3 Things to Know About Your Coffee

1.  Coffee is a Crop. 

When a waiter at a restaurant presents a bottle of wine to you and announces that “It was a good year for this label,” the waiter is speaking of the crop of grapes that was used in the making of that wine.  Wine enthusiasts know that every crop of grapes is unique due to the elements involved in its growth.

Likewise, coffee is a unique crop with attributes that occur only in specific locations.  The amount of rain, the level of sun exposure, the geographic elevation of the fields, and the make-up of the soil all play a significant part in making each coffee unique.  It is this uniqueness that demands that coffee remain single-origin and not blended if we are to fully appreciate its qualities. A single-origin coffee will come from a specific farm in a specific country.  It is not good enough that a coffee from Yemen is blended with every other coffee from Yemen. At Anchor Bay Roasts we expect that a Yemen coffee comes from either the Matari or the Sanani farm.  While both farms share the dominant mocha note of a Yemen coffee, the crops grown on each farm have their own subtle characteristics to enjoy.    

2.  Coffee is a Food. 

When a waiter serves you a fine wine, he removes the cork from the bottle.  At that point the liquid inside has been exposed to the air, and once the wine has been exposed to the air the clock starts ticking.  While you may want to keep any leftover wine until a later date, you know that exposure to the air causes the wine’s nuanced flavor to deteriorate quickly. Likewise, once coffee has been roasted, it has a shelf life that must be respected in order to observe the freshness in the roast.  Coffee will last about 14 days before it goes stale.  Of course, it does not change suddenly like Cinderella’s carriage at midnight, but the change in flavor is notable as the coffee gets old. Single-origin & fresh-roasted coffee is the standard at Anchor Bay Roasts. In order to experience coffee the way that God created it, both  of these standards must be met.

3. Coffee is an Experience. 

A great meal is not simply eaten, it is experienced - and it is shared with others. Anchor Bay Roasts believes that simply consuming excellent coffee is not enough.  Instead, we promote experiencing your coffee through  tasting, evaluating, learning about, and discussing the fresh coffee that we roast for you. For instance, identifying that the Bali Blue Moon coffee has a strong citrus note is good.  But it is even better to know that the delightful citrus note comes from the Bali Blue Moon coffee beans being grown among tangerine trees and mulched by the fallen fruit. And so it is that experiencing your coffee is much better than simply consuming it.  Anchor Bay Roasts wants you to be enthusiastic about your coffee—not just a consumer.