Today, we have an absolute first for me.
I'm gonna taste something that I've never tasted before.
Something I didn't think I would ever, ever get to taste.
This is a small sample of coffee sent
by the lovely people at Roastworks.
They're a company, a UK roasting company
out in the west of the UK or in England more specifically,
and Will and I had corresponded
previously in the past because they roast
on a specific kind of roaster called a GW Barth.
They're pretty rare.
There's not many of them around,
and Square Mile used to roast on one of these.
We don't anymore, but we did.
And we talked of it in the past.
He very kindly sent me this coffee,
which is coffee that is almost impossible
to get any other way.
This is coffee grown, harvested, processed,
and roasted all in the UK.
The Roastworks sort of roastery, I guess,
has a very old, I think 30-year-old coffee tree
in there originally from Ethiopia.
And this year they tended to it a little bit more
and they managed to get it to fruit.
And that's generally very difficult to do.
Coffee really wants to grow in a tropical climate.
We'll talk more about that in a second.
It's quite hard to get it to fruit in the UK,
especially if it's indoors, but they succeeded.
And they got about 350 grams of cherries.
They did two pickings, it was interesting.
And they have, as a result, some washed coffee.
They did it all themselves,
then they roasted on a little Ikawa.
And some of it, they very kindly sent to me.
I didn't really get a choice.
They just told me they were sending it.
And I thought, well, I have to taste it here with you.
And to talk about it.
I'll be honest, I've got 12 and a half grams.
It's enough for one cupping bowl.
I can make no mistakes here.
This is my one chance to taste this.
I've seen one person before taste coffee in the UK.
There's a kind of biodome thing down,
called the Eden Project,
and they have previously harvested coffee there.
I got Tristan Stephenson,
who wrote a great book about coffee,
and many great books about cocktails.
He harvested it once and managed to get something out of it.
He wasn't very complimentary about it, but it's possible.
And I've seen cherries in Kew Gardens.
I don't think anyone's kind of processed them
to the point where I could just open a bag,
grind them and brew them and taste them.
Smells pleasant, actually.
It smells like coffee, smells, you know, not that unusual.
It's kind of a sweet, kind of caramelly smell so far.
It looks relatively dark as a roast for cupping.
I think that this is probably very difficult to roast.
Coffee grown in the UK is likely to be
relatively low in density.
So in terms of roasting it,
it's likely to kind of run away from you quite quickly,
and develop very quickly.
Coffee grows well in high altitude
because at high altitude it does a couple things.
It gives you lots and lots of lovely sunlight
which is food for plants.
That's great stuff.
And then it gives you relatively cool daytime temperatures.
Doesn't get too hot,
and then relatively cool nighttime temperatures
and that swing between sort of warm days and cool nights
is really important for the slow development of coffee fruit
that leads to very dense seeds
that tend to taste much better.
And those cool nights are also a feature of, say,
island coffees, places like Hawaii,
for example, where you would expect
that lower altitude to have warmer nights,
but because you're surrounded by water
you tend to have a cooler evening because the sea,
the water cools things down a little bit more.
This I expect to be relatively low density.
They obviously tried to keep it cool at night,
so they've got AC in their facility.
So I have no idea how this will taste.
So let's grind it, brew it.
Let's make a cupping bowl of it and let's taste it.
So we've got coffee and it smells kind of interesting.
It doesn't smell particularly fruity,
doesn't smell at all bad.
It's kind of got a chocolate and almond smell right now
that is very pleasant,
and a little bit vegetabley underneath there.
So I don't know.
It's so interesting though.
This is an Ethiopian coffee variety.
I don't know which one.
I don't think they know either,
but I don't know if it's gonna necessarily express that way
lacking the terroir, the soil, the climate of Ethiopia.
You wouldn't think pouring water would be stressful,
but where this is a single opportunity of my entire life,
I feel like there's a bit of pressure.
I should just watch what I'm doing.
And now to give it a smell.
Still smells very pleasant,
still got that kind of slightly nutty,
slightly kind of chocolaty,
but more in that kind of Maillard reaction
where things have gone brown and toasty.
Those kind of smells.
Again, it is, it looks just a little darker
than I would typically have roasted a coffee
for cupping or tasting like this.
But I don't think that's unusual
with such a kind of low density coffee
that probably did just get away from them
in the roast a little bit, but it's not roasty,
doesn't smell roasty necessarily.
But I would say there's probably gonna be
a little bit less acidity in the cup
than may have otherwise been there.
So it's time to break the coffee.
We've been steeping for about four minutes.
I'm just gonna stir the crust.
It stops the brewing process
and there's often a release of aroma
that's kind of interesting.
So I'm gonna smell that.
Not hugely aromatic.
What's there is pleasant,
but it's not a big release and explosion of aroma
that some coffees will absolutely give you
at that moment that we call the break.
The time has come to taste.
I am very, very excited.
This is such a rare opportunity.
And I'm so sad I can't share this with other people,
but here we go.
Let's have a little taste.
Mm, have another little taste.
I'll try not to slurp too loudly.
Now that tastes a little bit more as I would have expected.
What's smelled quite nice here,
it had really nice kind of nutty chocolaty tones,
it had a little bit of a kind of a resinous aroma as well,
but in the cup, what's missing is a couple of things
that you really typically want in great coffee.
And that is sweetness and acidity.
Those two things are kind of dialed back.
There's some texture to this coffee,
it's got some body, it's got some mouth feel,
but it leads with that.
And a little bit more bitterness
without the balance of sweetness and acidity.
Much, much better than I thought it was going to be,
If I'm honest, you know,
the inside of a coffee roasting company
in the southwest of the UK,
that's not typically great terroir, you know,
like you're not gonna be excited for the taste of place
on this one, but really interesting.
It doesn't have those very citrus-y,
very floral notes that you tend to fall in love with
with those really great washed Ethiopian coffees,
but it's not unpleasant.
There is some kind of green vegetableness to it as well.
A little bit like a, what I would call a green bell pepper.
I think other people called capsicums.
It has a little bit of that that I don't really enjoy,
but it is a very pleasant surprise.
Really interesting and an absolute treat
to taste something so rare.
So improbable.
You know what I mean?
Like I just, I just didn't think I would ever
get to taste coffee, grown, harvested,
processed, roasted in the UK.
What a generous gift from Will and the team at Roastworks.
Thank you so much for just sending me this
and not even asking if I wanted to taste it
and just putting it in the mail.
That was a very kind thing.
Something I don't want to try and encourage too much.
Please don't send me stuff.
I have lots of stuff, but this, well,
I'm very grateful that you did, so thank you.
Now, if you're watching this and you're thinking
"I want to learn more about tasting coffee,"
I have good news.
If you're watching this in the week or so
after this video is published,
then there's probably still time to join in
on the world's largest coffee tasting.
And it's an event I'm running,
it'll happen on October 3rd, at 3:00 PM. UK time.
You can pick up a kit,
it's got five different coffees in there.
Will not tell you what they are till afterwards.
A little grinds humble to tell you how to grind it
for cupping like this, and some Third Wave water
so your water can be identical to mine
so that on the day I have the same coffees as you
and we can share a tasting experience
wherever you are in the world.
Now I'm actually gonna give away 50 kits
as part of this video, because this video has an ad in it.
And if you can't afford to buy a kit,
there's seven pounds in the UK to be delivered.
And they're not much more expensive to ship to other places,
but if you really can't afford it, well,
hang on and I'll tell you how to enter in a second.
First, I want to talk about this video sponsor,
which is Squarespace.
Now, it's very easy for me to talk about Squarespace
because when it came time to build a website
for the world's largest coffee tasting
at worldslargestcoffeetasting.com,
well, I immediately went and signed up
and built a Squarespace website.
I took one of their templates for an event
and very quickly added my images, my words, my resources,
and built a website that I think is beautiful,
simple, and very helpful.
And there's nothing really to worry about
in terms of the upkeep.
I can put a PDF file of how to taste on there
and not worry if 10,000 people download it in a single hour.
The website isn't gonna fall over.
I don't have to worry about patching,
maintaining, installing stuff.
It's always gonna look good on any device, on any browser.
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That is a huge deal to me, but don't take my word for it.
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Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video
and enabling me to give away a bunch of coffee kits.
So I have 50 available.
There's a link down in the description.
Just click it, enter.
Please only enter if you really really can't afford this,
I want to make sure these go to people
who otherwise couldn't participate.
There are 50 to give away.
I'll send them to anywhere in the world
that I can easily send coffee.
And I hope more people can join in
and get access to this event. If you do want to join in
and you can afford a little bit of money,
we've tried to make it as cheap as we can.
We'd love to see you join in
and taste coffee with us on the day,
or if you can't make it on the day,
you can still cup along with the video
and experience it as if it were live.
Anyway. Have you tasted coffee like this before?
Have you ever tasted coffee grown in the UK?
Is anyone out there who's achieved a similar feat?
I would love to hear from you down in the comments below.
Did this taste the way you thought it was gonna taste?
Again, I'd love to hear thoughts on this.
Is there another weird part of the world
that I should be seeking out coffee from,
somewhere unexpected?
Would coffee grown in France or Germany,
would that taste any different?
You can get coffee grown in the US and Australia,
but what about, I don't know, Russia?
Is anyone in Russia growing coffee?
Let me know down in the comments below, but for now,
I'll say thank you so much for watching
and I hope you have a great day.