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Talleyrand (1754-1838)
That’s just one man’s perception of what makes
the perfect cup of coffee - so strong it keeps the
neighbours awake! Back then of course, he wouldn’t
have had a great deal of choice. Now when you ask
for coffee you get a menu: ground or whole bean?
Caff or de-caff? Americano, cappuccino, espresso,
frappé macchiato, mocha or latte? Coffee these
days is big business. Petroleum aside, it is the
biggest natural commodity in international trade.
Some 25 million people in 50 countries worldwide
depend on it for their livelihood. And among the
connoisseurs, good coffee is treated with the same
reverence as fine wine. All this from an
innocuous-looking bean discovered, according to
legend, by an African goatherd.
He thought his goats seemed unusually jumpy
when they ate this particular bean. Trying it for
himself, he felt alert and invigorated. But it was
a passing monk that made the first cup of coffee
from the beans by crushing them into a powder and
pouring on boiling water. His fellow monks were
greatly impressed by his ability to pray all night
and word soon got around.
That’s the legend. The rest, as they say, is
history!
The coffee
plant was originally discovered in
Eastern Africa, which we now know
as Ethiopia.
The Ethiopians knew they were
onto a good thing and kept coffee a closely
guarded secret for many years.
But when the Arabians visited
the area in the 15th century to forge new trade
links, they soon heard about this wonderful new
plant and its invigorating properties. They stole
seedlings and smuggled them back to what is now
Yemen, offering it to their European merchant
guests after dinner.
Given our penchant for tea, the
Europeans realised that coffee would go down a
storm at home. They devised ingenious plans to
steal the seedlings and establish plantations
around the globe. After much trial and error, all
came to the conclusion that coffee won’t grow more
than 1,000 miles from the equator.
The main producers today are
Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and the Côte
d’Ivoire. Despite the enormous range of beans
available, the coffee trade divides them into just
two categories:
· Coffee Robusta: a hearty bean
which is usually found in more full-bodied
coffees, including instant coffee
· Coffee
Arabica: a much more sophisticated variety which
forms the basis for high quality speciality
coffee
Our instant
coffee is among the best there is.
Why? Because we use only the finest
ingredients – top quality Arabica
beans sourced from our network of
carefully chosen suppliers around
the world.
After they have been thoroughly inspected by
our experts, we bring the green beans into Europe.
We clean them, roast them to achieve the desired
flavour (from mild to espresso), grind them and
then brew to extract the coffee.
The freshly filtered liquid concentrate then
needs to be dried. Spray drying produces a fine
powder coffee by subjecting it to a warm jet of
air. Agglomeration combines the powder to form
granules. Freeze drying is the process where the
concentrate is ‘shock’ frozen, chipped into
granules and then dried gently in a vacuum.
There are many other techniques we use in our
production processes. Some of these we claim as
our own. For instance, we were the first to
produce freeze-dried coffee in Europe. We were
also the first to put plastic lids on our coffee
and use induction sealing of our jars, thus
avoiding contamination with glue.
Our aim is to bring our customers an exciting
range of the finest quality coffee. We’ll do
whatever it takes to achieve this.
There are said to be more than 6,000 species of
coffee plant, but the two most commercially
important are arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta
(Coffea canephora).
Arabica
About 60% of all coffee grown is arabica. The
arabica bush is rather delicate and susceptible to
frost, disease and pests. It’s harder to grow to
maturity and therefore more expensive than
robusta.
The arabica bean gives each coffee a highly
distinctive taste, which is particular to the area
in which it is grown. Sometimes beans from
different regions are combined, or arabica and
robusta are blended. Arabica coffee has a delicate
taste and is used to add acidity and body to the
finished brew.
Robusta
The robusta bush, as its name would imply, is a
hardier plant and is therefore easier and cheaper
to grow.
But that’s not to say that robusta coffee is in
any way inferior to arabica. The art of producing
great coffee is to get the mix just right and
bring out the different flavours in the right
proportions.
Robusta coffee adds body and ‘kick’ to a
blend.
Roasting makes a huge difference to the final
taste. Arabica beans will lose their delicate
flavour in a darker roast, whereas robusta comes
out stronger. A medium roast tends to bring out
the best in both beans.
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