Tasting notes: Nutty, chocolate body with sweet caramel, orange and citrus notes
Brewing: This coffee works well with all filter brewers and espresso. For filter we recommend a 1 - 15 brew ratio, and for espresso a 1 - 2.1 brew ratio.
Filter: 17g - 250ml // Espresso: 18g - 38g
Workhorse Coffee Beans is built around the concept of consistency and reliability. The blend and roast style make this coffee suitable for all brew methods including espresso.
These coffee beans feature our Rwanda relationship coffees produced by farmers in Rwanda that we've visited. This gives us consistency over the course of the year enabling us to provide a reliable and dependable taste profile. From time to time the ingredients will change but we aim to substitute similar coffees when changing this blend.
Our Workhorse blend is a light roast espresso and perfect if you like a bright, juicy but well-balanced espresso. If you are looking for a traditional Italian style espresso take a look at our Nova Blend.
Rwanda Bwishaza - 50% (relationship coffee)
Varietal – Red Bourbon
Preparation – Washed
Altitude – 1600+ masl
Bwishaza co-operative is located north of Kibuye close to lake Kivu. You can view the exact location via the link to google maps. The co-operative produces a wide range of coffees with their main focus on clean, juicy, bright washed coffees. They also produce a range of natural processed coffees specifically for us.
Harvesting and Processing:
Coffee is delivered daily during the harvest period (February to June) by small-hold farmers. Usually, they deliver anything between 10 and 100kg depending on the size of their farm.
After delivery coffee is floated in water. Defects tend to float and the good quality cherry will sink. After flotation coffee is pulped to remove the fruit and then fermented dry in tanks for about 12 hrs
After fermentation, the coffee is washed and graded in channels to remove mucilage and to separate coffee by density. It is then moved to raised tables to dry.
Drying takes place in two stages. The first stage is done undercover to allow hand sorting to take place and gentle drying to avoid parchment cracking. After 48hrs of shade drying the coffee is moved to raised tables to dry in the sun until reaching 12% moisture. Each days processing is kept separate to create separated lots.
After the coffee has dried it is stored in a cool stored room and samples are sent away to be roasted, cupped and graded in Rwanda and also sent to us to be sampled. Once we've selected the lots we'd like to purchase the coffee will be dry milled. This process involves removing the parchment layer and further sorting to remove defects.
Brazil Daterra 70%
Varietal - Various
Process- Natural
Altitude -1000+ masl
Daterra is a large and well-established Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee farm. The estate covers an area that has 40% of the land dedicated to coffee production and 60% left as a private nature reserve. They focus on producing a wide range of coffees, and we've selected a coffee with a flavour profile that is perfect for espresso.
Harvesting of Brazilian coffee is typically done using a combination of mechanical and manual picking. They use a selective mechanical approach that does a great job of picking ripe cherry and leaving unripe cherry on the trees. After harvesting, the coffee is dried on concrete patios until reaching 30% moisture content. The coffee is then moved to mechanical driers that gently reduce the moisture content down to 12%. This method helps to free up drying space on the concrete patios as it can be challenging to find enough drying room during peak harvest time.
Ideal for: Espresso. Works very well in milk-based drinks. If you like a medium roast filter coffee or cafetiere with lots of body and tend to use milk, then this will work well too.
You might notice that the components that make up this blend are very similar to our Nova blend. The key difference between the two is the roast profile. The Workhorse is roasted to highlight sweetness retaining some good acidity and fruit notes. The Nova roast is longer, resulting in a darker coffee with lower acidity and more chocolate notes.
- We recommending buying whole bean coffee and grinding before brewing. We also sell 250g bags pre-ground. 1kg bags are available as wholebean only.
Subscription Terms and conditions:
- The subscription charge will be collected at the period of time specified when ordering (ie every 1,2,3 or 4 weeks)
- Your subscription can be cancelled after the first 3 orders.
