becomes how a coffee moves and strikes.

For Quickfangs, that attack type is Stealth.

Stealth belongs to washed coffees and bright, controlled anaerobics, cups that move with precision instead of force. They don’t hit with weight; they strike through clarity and timing.

What makes Basha Bekele unique is that it is a natural coffee that behaves with Stealth precision. Naturals usually lean toward the Stomp type, heavy and layered, but this one is different. Its balance, structure and sparkling acidity give it the agility of a washed coffee without losing natural sweetness.

In the cup, that means brightness that does not shout, acidity that cuts cleanly, and a finish that lands before you even notice it has arrived. Focused, deliberate and alive. The calm before the strike.

A full decoding of Attack Types will come soon, exploring how each process, from natural to honey to washed, shapes both flavour and play.

The Stats Decoded

The Basha Bekele Quickfang card brings together Stealth and its stat build to form the Quickfang identity. This combination of movement, structure and clarity is what allows this coffee to take on the raptor form.

Each stat mirrors a real sensory quality from the cup, turning its flavour and texture into motion.

Agility 10 (Acidity) → Sparkling mandarin lift that defines its pace and clarity.
Bite 8 (Tactile Edge) → Wine-like tropical snap that adds sharp, clean energy.
Power 6 (Body Weight) → Light to medium texture, focused and refined.
Armour 4 (Structure) → A balanced frame that holds steady without heaviness.
Stamina 7 (Aftertaste) → Lingering papaya and florals that carry the flavour forward.
Charm 7 (Sweetness) → Brown-sugar depth and soft florals that round the brightness.

Together these stats shape the Quickfang’s nature: fast, agile and precise. They define how it moves in the game and why this particular cup, with its clarity and spark, could only become a Quickfang. Soon, these stats will come into gameplay, determining how each card performs, evolves and interacts within the Roastersaurus world.

Looking ahead

My hope has always been to keep unravelling this story, to build something that connects coffee, creativity and play in a way that keeps evolving. Each release adds another piece to the world and another way to share what we create together. It’s still growing, still changing, and that’s what I love most about it.

Roastersaurus isn’t just about flavour. It’s about what happens after, how the moment of tasting becomes memory, then story, and soon, play. Each card carries that continuation, holding a fragment of the cup that lives on long after the coffee is gone.

If you want to dive deeper into how these ideas began, you can read Decode the Cup: How Roastersaurus Stats Are Born. That post explores how the world started to form through flavour, movement and intent… and how all of that is represented by the stats on the card. And keep watching this space as I continue to tell you the story behind Roastersaurus, continue to decode the cards, and of course reveal how to play the game.

For now, enjoy the spark of Quickfang and the precision that makes it strike just right.
Pre-orders for Basha Bekele (Quickfang) are now live through Roastersaurus, available in small quantities for those who move fast.

Let’s play.




🦕 Decode the Cup: How Roastersaurus Stats Are Born

Posted on by Diana Johnston Ledezma

Every flavour tells a story.

From acidity and sweetness to agility and charm, this is how Roastersaurus brings the cup to life.

I created Roastersaurus to build a bridge between the way coffee feels and the way we talk about it.
After years of roasting, cupping, and competing, I wanted a new language, one that made tasting more intuitive and playful without losing depth.


Each coffee has a character, each character translated into a card, each sensory attribute a stat. What begins as acidity, sweetness, or structure turns into movement, tension, and endurance. It’s a way to explore a multi-sensory understanding through design and imagination, connecting the ritual of drinking coffee to the energy it holds.

Every Roastersaurus card begins with a cup of coffee.
Before there’s design, story, or gameplay, there’s taste.

When I built the stat system for Roastersaurus, I wanted every number to come from something real… something you can feel when you drink the coffee. These stats aren’t abstract; they’re sensory translations. They turn flavour and texture into motion, structure, and behaviour.

Each one comes from the same process I use when I roast or cup: looking at how the coffee moves, holds itself, and lingers. What starts as acidity, sweetness, or mouthfeel becomes agility, bite, or stamina once it enters the Roastersaurus world. And in fact the cup is what decides which class or dino the coffee will become in the first place (more on that in another post in the future).

For me, these cards are about more than collecting (although thats definitely on the cards 😂). They are about tapping into that inner child we all carry, the part of us that still lights up at something simple and playful. If my coffees and cards can give someone a moment of joy, a smile that lifts them out of the grind of daily life, then they are doing exactly what I hoped. If they can then share that moment with someone else through the soon to be revealed gameplay, even better.

⚡️Agility: Acidity & Movement

Agility describes how fast and vividly flavour moves.
A high-agility coffee feels bright, zesty, and quick to react. It sparks across the palate, lively and directed.
Lower agility brings calm and weight. The coffee feels steady, slower to rise, more composed.

💥 Power: Body & Weight

Power is presence.
A high-power coffee is dense, syrupy, and grounded. You feel its gravity.
Low-power cups are lighter, almost tea-like, moving through space instead of filling it.

🦷 Bite: Tactile Edge & Energy

Bite is the tactile tension between acidity and body.
It’s the snap, the grip, the sparkling edge that makes a coffee feel alive.
High bite gives that electric, effervescent quality.
Low bite glides instead of sparks, smooth and seamless.

🏋️ Stamina: Finish & Endurance

Stamina is time.
It’s how long flavour lingers and evolves after the sip.
High stamina coffees unfold slowly, changing as they fade.
Low stamina cups finish clean, quick, and clear.

✨ Charm: Sweetness & Appeal

Bite is the tactile tension between acidity and body.
It’s the snap, the grip, the sparkling edge that makes a coffee feel alive.
High bite gives that electric, effervescent quality.
Low bite glides instead of sparks, smooth and seamless.

🛡 Armour: Structure & Stability

Armour holds everything together.
It’s the structure that keeps flavour balanced and coherent.
High armour coffees are velvety and layered, with texture that stays cohesive.
Low armour is delicate and fleeting, flavour that collapses once the sip is gone.

Flavour Becomes Function

Every stat comes directly from the sensory world.
What you taste defines how each Roastersaurus card behaves later in play.

It is not just data. It is the bridge between cup and character, the point where sensory experience becomes story.

Looking Ahead

Roastersaurus has always been about connection, between taste and touch, between player and planet. The upcoming gameplay element builds on that same foundation.

Each card, each coffee, and each choice will shape how you engage with the world of Roastersaurus. It is designed to be interactive and sustainable, rewarding curiosity instead of consumption.

What starts as packaging becomes something that lives on. The coffee info card you receive with the bag is not waste; it is part of a growing game and a collector’s world. It carries memory, first of the coffee you tasted, then of the people you shared it with, or battled against.

It is a small act of transformation, turning what is usually discarded into something lasting. Even the Roastersaurus stickers can be easily peeled from the bags and placed wherever you like, on your water bottle, notebook, or laptop, small fragments of story that travel with you.

It is a system that celebrates flavour, creativity, and play while keeping materials in use and stories alive.

Roastersaurus is about tasting, collecting, remembering, and sometimes, winning.
And this is only the start. Every mark on each card holds intention, more layers of the world still waiting to be decoded.

Let’s Play: A New Chapter for Roastersaurus

Posted on by Diana Johnston Ledezma

Today is a big moment. I’m launching the new Roastersaurus branding and, with it, something I’ve wanted to bring into coffee for a long time: playfulness. It started with the dinos, first brought to life by the talented @kill_beef, and now it continues with the new packaging and introduction of Roastersaurus cards.

Coffee often gets wrapped up in seriousness, when it should feel like a small moment of magic. I love its technical side, but I want it to feel more like play than study. That’s what Roastersaurus is about: turning coffee into a game we can explore with curiosity and fun. The stats on each card gamify the technical side, making acidity into Agility, sweetness into Charm, and aftertaste into Stamina.

For me, these cards are about more than collecting (although thats definitely on the cards 😂). They are about tapping into that inner child we all carry, the part of us that still lights up at something simple and playful. If my coffees and cards can give someone a moment of joy, a smile that lifts them out of the grind of daily life, then they are doing exactly what I hoped.

Sweet Valley, Slipwing Archaeopteryx

The first coffee to carry this new identity is Sweet Valley, from Potosí farm in Valle del Cauca, Colombia. It represents the Slipwing class, boundary-breakers who shatter the frame of what coffee should be. Sweet Valley is a blend that changes each harvest, built from a mix of varieties only the farm truly knows. What might be dismissed as chaos is in fact harmony, a vivid, fruit-driven natural that shows the playful energy of disruption.

The card artwork by @kitsukaizen captures this beautifully: the Archaeopteryx flying through the farm, pulling coffee cherries and leaves into its wake, with the house of Café Granja La Esperanza standing in the background.

Microraptor, Mythic Capulinero

To celebrate this launch, I have also held back a tiny amount of Microraptor. Earlier this year I secured the only 24kg of Capulinero in the UK, and while most of it sold out almost immediately, I kept this last batch for today.

Microraptor represents the Mythic class, the rarest of them all. Produced at Beneficio La Chumeca in Costa Rica, Capulinero was born of an accidental three-phase fermentation shaped by sudden rains. Flocks of Capulinero birds appeared during the process and departed the moment fermentation was complete, giving the coffee its name.

This re-release is also special because Microraptor is the first coffee to come with a foil Roastersaurus card. Just like the coffee itself, the card is scarce, precise, and one of a kind.

What the Cards Mean

Each card shows an archetype, illustrated artwork, and a set of stats. Those numbers will have their own reveals later, but for now you can think of them as levels that connect back to the cup.

  • Agility → acidity, the brightness and speed of the flavours.
  • Bite → the lively snap or winey edge that makes a sip feel electric.
  • Power → body, how commanding or delicate it feels.
  • Armour → structure, the frame that holds everything in place.
  • Stamina → aftertaste, how long the flavour echoes.
  • Charm → sweetness, the playful or elegant appeal.

It is a way of turning the technical into something characterful, almost alive. You do not just read a tasting note, you feel whether a coffee is agile, charming, or bitey. It is fun, figurative, and surprisingly intuitive once you think about it.

Every pack of these coffees comes with its own limited edition Roastersaurus card. Keep them safe. Their full meaning will unfold soon.

This is only the beginning of Roastersaurus in its new form. Sweet Valley and Microraptor open the door, but there are more archetypes, more coffees, and more adventures to come.

As a small brand, every single purchase makes a huge difference and allows me to keep building these Roastersaurus adventures. Preorders for both coffees are now open here, and stock is very limited. Collect your pack, keep and eye on instagram and this blog for the more reveals, and be part of the adventure as it grows.

Let’s play.