The Bean Vagrant

It’s that time of year again!

The last 2015 delivery fresh from the JGC roastery is in right now at the plan cafe – and 250g bags of whole bean coffee are available to take away for gifts, or your own Christmas coffee for home!

I’m especially happy the selection this year, some fantastic coffees:

Konga Sedie Natural Yirgacheffe (a great natural; ripe strawberry, fig, melon, very fruity, soft, sweet acidity).

Ruiruiru AA washed Kenya (classic top quality Kenya, with distinctive, sweet juicy blackcurrant acidity, blue, black and purple fruit sugars, and tangarine):

Socorro Anexos washed Guatemala (big, succulent beans, chocolaty, but also clean, juicy fruity acidity a little like a great Kenya):

And, a very small amount of Anza Guintar Colombia (chocolate, black treacle, white fruit and apricot).

These are light roasts, suitable for any type of filter or immersion brewing.

For espresso, we have (larger bags only) of the awesome Naturelle, currently composed of Suke Quto Guji Ethiopia, San Antonio Guatemala, Finca el Paraiso Nicaragua, Merced del Potrero Mexico.

These are all whole bean only to take away – simply so that you can have the chance to get the best from these coffees by grinding fresh at home.

Grinding yourself is essential, not just so that you can grind fresh, but so that, crucially, you can adjust your grind and fine tune it to suit your specific brew method, bean, technique, batch size, etc.

You cannot do this if you buy preground coffee, and so are unlikely to be able to get the best results. Even if you get a great cafe to grind great beans for you fresh to take away, at that point they will begin to stale very rapidly, and, perhaps even more importantly, you cannot then alter the grind to suit your needs.

So, a good excuse to treat yourself to a grinder!

The newest freshest issue of the wonderful Caffeine Magazine is out now for Christmas at the plan cafe and… drum roll… fanfare… this issue includes a long awaited Cardiff Feature!!

The details for our inclusion were gathered during a long chat recently with the ever lovely Brian whilst he was spending a (yet another!) very caffeinated day, in town interviewing for Caffeine at the various coffee shops featured.

Great to see Cardiff getting a mention, at a point where there are now finally enough cafes here doing good things with coffee to make a feature. We’ve distributed a few copies from our stock to all the cafes featured, so you might catch a read at any of Cardiff’s top coffee spots right now!

So, we’ll be prouder than ever to be serving Caffeine at the moment, free with your order to all our customers (the loveliest customers)!

It’s a lovely article, that rightly points out that we were one of the very first places in Cardiff to offer this style of artisan/3rd wave coffee, at a time when it was still rare. What this gives us of course is a wealth of experience; many years of obsessive learning, research and experimentation from myself, and the desire to constantly improve my understanding and ability with all things coffee, which continues to this day. It also mentions my achievements as a UKBC finalist, as a crucial point in my progression as a barista. This is true, as it was, and still is, a massive achievement. But it’s worth mentioning it was also just one small part of my overall journey as a barista. Most of my learning has occurred outside of this, through continuous practice and research in the cafe, and at home, etc. And naturally, if you’re serious and passionate about great coffee, that learning never stops, and it’s hard to describe how much more I’ve learnt since that achievement.

It’s also wonderful, and a testament to what we do, to be able to feature so prominently in this, as somewhere that has not had tonnes of money thrown at it.

Briefly:

Currently, our espresso is a washed blend featuring four farms: Suke Quto Guji Ethiopia, Finca el Paraiso Nicaragua, Finca San Antonio Guatemala, and Merced del Potrero Mexico.

We have Oda Bultu Harar, Thiriku AA Kenya, and Socorro Anexos Guatemala on as French Press, or available as whole bean for home, and new arrivals coming very soon!

I hope to post more soon (so busy!), but in the meantime, my Twitter is regularly updated!