The Secret is out – this is how we produce the finest coffee in the world

We take great care where our coffee beans are concerned. The sourcing, blending and roasting are all equally as important factors as the coffee machine in producing the perfect cup of coffee. Here's an overview of what goes into the production of the finest coffee.

Sourcing the coffee beans

To produce our distinctive gourmet coffee blends, we source our beans from the finest growing regions around the world. Each type of bean has different flavour characteristics and each growing area lends different flavours to the coffee due to the differences in soil, weather and growing conditions.

The beans are hand picked and then processed using various methods depending on the particular plantation and coffee type. Finally the beans are sorted and labelled as green coffee beans as they are green in colour at this stage (the distinctive brown colour is developed during roasting).

We only import green coffee beans, which means we can have complete control over the blending and roasting. Only this way can we guarantee our coffee’s freshness and consistency.

Coffee blends

Developing a blend is no simple task and many things need to be taken into account such as the purpose of the blend, the type of brewing method and the flavour profile desired. The structure of the blend mixes aroma, acidity, body, flavour and aftertaste to create the desired outcome. Like a fine painting the combination of all the components come together to create a unique masterpiece.

Blend Example - Caffe Society Super Crema, our best selling blend

Honduras SHG The Honduras brings a sharp peak of sweet acidity to the blend with sweet nutty notes and a soft finish
Indian Mysore The Mysore has a smooth subtle chocolate note and brings a balanced creamy texture to the blend
Ethiopian The Ethiopian brings the character to this blend with sweet berry like notes a full flavour and a earthy/chocolate finish. Some subtle notes of dried apricot
Indian Cherry The Indian Cherry bring depth, body and a persistent finish to the blend
The Blend The combination of the single origins roasted to perfection is a smooth, full bodied and balanced cup with sweetness, fruit and subtle notes of chocolate

Coffee roasting

Caffe Society beans are roasted by experienced master roasters with many years experience in carefully selecting the beans and roasting them to perfection to ensure all the flavours are released. We use a hybrid roaster made by Lilla of Brazil. We are the only roaster to use this type of machine in the UK.

The Lilla technology allows us to use convex heat which is a constant stream of hot air passing through a drum that contains the beans. This unique method allows us to really provide a constant roast colour to the coffee beans. The roaster slow roasts the beans the traditional Italian way, typically taking 14 minutes, This allows the sugars and the flavours to be brought out of the beans creating the perfect coffees.

What is turbo roasting and why we don’t do it?

Most of our competitors turbo roast in the fraction of the time, usually around 3 minutes. All large companies do this to save money and to increase their profits. This has a detrimental effect on the taste, aroma and flavour as the sugars don’t have time to be released. Where is the art, craft and romance in this method?

Our most expensive coffee works out at only 7p per cup ( based on a 6kg case of beans) our best selling Supercrema at 5.5p. The cheapest coffees on the market (from cash and carrys, supermarkets and inferior suppliers) are around 4p per cup . These don’t have any flavour and most consumers would not return to buy another! Why compromise quality to save 2p per cup ! Especially when you may be selling for up to £2 or more.

Profile roasting

An added benefit is the “profile roasting” technology we employ. There is a computer linked to our Lilla roasters. Once we roast a particular blend for the first time we can effectively save the profile on computer to guarantee an exact replica next time we roast it, rather than the trial and error that other roasters might employ!

Detection & removal of foreign bodies

During the roasting process all our coffee beans are passed through an x-ray machine to identify any foreign body – particularly useful for finding stones that are similar in weight and density to coffee beans.

No amount of magnets, sieving or roasting at 250 degrees can eliminate these little beggars. No other roaster in the UK can offer this reassurance.

Finished product - the finest freshly roasted coffee

So there we are, carefully picked beans from around the world delivered to our warehouse in Yorkshire. Carefully roasted on a daily basis, packaged immediately to seal in the freshness and on to our shelves ready to be shipped out to our discerning customers nationwide.

On being delivered to you our coffees are on average 2 weeks old. You will be able to open a bag and smell the freshness from the other side of a room. You will be able to see the oils oozing out of the beans ready to be ground to produce the perfect coffee.

Don't compromise on quality

As you can see, producing coffee to the highest standards is a complex process requiring a great deal of skill, care and expertise. Shortcuts can be taken to reduce cost such as turbo roasting and mass production, but these will always result in an inferior product.

Buying cheap inferior coffee is a false economy

By buying a cheap mass produced coffee from a cash and carry or supermarket, you may be saving a penny or so per cup but it's false economy if it means you are losing out on repeat customers.

Try our coffees and taste the difference

Take a look at our coffee section and see our wide range of gourmet coffees at competitive prices.

• Fresh coffee beans
• Ground coffee
• Coffee pods
• Coffee for cafetieres
• Fairtrade coffee
• Freeze dried coffee

or why not try out a selection of our coffees by buying one of our
coffee sample packs for only £15.00

• Coffee bean sample pack
• Ground coffee sample pack