Caer Urfa Special Arabica blend

A mixture of 100% Arabica beans harvested from Central and Southern American as well as Africa. The Southern American beans gives this blend an ideal base from which to make an excellent cup ideal for espresso added to which is the sweet and lingering taste of our Central American beans and finally a small percentage of African put in to give this coffee that extra earthy edge, once you have tasted this delightful blend you will be back for more.
250mg £3.70

Now available for the commercial market in 1kg bags – visit our website for more details

marketing editorial

Press Release
3rd December 2010
Couple Celebrates Love of Coffee One Year On...
Bournemouth-based coffee-lovers and entrepreneurs David and Susan recently celebrated the first anniversary of their micro-business, Caer Urfa Coffee Company (which is Celtic for ‘town on the hill’). After investing several thousand pounds in their state-of-the art coffee roasting machine imported from Turkey, and passing ‘barista’ and coffee roasting courses at the London School of Coffee, the local couple now imports high quality green coffee beans from around the world. They then hand-roast the beans to order for freshness and deliver them locally to delis and farm shops, as well as selling them at local farmers markets and nationally from orders off their website.
Co-founder of Caer Urfa Coffee Company and previous owner of a coffee shop in Bournemouth, David said ‘our coffee beans are very different to those you can buy in the supermarkets as our hand-roasting process enhances the individual flavour of the bean, rather than the roast being the predominant taste. Our beans are ethically sourced and the majority of our ranges are of single origin for the purest flavour – they’re imported as green beans from coffee growing countries around the world including Ethiopia, Kenya, Costa Rica, Brazil and even India or Indonesia. My particular favourite is from Ethiopia, as it has such a rich, smooth, intense flavour. At the moment, we’re selling a lot of quality coffee packs as Christmas presents, although the coffee beans may come in handy for post-new year hangovers, too! Once people try our coffee, they can taste the difference compared to supermarket coffee straight away – we have a lot of repeat customers.’
Co-founder of Caer Urfa Coffee Company Susan added ‘We’d love to expand our business by developing our online coffee bean sales further. We have also recently developed our own new blend, which we are looking to sell to local coffee shops and restaurants. We also aim to move into bigger premises further down the line. We’re currently working with a local agency to re-brand and will be revealing our new-look logo soon, too. It’s exciting times for us.’
The coffees range from £3-5 plus p&p per 250gsm pack. For more information, go to www.caerurfacoffee.co.uk

Blends

BLENDS
Over the past few months we have been hard at work with our long term plans and that is to develop a coffee blend. This we know is a long process and one that will develop over time; we need to ensure in the long run we come up with a coffee that is consistent, unique, enjoyable, and saleable.

Having a clear objective of the type of blend we wanted to produce was important but we had to remember that what we liked didn’t necessarily mean the public would like. We wanted to achieve a cup that’s a little on the acidity side that’s clean and hopefully memorable to taste but without a heavy feeling in the after taste.

We decided to use 100% Arabica beans but also to try some Robusta beans on occasion to heighten the earthy flavours of the cup as well as to ensure a much thicker crema.
The beans were roasted separately and as slowly as possible to a level higher than we would normally take the bean too, and released the beans from the roaster a few seconds beyond the second crack and then quickly cooled them down. After leaving the beans to settle for a few days we then got on with the fun part of the job that of combining the beans at different percentages hoping to have the right amount in each blend to produce a decent cup.

We roasted the beans separately for a number of reasons one it reduced the amount of waste, a single roasted batch could be used for a number of experimental blends and two we felt that the flavours of each individual origin could be recognized within the blend as well as their contribution to enhance the blend.

We mixed between 3 and 6 different coffees together, although we found that mixing too many made for a complicated cup, we understood to achieve consistency of taste this is the normal practice for big companies to employ. As coffee is a harvest the beans will change from crop to crop and year to year, so the greater number of bean types you put in the less noticeable is the change, However we found that 3 to 4 coffees blended together was enough for what we wanted to achieve.

We did roast the beans to a higher profile than we normally do as this too helps with the consistency of the taste because then it’s the roast that is tasted and not the coffees. We at Caer Urfa tried to take this to the limit of the individual’s coffees profile so the origin could still be tasted within the blend.

After a lot of cupping sessions we discarded many of the blends because we didn’t think they fitted into the criteria we were trying to achieve. Eventually we came up with four which we thought worthy blends, the outcome of which we developed for a short period for our market stalls and found they sold very well.

Blend A- Roasted to a higher level gives this coffee a stronger cup with fragrant floral tones that has a pleasant tangy flavour.

Blend B – Special blend – a blend of Brazilian, Costa Rican and Ethiopian beans that were roasted to a higher profile, this well balanced blend had a sweet chocolaty taste that resonated across the spectrum of the palate.

Blend C - French roast - A combination of South American and African coffee beans gives this cup its full bodied strong earthy flavour.

Blend D - A combination of beans from around the world ensures a strong flavoured cup with its woody lingering after taste ideal for relaxing with after dinner.

We get asked on many occasions for a strong coffee and most of the time we inform the customer that the blends that they would normally drink taste stronger because the bitterness they taste is produced when roasted at a higher level. We roast to a lower level to bring out the flavour of the origin of the coffee and what they perceive to be strong may well be the earthy flavour which we have found to be so in most of the African coffees anyway.

We hope in the future as we develop our blends roasting them to a higher level would ensure the wants of a bigger audience and encompass many more and different customers.

We have now purchased a new selection of beans from different farmers and countries and continue to develop our blend, which will very soon be available on our web site and market stalls for you to buy.

deli - farm shops info

Caer Urfa Coffee Company

Coffee that’s

Roasted in Dorset

www.caerurfacoffee.co.uk

Here at Caer Urfa we strive to bring out by roasting the best that coffee has to offer so you the customer can enjoy.

We at Caer Urfa hand roast each order individually so that you can enjoy the freshest coffee that tastes like the grower intended.


Hi there, this is a message to the owners of farm shops and delicatessens who sell a variety of high quality, local produce, at a reasonable price, to customers who enjoy and appreciate the time and effort you have gone through to guarantee they receive real value for money, so to ensure they the customer comes back time after time.

We at Caer Urfa are very much aware that coffee products on your shelves aren’t exactly flying out of your establishment but you still want to sell coffee because it is still a commodity people want.

So what’s the difference between our Caer Urfa Coffee and the rest and why would you want our products on your shelf.

To understand the difference we have to first explain how other larger coffee company’s produce their coffee.

As you are probably aware some of the big names in the coffee industry include Nescafe, Maxwell House or Douwe Egberts, and also Lavazza, Illy as well as Costa and Starbucks.

Nescafe, Maxwell House and Douwe Egberts are producers of instant coffees, through various manufacturing processes the coffee is dehydrated into the form of powder or granules. These can be rehydrated with hot water to provide a drink similar (though not identical) to conventional coffee, enabling it to have a longer shelf life that is convenient and easy to make. These consist in most cases of the cheaper Robusta coffees maybe sometimes Arabica if it is so displayed on the container. Instant coffee differs in make-up and taste from ground coffee, in particular, the percentage of caffeine in instant coffee is less, and the bitter flavour components are more evident.

As for Lavazza and Illy as well as Costa and Starbucks coffees these consist of a blend or mixture of coffees usually using Arabica beans from various areas of the world that are roasted to a high level so in fact you taste the roast whether that roast level is an Italian, Vienna or French, rather than the origin of the coffee, this also helps to ensure in some cases consistency, and indeed a few of these taste very nice.

We in the UK as you probably know aren’t a coffee producing country that is we don’t grow coffee beans, we just don’t have the right climate or soil type the coffee tree/bushes prefer and as for the Arabica beans an elevation of greater than 1300m and although the Robusta type beans prefer the lower elevations we still don’t have the combination that is required, all of which are usually found between the Tropics.

However like most European countries we can import such commodities and roast them. In some cases over decades some countries have developed a roast that they prefer and commercialized upon, so we get the infamous Italian roast or Turkish roast or French Roast. These roasts refer to the type or level the beans have been roasted and not to the origin of the beans.

So why are we different?

We are known as a micro roaster so roast small batches to order so to ensure freshness of the cup.

We stop the roast process shortly after what is known as the first crack where the beans have been caramelized and are slowly roasted to a lighter roast; this ensures a more favorable cup where you taste the flavour of the origin of the bean rather than the level of roast.

Our coffees are mostly of single origin having bought the green beans directly from the farmer or cooperative, via our merchant who ensures they have been sought at a fair price so making sure fair trade conditions are applied.

The farmers or cooperatives who have produced these beans have carefully over years looked after their plantations however small or large and nurtured them so to eventually harvest and produce a crop viable for exporting and which when roasted produce an excellent cup of coffee. Guaranteeing ethical practices are carried out to enhance both the sustainability and environmental aspects of their area for continued growth.

Like you we fall into the criteria of selling a high quality product that is produced fresh and local here in Dorset, at a reasonable price, to customers who enjoy and appreciate the time and effort we have gone through to guarantee they receive real value for money, so to ensure them the customer comes back time after time.

farm shops and delicatessens

Being based in Bournemouth we would like to introduce ourselves to you as your local supplier of freshly roasted coffees.

We at Caer Urfa are passionate about our coffee and believe by roasting in small batches and to order ensures that you the customer receive your coffee as fresh as possible and so that your customers enjoy the best flavours that coffee has to offer.

All coffees have a different roasting profile so by roasting by hand and using our training and experience we can manipulate this profile to roast the beans to their individual optimum level where we believe the flavours of that batch will be at its best, by doing so we encapsulate the taste and sense of the origin of the coffee.

Our coffees are ethically sourced direct from the farmers to our merchant here in the UK who ensures only the best quality beans are purchased and at a fair price for both farmers and merchants.

At present we sell on line and at local farmers markets, and are expanding our business to cater for the needs of local farm shops and delicatessens. If you wish to enquire further, or are interested in having a free sample or indeed wish to make a purchase please do contact us via our website contact page by clicking on the link at the bottom of the home page, (wwwcaerurfacoffee.co.uk) or by emailing us at info@caerurfacoffee.co.uk.

Our coffees come in 250g bags that are specially adapted with a valve to ensure the freshness is kept in and the gases produced when roasting are allowed to escape. Our coffees can be supplied already ground for cafeteria or filter machine use or if you require as whole beans.

We have been selling our coffee’s over the internet for some time now and recently decided to expand our horizons and customer base by getting ourselves out of the comfort zone and sell our coffee’s face to face to the customers.

We also hope to find out whether or not people realize there are many different coffees out there that taste completely different to the ones they pick off the shelves at the local supermarket designated as instant, and if they didn’t, try and educate them and their sense of taste and smell to something far superior, that of coffee freshly roasted that is mainly single origin and that does taste different but great.

It’s the beginning of August and after sorting things out with Martin and Janet Pooks organizers of the local farmers market we arranged to have a stall at Burley in the New Forest in September.

So after ensuring our equipment had been electrically tested and buying tables that required a few considerations before purchase such as size, easy to put up, easy to store and easy to put into the car, could we find the right tables, it wasn’t easy. In the end and due to the time constraints I went for a B&Q special mm, what a palaver after spending an hour to manufacture one of the two of these tables I had bought I needed a rest, how frustrating was that, I now know why when I asked if I could have the display model in the shop why they wouldn’t sell it to me, ideal for the green house or maybe not and ok I suppose, for now anyway, for a market stall. Anyway over the next few days we set up the stall in our workshop / roastery, continually refining the layout of the products and equipment on the tables to best display our goods before the big day, and after numerous changes and discussions we eventually seemed happy with what we are going to be doing. Completing a few final touches with our labels for packaging and signs for the stall we felt ready.

Soon it was the day before market day, and we were ready to roast our little hearts out. It was fun. We do enjoy working in our roastery it’s the satisfying feeling you get when you are actually producing something that you can share with others and hope that they enjoy just as much the end result as we do. We decided to sell ten coffee’s eight of which are single origin, one decaffeinated which had under gone CO2 natural decaffeination process, and one that was already blended when we purchased it from the merchants by two farms in Brazil. We roasted most of the beans to just after the completion of the first crack but two, in particular the Kenyan Gethumbwini Estate, AA and El Salvador Finca Suiza we roasted for a slightly longer time until the commencement of the second crack only by a few seconds but what will hopefully bring out these two beans more distinct local flavors for the areas of origin. It was a long day but it came together as planned and we were happy with our end results the aromas were fantastic and different for each bean as were the colours with the ever changing profiles required for each coffee it was as usual very hands on but brilliant.

Although we were going to grind the beans in front of the customer, to their the customers required grind or even sell them as whole beans so to ensure freshness of the product, we decided to grind and package a couple of bags of each bean to add to the presentation of the coffee’s on the stall and for easy customer service. So the following morning the morning of the market having gotten up at 0500 we set about grinding the beans, but first we needed to cup the coffees for our logs, ideally we would have waited 24hrs after the roasting process before doing so but time wasn’t on our side, although


when the market was open and when we were selling to the customer would be the ideal 24 hrs after roasting and when the coffees would be at their best, we wanted or needed to ensure they tasted impeccable for the customers.

‘Cupping’ is a procedure that allows the main characteristics of each coffee to be evaluated through sensory evaluation. Rather like ‘tastings’ are for wine, this is the method used for coffee. Using the technique allows us to compare and contrast coffees and to identify and distinguish one flavour characteristic from another, also taking into consideration the aroma, acidity, body, flavour, balance, complexity and aftertaste of each coffee.Having packed the flimsy B&Q greenhouse tables the previous evening into the car we then crammed in everything else, including the garden table and camping chairs and grinder and scales and scoops, oh and packaging sealer, and off we went to market as one little piggy said to his mate.

‘It’s still early’ as I was reminded and as we set off, we hoped at the very least to sell at least one item, and to give out lots of our leaflets so to make customers aware of us and our products, we were basically feeling very nervous. This was very new to us and we reminded ourselves why we were really there, a) sell as much coffee as possible b) the experience c) find out people’s knowledge of freshly roasted coffee d) customer awareness about us and our products. However an article I had read some time ago keeps popping up in my head, an famous roaster who is now doing rather well selling over the internet, when he first started out tried to sell his coffee’s at a market and sold only one bag of coffee, only to have it returned later in the day as the customer didn’t quiet know how to brew it. I just hope we don’t have any returned.

Arriving for the market about an hour and half before it started gave us plenty of time to set up, we were given our pitch and set about getting the stall ready. All went well and we thought or hoped we were organized, reminding ourselves of the routines we would use when measuring out the beans on the scales before grinding them so to eradicate waste but ensuring the correct amount was packaged, ensuring the right labels go on the right product, at the same time trying to have a conversation with the customer, as that’s what farmers markets are all about, face to face contact. We were ready, putting on our aprons we started to appreciate our location, there were some 12 – 13 stalls selling a variety of produce, bread, fruit and vegetables, meats, poultry, cheeses, and us selling freshly roasted coffee, we were in between a man selling olives and a family selling apples from their orchard. All of this set in the idyllic country setting of Burley.

It was fantastic I felt as if John Craven was nearby doing ‘Country File’ and would jump out and interview us. There were donkeys behind us the chickens over there the goats on the other side of us, sheep in the nearby fields and horses and riders every where with the occasional goose walking about, absolutely beautiful as if I had stepped back in time, the weather was good warm and sunny with views to match.

Every thing was going smoothly when for some reason the grinder stopped working, good job we had already kept ahead of things and had some coffee already ground and packaged, as we sold the pre packaged coffee we always made another ready to replace the one sold. We couldn’t identify the fault and soon realized all our equipment was not


working, which meant it wasn’t our equipment breaking down but a fault further down the line, what a relief, looking around a few of the other stalls holders were looking bemused, soon we realized it was the mains connection and after the fault was rectified electricity was soon flowing once again and we could resume grinding.

For a small place in the country the footfall through the market was quiet high, Burley is a pretty village and always seems to have a constant traffic of visitors especially at weekends hence the reason to have a farmers market here.

I was relived and yet pleasantly surprised at the interest people had for our coffees; all were good positive comments most people knew the difference between what we were trying to do that is to sell freshly roasted coffee from the coffees that can be bought in jars in the shop. More importantly they knew how to brew the coffee using either a cafeteria or filter machine and in some cases customers bought beans as they had grinders or bean to cup machines in their homes.

The smell of freshly roasted coffee that was being emitted from our coffees enticed people to approach the stall giving us the opportunity to give out our leaflets and for them to ask questions. I do think people are more aware of the different coffees available to them now because of the many micro roasters such as ourselves that are appearing these days selling over the internet and with local coffee shops and indeed supermarkets selling packets of coffee that require the different brewing techniques, all of which adds to a good base of general public knowledge and interest, also with interest a few customers were very much aware of sustainability regarding the coffee industry. This is probably a good time to mention that the coffees we were selling were bought with the farmer in mind buying it at a fair price provides sustainable incomes and well being for local communities at source.

Five hours later it was time to pack everything away, and still people kept coming up to use to either buy or show an interest. It wasn’t a hurried affair everything was completed in a relaxed and leisurely manner. We eventually put the last pieces in the back of the car and were one of the last to leave, but as we turned the car round to leave, we looked back to where we had set up the stall and saw our precious grinder still in its place, so sheepishly turned the car back around and picked it up after already saying our goodbyes to Martin and Janet Pooks and our neighboring stall holders. By the way thank you to the family who give us a bag of their apples, they made a delicious apple pie.

All in all we had satisfied most of what we set out to achieve a) It was a fantastic experience which we will most certainly do again next month. b) It was good to see the customers were interested in the different coffees on our stall and who realized there is a difference between freshly roasted coffee and those that you buy in the supermarkets. c) Certainly customers became aware of our company and hopefully will peruse and buy our coffees through our web page or indeed come again to Burley and buy direct from us next month. d) As for selling vast amounts of coffee, we surprised ourselves having sold a lot more than we thought we would, (yes more than two bags) we were more than happy with the end result, enough so when asked if we would do it again next month the answer was yes so see you soon at Burley if not check out our web page at ‘www.caerurfacoffee.co.uk’