Sympathetic Coffee Roasting
Unlocking the bean
A coffee bean starts it’s life as hard, dense and relatively tasteless morsel, dressed in chic wasabi pea green.
Until the first time someone thought to (or accidentally) put that bean onto a fire, you’d have dismissed the coffee bean as all but flavourless and inedible.
Roasting brings coffee’s hidden flavours to life, with it’s individual character being drawn out and discovered at different temperatures.
That’s our job as coffee roasters; to discover and champion the very best flavour profiles of the coffee.
We rely on origin, not flavourings.
Creating a coffee liqueur without relying on a single flavouring means all the flavour needs to come from the roasted bean. That’s a simple everyday task for your hot cup of coffee, but a tall order for a Coffee Liqueur, where you expect to find big chewy flavours of vanilla, caramel and dark chocolate.
That’s why we created Conker Coffee Liqueur with a painstakingly selected blend of coffee origins, each contributing a different flavour profile from their unique variety, processing, altitude, soil terroir, and weather conditions at origin.
A roast profile tailored to each origin.
We roast each coffee origin separately, tailoring the roast temperature, speed and duration to best showcase the flavours we are looking for.
The Brazilian component of the blend is roasted darker and longer to accentuate the cacao and caramel notes, bringing a robust espresso coffee flavour to the Conker Coffee Liqueur.
The Ethiopian coffee is roasted lighter and faster to bring out the sweetness and natural citrus character, so adding a zesty highlight to the blend.
A delicate balance.
Whilst heat releases and enhances a coffee’s unique flavour, it can also take to away. One false move at higher temperatures and a coffee’s individual character can be lost.
Higher roasting temperatures and longer roasting times intensify the flavour development, caramelising the sugars in the bean and moving away from the individual personality of the coffee towards smoky, bitter roasted notes.
The dark side...
Whether you are in Tokyo, Tasmania or Totnes, Starbucks want you to experience the exact same cup of Joe, every single time. Despite demand dictating they source vast quantities of coffees from all over the world, they achieve a cup consistency by roasting to an intensely dark, uniformed profile. This gives them almost free rein on the coffees origins they use.
We want you to taste the origin.
We are relying on the quirks of each component of the blend to contribute the vanilla, caramel and dark chocolate notes that are typically added to coffee liqueurs as artificial flavourings.
What happens to the bean.
Moisture Loss: The beans lose moisture, typically around 15-18% of their weight.
Expansion and Porosity: The beans expand in volume and become more porous, making them easier to grind and extract.
Maillard Reaction: a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars to create melanoidins, the compounds that give browned food its distinctive flavour, a major driver of flavour and aroma development during roasting.
Caramelisation:
Sugars in the beans caramelize, producing volatile chemicals that contributing to sweetness and caramel flavour.
Breakdown of Acids:
Fruit acids in the beans are broken down, leading to a smoother and less acidic flavour profile.
Formation of Volatile Compounds:
Heat transforms the chemical compounds in the beans, creating a wide range of volatile compounds that contribute to the aroma and flavour of the coffee.
Degassing: After roasting, carbon dioxide is released from the beans, which can affect the taste if the beans are not stored properly.
We Cold Brew fresh.
Green coffee is very stable and can be stored for up to 12 months without any noticeable deterioration in flavour.
After roasting the clock starts ticking. Left as a whole bean, you’ll have up to week to get your brew on. Once ground, the sooner you can get those grounds into water the better. Any delay and you will be losing those delicious volatile flavour compounds to the cosmos.
That’s why we cold brew our coffee in spring on the very same day, ensuring every sip of Conker Coffee Liqueur captures the bright, fresh aromas of freshly roasted Speciality coffees, without needing to resort to the trickery of flavourings.
