Mao Feng Green Tea
from £4.60
Regular green tea can be disappointing, this is a light and pure green tea without the disappointment.
Moccamaster Filter Lid
£10.95
The Moccamaster lid for the filter holder is suitable for the KB, KBG, KBGT, CDG and CDGT models. The part is not dishwasher safe, as this will shorten the life of the product. We therefore recommend cleaning the part by hand.
Article number - 13114
Papua New Guinea Enorga A
from £10.00
The Eastern Highlands is a mountainous province encompassing the Kratke and Bismarck ranges interspersed with broad valleys including where this coffee is grown, the Okapa valley. It is the leading producer of coffee in the country, and the Highland Organic Agriculture Cooperative (HOAC) is one of the oldest Faritrade Certified organizations in Oceania. They were originally registered in 2003, certified in 2005 and now comprise of around 3000 small holder producers spread across 32 village communities spread over 500 km2. The premium earned has been spent on providing fresh water for 11 of these communities, as well as helping with infrastructure such as roads which makes a huge difference given the isolation of the villages.
Coffee is grown mainly by smallholders in ‘gardens’ – a small plot of land that contains everything from a few trees up to a three-hectare plot at most. Trees here can be 25 years or older, and in general trees in the country are a lot older than you typically find in other countries. This often leads to lower yields and so less productivity on the farms. Once picked coffee is pulped, it is then dry fermented for 24 hours in wooden or plastic boxes before being washed and dried on sails – stretched tarpaulin drying beds – or raised beds. This is covered at night to protect from any effects of dew. Coffee is then collected and taken to a centralized dry mill in Goroka for sorting, cleaning and exporting the coffee.
Most varietals were introduced to the country in the 1950’s from African and Australian research stations, though coffee is first recorded in PNG in 1873, and was growing in the Rabaul Botanical Gardens by 1890, but was not grown in Simbu until the 1960’s. More confusingly, French Missionaries planted coffee in the Kilimanjaro area in the 1890’s and you sometimes see that given as thesource for Arusha. This has assumed to be from a Bourbon heritage, though other countries have had coffee tested from this lineage and had that proven to be of Typica lineage.
This coffee has tasting notes of dried fruits, vanilla and smoky with natural brightness.
This coffee shares the low-toned richness of coffees from neighboring Indonesia, but is particularly sturdy, dense, and crisply robust. This is a coffee that should maintain authority in the face of enthusiastic additions of whitener and sweetener.
Peppermint Leaves
from £4.60
The mintiest mint of all time, this is a stand out peppermint. A real favourite amongst teapigs.
Profitec Pro 600 Espresso Machine
£1,795.00
PRO 600
DUAL BOILER WITH PID CONTROL
The Pro 600 is a dual boiler espresso machine with a PID display, which can also be used as a single-boiler machine. Both boiler temperatures can be individually adjusted using the PID.
The high quality stainless steel housing with colored side elements and the strikingly shaped steam and hot water wands give the Pro 600 a particularly extravagant look.
E61 brew groupPID-display for the individual temperature adjustment of both boilersPID-display indicates the brewing time in secondsWear-free rotary valvesVibration pumpWater tank with a 2.8 l volume and water tank connectorAutomatic shut-off when machine reaches low water volumeStainless steel boiler with 0.75 l volume for espresso preparationSteam and hot water boiler in stainless steel with 1.0 l volumeBoiler insulationBoiler and pump pressure gaugesRemovable cup tray*The Pro 600 may be used as a single- boiler machine or a dual boiler machine Please note: due to availability, occasionally these machines will have an EU plug with a UK plug adaptor.
Profitec 600 Review
The Profitec 600. Kev's 2022 UK Full Review (coffeeblog.co.uk)
Rwanda Gasharu CWS
from £10.00
Flavour Profile
We are delighted to have secured some of this fabulous coffee that has been blessed by the copious rainfall at Gasharu.
This coffee offers sweet flavours of cinnamon and gingerbread, imagine apple pie. There are rich red fruit flavours, especially strawberry and cools to a rum like finish.
This coffee scored 86.75 from the SCA and we feel would work really well as filter, but don't be scared to try it as an espresso.
Location
Found on the shores of Lake Kivu, and a stone’s throw from Nyungwe National Park, the Gasharu washing station is located near the Rwanda Congo Nile Mountain Chain. Nyungwe Forest National Park is one of the largest montane and most preserved montane rainforests in Central Africa, home to huge biodiversity and an estimated 25% of Africa’s primates. This region’s elevation, soil, and climate are what coffee trees love best. No surprise then that some fantastic coffees come from our land, known for their round, complex profile packed with citrus and other fruits.
Coffee plantations in the Gasharu region benefit from their proximity to the continuous of Nyungwe National Park. They get a good amount of rainfall to make the cherries juicier and the coffee fruity.
Beyond beans: this is what community coffee means
Gasharu owns 2 washing stations: Gasharu in the Macuba sector (Western Province) and Muhororo in the Kirimbi sector (Southern Province), both named after the villages where they are based. “None of the other companies in our zones are owned by people that live in the community. Coffee for us goes beyond just beans. It is a reason for people to spend time together. It allows families to go out for a meal after being paid and to buy valued dishes like the Igisafuriya and the brochettes, as well as clothes for the family. These are values that outsiders don’t always understand or care about but that add to our quality of life and to the social cohesion of the community.”
Many people today would describe coffee as magical. As a child growing up in rural Rwanda in the 1990s, the bean had a real superstitious quality to it for Valentin Kimenyi. “I was told coffee beans were sold abroad to make bullets. This was intriguing to me as I always imagined bullets to be magical, small and yet so noisy and powerful,” he recalls. Today a grown man managing his family’s company, Gasharu Coffee, Valentin no longer believes the old childhood tales. Yet coffee still carries special significance to him as the heart of his community.
Valentin’s parents Celestin Rumenerangabo and Marie Gorette Mukamurenzyi grew up in the communities where they now do business. “My mother is a teacher and taught several people in the community. They also have a small resto-bar where everyone hangs out, watches football and holds their family gatherings,” he says. The family is always present at the weddings of their workers and partners, contributing to the ceremonies with money and goods and cementing their relations. “There have been many occasions when other companies tried to raise their prices for cherry to attract farmers, but the majority of our partners always refused. There is a shared understanding that as Gasharu grows, the community grows.”
Gasharu’s history: from 380 trees to 8 containers
The story of Gasharu is full of ups and downs and it goes back to 1976, when 17-years-old Celestin Rumenerangabo bought his first plot and planted 380 coffee trees. Originally from Nyamasheke, he left his mother to work for a family in the capital, Kigali, as a housemaid in 1973. He had lost his father during the 1959 uprising that led to Rwanda’s independence and the family was in hardship. It took him 3 days to walk from his village to Kigali and 3 years to see his mother again. When Celestin was back, he invested all his savings in land and coffee and started working with local brokers.
“My father has been business-minded since his boyhood. People in Rwanda tend to do agriculture for subsistence but he was always more interested in commercial agriculture. His only options were tea and coffee and it was his location that made him choose the latter,” Valentin explains. Celestin started working with cherry collection and trading in 1978, before washing stations became active. “Locals would sell cherries or parchment by cups known as Mironko. It was assumed that one cup was the equivalent to 1kg but there were no scales available.”
Celestin’s business grew slowly until 1983 when he married Marie Gorette, a 22 years-old teacher that helped him with accounting and supported schooling for other farmers’ children. By 1994 he had 7 hand-crank depulping machines and more than 14 collection sites, providing scales for weighing accuracy and partnering with locals. When the wave of violence of genocide of the Tutsis began, the family fled Rwanda and was forced to abandon the business. Valentin recalls spending “4 years in the Ijwi Island in Lake Kivu, part of Congo’s territory. When we came back in 1998 we had to start from scratch.”
Starting from scratch after the genocide
It was the community who saved Valentin’s family. “They got behind us,” he says. With their trust and the help of a former partner, Celestin started over and was trading nearly 30 tons of parchment 2 years later. “In the early 2000s, the government of Rwanda advised local coffee buyers and traders to use more advanced methods of processing to ensure higher quality and returns. My family then decided to build our first washing station, Birembo.”
Birembo was sold 6 years later and the failure of the project hit Celestin hard. He had taken a loan from a big trader that he couldn’t repay. “This experience is not uncommon among local coffee farmers. Many got their washing stations bought out or lost them because of loans,” Valentin explains. “My father decided to go out of business, a decision that had a real impact on us, especially me and my brother Jean Christophe, who now lives in the United States. It felt like a loss of the family’s legacy and that we were letting the community down.”
At this point, Valentin was a young agronomy student . “I watched my parents count kilos of cherries all my life. In my head, money always had an association with the weight of coffee. Knowing that my parents could do that business and at the same time help people with school fees for their kids or to pay their healthcare bills was what motivated me to pursue a career in agriculture and business,” he says. “I also didn’t like to see my parents not working. They were not happy.”
Young blood driving innovation
It took Valentin a few years to be ready to take over the family’s business. He ended his studies in Kigali with a thesis on Rwanda’s exports and worked in the pepper industry to gather knowledge. “This experience allowed me to learn more about the business and the social impact of specialty processing and innovation. It made me realize that we had not done enough with the opportunities we have, all the potential and rich culture that can be portrayed through coffee.”
Valentin convinced Celestin to go back into business and together they created Gasharu in 2014 and can now produce up to 8 containers of green coffee. Since then they have exported directly to the United States thanks to contacts established by Jean Christoph, who works in public health in Baltimore, and developed their own protocols to process naturals, honeys and experimental lots.
Though some of their coffees have been sold in Europe through importers, Gasharu’s mission is to have direct relationships with a wide network of roasters that want to make a difference at origin. This way, he can “build a sustainable business that will help us keep the community together and create a legacy that will be carried on for generations.” We can’t say there is no magic in that...
Flavour Profile
We are delighted to have secured some of this fabulous coffee that has been blessed by the copious rainfall at Gasharu.
This coffee offers sweet flavours of cinnamon and gingerbread, imagine apple pie. There are rich red fruit flavours, especially strawberry and cools to a rum like finish.
This coffee scored 86.75 from the SCA and we feel would work really well as filter, but don't be scared to try it as an espresso.
Rwanda Kilimbi Anoxic Washed
from £11.50
Station: Kilimbi
Region: Nyamasheke District
Country: Rwanda
Altitude: 1600 - 1650 MASL
Variety: Red Bourbon
Process: Anoxic WashedDrying: Raised beds for 35 days
Screen Size: 15+
Preparation: Euro Prep 0,20
Packing: GrainPro
Tasting notes: Redcurrant, Braeburn apple and Oolong tea
NI Aeropress Championship coffee of 2024
In Rwanda, we work alongside Muraho Trading Co. This partnership helps affiliate co-operatives increase their quality of production, fetch a higher price for their coffee, and introduce them to new markets. This will be a continuous work in progress in the coming years, as we gain a greater understanding of the particular challenges Rwandan coffee producers face.
Through this process we can develop a model that creates incentives that generate producer buy-in, all the while maximising impact. We supply coffee from across Muraho’s washing stations, which are located in the Nyamasheke, Gakenke, and Nyabihu regions of Rwanda.
In Rwanda, we work alongside Muraho Trading Co. This partnership helps affiliate co-operatives increase their quality of production, fetch a higher price for their coffee, and introduce them to new markets. This will be a continuous work in progress in the coming years, as we gain a greater understanding of the particular challenges Rwandan coffee producers face.
Through this process we can develop a model that creates incentives that generate producer buy-in, all the while maximising impact. We supply coffee from across Muraho’s washing stations, which are located in the Nyamasheke, Gakenke, and Nyabihu regions of Rwanda.
One of the two first washing stations to be granted approval to produce natural and honey processed coffee in Rwanda by NAEB. The elevation of Kilimbi lends itself incredibly well to the production of exceptional washed, honeys and naturals. Drying beds stretch across a large open plain, where airflow and sunlight have maximum exposure to the coffee as it dries. Built in 2016, it is the birthplace of Muraho Trading Company, as their first washing station.
Once cherries are received, they are hand-picked and floated to ensure only those of the best quality continue to the processing stage. These cherries are placed into a deep cleaned fermentation tank. A sheet is then placed over the cherries, which is then submerged with cool water.
The seal created by the water pressing onto the sheeting creates a vacuum effect on the coffee below, creating an anoxic environment for fermentation to begin, which lasts for 48 hours. The water and sheet act as not only a sealant, but a heat exchange, allowing the heat build up to transfer to the water, which evaporates away. A stabilised temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius ensures that the cherry doesn’t over ferment. This temperature is regularly monitored, and if it falls too low for fermentation to continue, hot water is added to the water pillow, to provide warmth to the fermenting coffee underneath.
Once the fermentation is complete, the water is drained, and the sheet is removed. The now fermented coffee is rinsed and drained of all residual liquid.
To continue into the natural processing phase, coffee is dried in cherry on raised beds for between 4 to 5 weeks. The raised beds ensure optimum circulation of airflow, assisted by the cherry being turned every 30 minutes of the duration of its drying!
Like Gisheke, Kilimbi is only accessible by boat, with farmers travelling across Lake Kivu to deliver their farm’s harvests. Its estimated annual production is approximately 33,300kg of milled green coffee, which is produced each harvest into volumes of honey, washed, and naturally processed coffees.
Sage Barista Express Coffee Machine
£599.95
The all-in-one espresso machine. Create third wave specialty coffee at home –from bean to espresso– in less than a minute. The Barista Express™ allows you to grind the beans right before extraction for full flavour and precise temperature control (PID) ensures optimal espresso extraction. Be hands on like a barista with manual microfoam milk texturing to deliver authentic café style results in no time at all. Integrated conical burr grinder grinds on-demand to deliver the right amount of freshly ground coffee directly into the portafilter for your preferred taste with any roast of bean. Innovative grinding cradle allows any at-home Barista to grind directly into the espresso portafilter. The steam wand performs at the level that allows you to hand texture micro-foam milk that enhances flavour and enables creation of latte art.
Sage Barista Express Review
Sage Barista Express. Kev's 2022 UK Review. Why I Would Buy One (coffeeblog.co.uk)
Sage Barista Pro Coffee Machine
£699.95
Sage Barista Pro
Barista-quality performance with a new intuitive interface that provides all the information you need to create third wave specialty coffee at home. The built-in grinder delivers the right amount of ground coffee on demand, for full flavour. With a 3 second heat up time and precise espresso extraction, you go from bean to cup, faster than ever before. LCD display with grinding and extracting progress animations. The screen provides you all the precise information you need to make coffee exactly the way you like it, every time.
Easily Operated With a single touch, the integrated conical burr grinder with dose control delivers the right amount of coffee on demand, for maximum flavour. Adjustable grind size and dose. Achieve a consistent and balanced espresso using the right amount of ground coffee. The 54mm porta-filter with 19-22 grams is the key for full flavour and café quality coffee.
Digital Temperature Control (PID) delivers water at the right temperature +/- 2°c, ensuring optimal espresso extraction. Low pressure pre-infusion gradually increases pressure at the start and helps ensure all the flavours are drawn out evenly during the extraction for a balanced tasting cup.
Sage Barista Pro Review
Sage / Breville Barista Pro Review - Video 1 of the New Barista Pro Series. - YouTube
Sage the Oracle Coffee Machine
£1,699.95
The Oracle creates third wave speciality coffee at home, comparable to what you would get at your favourite café. The Oracle has automatic grinding, dosing, tamping and milk texturing, automating the two most difficult parts of manual espresso. You can extract espresso and texture milk simultaneously, enabling you to go from beans to latte in under a minute. Fully-integrated conical burr grinder automatically grinds, doses and tamps 22 grams of coffee straight into the portafilter. Self-cleaning steam wand, powered by a dedicated boiler, textures milk to your liking and delivers Barista-quality micro-foam that enhances flavor and is essential for creating latte art. Allows you to adjust the milk temperature and texture to suit your taste. Choose between one shot, two shots or manual control over how much espresso ends up in your cup for the perfect dose every time. LCD provides you all the information you need to make coffee exactly the way you like it, everytime. The innovative One Touch Americano feature delivers a double espresso, and then separately through a dedicated spout, fills the cup with hot water, the same way as any good commercial machine.
Skerton Mini Mill ceramic hand grinder
£33.95
If you are looking for a compact, lightweight grinder then the iconic Hario Mini Mill hand coffee grinder is the perfect solution for you. The cubicle inside holds around 24 grams of ground coffee, allowing you to prepare fresh coffee for 1 - 2 people with easy hand operation. The Hario Mini Mill hand grinder is also extremely easy to hold and has a big handle to ensure that you grind the coffee beans fast and smooth as manually possible.It is simple to assemble the Hario Mini Mill Slim coffee grinder. The body is made out of plastic and its compact design makes the grinder perfect for travellers or mountain climbers to fit in the backpack.
Technivorm Moccamaster KBGT 741
£229.00
KBGT 741: The traditional coffee filter machine with thermos jug
Perfect brewing temperature of 92° to 96°C: less sour or bitter taste
Brew basket with automatic drip stop
1.25 litre (10 cups) within 6 min.
9-hole stainless steel outlet arm for efficient wetting of the coffee grounds
Two lids: the mixing/brewing lid with mixing tube for homogeneous coffee and a transport lid
The mixing lid is also suitable to poor the coffee in your mug, no need to turn the lid open.
UK plug available.
The assurances of Moccamaster
High quality recycable materials, BPA free
Handmade in The Netherlands under strict quality control
Long lasting performance, 5 years warranty
SCA & ECBC certified
Solid aluminium housing
Removable parts easy to clean and easy to be replaced
Moccamaster, the healthy choice
Filter coffee is gaining in popularity and there is a good reason for this: filter coffee contains the lowest level of cafestol. This coffee ingredient indirectly increases the level of cholesterol, the negative effects of which are well known. In comparison to capsule machines, the benefits for the environment is in favour of filter coffee due to less energy for production and less litter. Moccamaster brews a good old fashioned fresh cup of coffee.
Due to supply issues we are only stocking the black variety, other colours are available on request.
Turbine Blend
from £6.30
This is our seasonal blend which we feel ticks all the boxes for a good espresso. This blend is predominantly a South American combination which provides flavours of chocolate, fruit and sweet molasses. Currently we are using a blend of Cerrado from Brazil and Cosecha Azul SHG from Honduras, both are grown at altitudes above 1100 metres above sea level.