"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

Many of you would know that I moved into coffee professionally in 2000. Prior to that I was a hobbyist home roaster who was lucky enough to live in an amazing coffee growing region (Simbu Province in Papua New Guinea) and to make friends with lots of people in the coffee industry. When I arrived back in Australia (thinking I was the fount of all coffee knowledge) and decided to start a little coffee roasting operation, I had absolutely no idea how little I actually knew about coffee. If I had known how ignorant I was, I would never have been brave enough to put so much on the line and trust my future to it. To be fair, I probably knew more than I realised.

I recognise now that it would take many lifetimes to know everything there is to know about coffee, but as I don’t have the luxury of several lifetimes, I’m trying to jam as much expert learning into what time I’ve got left on earth.

Since 2000 I’ve had some pretty impacting training and my knowledge, fortunately, has continued to grow significantly. Aside from participation in the annual specialty coffee conferences and WBC (World Barista Competition) events, I’ve spent time in Adelaide doing a sensory evaluation workshop with Sue Bastian who heads up the Olfactory and Sensory Evaluation faculty at Adelaide University’s wine school. (This may explain my regular references to the parallels between coffee and wine.) We (that’s Head Roaster Jay and I) have also spent time with Karl Staub, a physicist in the USA, who has made it his life’s ambition to understand and explain the impact of heat energy and the way energy transfers into a coffee bean through the complete roast cycle. (This might explain my science geekiness.)

And the learning continues…

Last month I headed off to spend a week working with world-renowned coffee guru (I don’t use that word lightly) Mané Alves, the head of Coffee Lab International. This training was equally impacting.

Firstly, some background. We were on a mission to find more amazing coffees. Following our experience in Bali and, more recently, Sumatra, we were keen to find micro-lot coffee from places further afield. To do this effectively, we felt we needed to be better equipped technically in order to make more valid assessments on prospective green bean purchases. My time at Coffee Lab definitely helped push us closer to this objective.

Mané originally worked in California as a winemaker and viticulture specialist. In 1990, he moved to Vermont where he began working in the specialty coffee business as a coffee cupper and coffee research analyst. In January 1995, Mané Alves created Coffee Lab International, an independent coffee laboratory and consulting firm supporting the coffee industry through product development, quality control and sensory analysis. Later, he started Vermont Artisan Coffee and Tea, a new concept in local coffee roasting.

Recently, Mané was elected to the Roasters Guild Executive Council one of whose goals is to achieve a level of standardisation for the Roasters as a profession in the United States. They also aim to create educational programmes for Roasters and to resource and promote communication between Roasters. This guy knows a lot about coffee! He works with hundreds of growers, co-ops, mills and government coffee agencies across the world who are seeking to improve their cup quality and make their product more appealing to discerning consumers who are willing to pay the price for high quality specialty coffee.

Much of my time was spent evaluating green beans, roast profiling and cupping. With the knowledge gained, we will be able to build relationships with growers more confidently and therefore offer you some of the best coffee beans the earth and farmers can manufacture. We are in the process of finishing our lab and are greatly looking forward to using this new tool to continue improving our coffee – thus bringing you beans that we hope will offer you as much satisfaction and excitement in the cup as we get finding and bringing the beans to you.