WHY CHOOSE US ? - BECAUSE OUR COFFEE IS GREAT !
STARTING WITH THE BEANS
What makes a really good cup of coffee? The kind where you want to wrap your hands around the mug and savour the fresh roasted aroma? - Freshly roasted beans.
But first we have to start with the very best beans. We use only Organic coffee, grown without the use of DDT, Pesticides, Herbicides or Fungicides. It is grown naturally in fields with other crops and shade trees. This is healthier for the land, the farmers and you. Producing great coffee begins in the hands of the growers and ends with the roasting, grinding and brewing.
Our suppliers select the best stock, grown according to time honoured tradition, and harvest and dry it with care. We use a supplier of Fair Trade Certified green beans.
There are many different species of coffee tree and each one has several varieties. The highest quality coffee comes from the Arabica tree, most of which grow to their best at higher elevations. The trees, like a grape vine, are carefully cultivated over several years until they are ready to produce high quality fruit. The coffee tree produces a 'cherry', which ripens from a green to deep red. The fruit is hand picked, yielding only around 1 - 2 pounds of coffee per tree. The 'stones' from these fruit are the green coffee beans from which we begin. There are other types of coffee trees, producing lower quality beans. An example of this is a tree that grows Robusta coffee beans. Robusta coffee typically grows at low altitudes and can thrive in just about every climate and soil-type on Earth. When roasted and brewed the Robusta coffee bean's flavor can at best be described as cereal-like, grainy and bitter. Despite the Robusta coffee bean's low standing and its reputation as the "fast-food" of coffee beans, it is still used as a primary source of beans by many coffee roasters worldwide. Robusta coffee beans are popular with large-scale coffee roasters and producers because the larger crops of coffee make Robusta coffees much less expensive. A common use for Robusta coffee beans is as a filler bean to be mixed with the higher quality Arabica coffee bean. Then the coffee is often marketed as a premium or gourmet grade coffee. At Waterloo Coffee, we use only high quality Arabica beans.
DATE STAMPED FOR FRESHNESS
It's a pity that most people just don't realize the difference in the taste of freshly roasted coffee. It has to do with when the coffee was roasted, not when it was harvested. After roasted coffee has been exposed to air, the flavour will begin to deteriorate extremely fast. Vacuum and nitrogen injection packaging will slow down the deterioration process, but it only takes a minute amount of Oxygen in the bag to start degrading the coffee. It will still become stale and bitter after a fairly short period of time.
Roasted coffee beans get their best flavour and aromatic properties from the oils in the beans. After roasting, these oils will come to the surface and evaporate taking the flavor and aroma with it. The less surface area exposed to air, the longer it takes for the flavour to deteriorate. We stamp each bag of beans with the date of roasting. Our coffee is best if consumed within 3 to 4 weeks of this date. Look for this stamp on our bags as your guarantee of freshness.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPER ROASTING
Our coffee is hand roasted in small batches to ensure that the coffee you receive will be at its absolute freshest. The process must be carefully controlled to match the bean and the equipment.
Along with using the best beans, the roasting is a critical part of the story because the flavours in coffee are produced during the roasting process. Each new crop and blend requires a custom designed roasting recipe that develops the best flavours available from the bean.
Once the roasting begins, the beans give off a grassy fragrance and begin to swell and change colours from green to yellow and then to gold. At this point the fragrance changes to that of toasted wheat. Soon after, the coffee begins to 'pop' as the swollen beans rupture to release the build up of gases inside.
Stopping the roast after this point produces a light roast with light brown coloured beans. For a darker roast - keep going! The aroma of the coffee will change again, there may be further popping and the beans become quite dark. For a French roast the process continues to produce the darkest beans. Decaffeinated beans are generally more difficult to roast, they usually end up darker and drier than regular beans.
At whatever stage the roaster decides to stop roasting, the beans are poured out to cool as quickly as possible to stop the process. After the beans are roasted, they begin to give off a lovely strong aroma for about two days. When this is complete the coffee will be at its optimal flavour.