"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

I’ve been out of the office for what feels like most of March. Much of my time away was spent with suppliers of some of our equipment — many of whom are situated in places that have been synonymous with great coffee.

Sometime reputations last longer than the actual reality. Despite both Northern Italy and Seattle being famed for great coffee, the truth is, Australians have better. Big subjective call I know, but it isn’t the first time that it’s been said by myself and others.

So it was a great relief when I walked back into the roastery to find the new harvest of Rwandan Cyangugu (grown on the shores of Lake Kivu) freshly roasted and being “played with” on our tasting bench.

The coffee in the hopper was roasted beautifully, it had been taken well into the second expansion giving the cut coffee a rich dark brown expression of colour. On paper, the coffee (Varieties: Both bourbon and typica) have good pedigree. It’s altitude grown in a healthy amount of volcanic soil by hundreds of growers who tend very small plots of trees.

I’ve never been to Rwanda. Having lived in Africa though I have a good sense of the place. We lived in neighbouring countries which by virtue of proximity were effected in small ways by the nightmares being experienced by a decent proportion of the population in the 70’s and 80’s. Just Google Rwanda if you don’t know what I mean. Rwanda has not yet recovered. It’s another reason to be grateful for living here in Australia.

My expectation of the coffee was low. I love African coffee’s ordinarily but Rwanda hasn’t had the benefit of a history of good agronomy. What I tasted took me by complete surprise. I pulled a ristretto, the shot was deep brown/blood red in colour. Nailed the shot. The taste carried me away. It’s flavour, while clean and sweet was full to the brim of seductive savoury spice notes — not to dissimilar to some of the fragrant spice notes of a great curry. I love ristretto’s and this coffee was the closest thing to perfect as I’ve had in long time.

I won’t banter on about how it performs in milk — it hasn’t got huge body but it is balanced through the cup and tantalisingly sweet. To make it work though you have to elevate the intensity of coffee against the proportion of milk.

For this coffee it might be a case of here today and gone tomorrow. I can’t vouch for the next harvest or the next — it might be better or quite possibly worse. What Rwanda doesn’t promise is consistency. This harvest however rates as a “must taste”. We don’t have much of it so if you do want to be amongst the line up of enthusiasts get in early because once it’s gone — it’s gone.