January 2024
Welcome to our first newsletter of the year!
It is a little late now for us to wish you a happy new year but still, we hope that 2024 will bring you, your colleagues and your loved ones a lot of happiness, good health and prosperity.
Things have been fairly busy over here at The Independent Coffee Lab over the past few weeks. We’ve made big improvements in our classroom space above the lab (picture below) in preparation of future accredited courses we’re looking to organise this year; more info on that very soon! It is now all setup to accommodate coffee courses, seminars and presentations. If you’re looking for a space to run classes in Central London, please do get in touch.
We’ve also had the great pleasure of organising our first ever tasting event for coffee enthusiasts in early January, in partnership with Camden Coffee Roastery, Curious Roo Coffee Roasters, Elsewhere Coffee Roasters and Perky Blenders Coffee Roasters.
A big thank you again to all the participants and roasters who took part in it! It’s been great fun to be able to open our doors on the weekend to a group of coffee lovers and to taste together some truly great coffees from a wide range of origin, expertly roasted by our local London roasters.
We look forward to start planning the next one and we’ll work hard in the meantime to bring some improvements to this ‘multi-roaster tasting’ concept. Speaking of which, we are already looking for coffee roasting companies who would have an interest in showcasing their coffees in the next edition. If you are a roaster and would like to get involved, let’s talk 🙂
Events and workshops coming soon
We’re happy to announce the second part of our Calibration Club series!
The theme of this second session is NATURAL COFFEES. Adored by some, loathed by others, ‘dried in the cherry’ coffees often don’t leave people indifferent. From the very clean and elegant expressions to the funkiest fermented lots, naturals have come a long way in the last two decades and have immensely contributed to changing customers perception on what coffee could or should taste like. We feel it’s a good time to bring the subject forward and have an open conversation about them.
Many coffee professionals routinely taste, evaluate and discuss coffees’ perceived cup qualities within their own company or team bubble, but rarely get a chance to collect and share honest third-party opinions about their products. The coffee calibration club is a platform for green coffee merchants and roasters to exchange with industry peers and get a better picture of the current market trends and preferences. The cupping club, which includes an individual ‘blind’ tasting set of 8 coffees, is also limited to 8 participants (one sample submitted by each one), providing an intimate and relaxed environment to enjoy coffees, conversations, and the company of other coffee professionals.
While we previously split the calibration sessions between ‘merchants’ and ‘roasters’, we have come to realize that there is a lot more value gained from the engagement of the different players of the coffee supply chain. We have therefore tweaked the concept a little bit for this second edition, and it is now aimed and open to all professionals working with green coffee: buyers, importers, roasters, etc.
We look forward to seeing you there and feel free to get in touch if you any questions about this workshop. Registration through our website here.
Join us at on Thursday the 8th of February from 9.30am to 12pm for an exclusive tasting session in the company of Akshay, the coffee farmer and entrepreneur behind Mooleh Manay Estate and the South India Coffee Company.
A large selection of freshly harvested coffees will be available to sample, produced by farms across several regions within the state of Karnataka : North and South Coorg, Chikkamagaluru, Pushpagiri and Malavalli. Arabica, Robusta and Excelsa (species) lots will be on display, produced using distinct post-harvest methods including Washed, Honey, Natural and Yeast Fermentation.
South India Coffee Company was started in 2017 by husband-and-wife dynamic duo Akshay Dashrath and Komal Sable. 5th generation coffee producers from Coorg, one of the oldest coffee growing regions in India, they set out create a collaborative supply chain company that sources sustainably produced Indian specialty coffee with delivery across the world. They work with coffee producers, roasters, and importers to create a more equitable and future-proofed coffee industry.
We have been sampling the coffees produced and selected by SICC for several years now and have been continuously impressed by the speed at which the quality of their coffees has increased over a short period of time. Furthermore, their commitment to sustainable production through SICC Labs, the research and development wing focused on low-intervention Coffea species, is both fascinating and admirable. A great opportunity to engage directly with the people who are shaping the coffee production landscape of tomorrow!
Participation is free, but space is limited. Registration is required and available in the events section of our website here. We hope to see you there!