ROASTING PHILOS(C)OFFEE

This might surprise you, but coffee is an art form.

Like many art forms, there are a lot of ways to express your love for coffee. We believe that the coffee you buy should be (think 100% free range beef) 100% great, with no low-grade beans to use as “fillers”. We have a passion for coffee and want to ensure, as far as possible, that all baristas that serve our coffee and represent our brand are properly trained. We are also enthusiastic to ensure that you can enjoy our coffee at the same standard at home, and are working on videos to train everyone how to extract the maximum potential from our unique blends and season specific Speciality single origins.

Roasting Style

All of our coffee is roasted medium – not too light and not too dark. We believe this level of roast best brings out the bean’s flavours. If you’re after a coffee with that ‘strong coffee’ i.e. bitter taste – sorry, we’re not for you. We think that roasting coffee at that level can over caramelise the sugars and damage the aroma inherent. Imagine your morning toast – a golden brown slice of toast will give you the opportunity to taste the bread itself, whereas a burnt piece will have a bland charcoal taste to it. Some people like burnt toast, and that’s ok, enjoyment is subjective. But burnt is not our cup of coffee! Our roasting style is also referred to as “Omni” roast, suitable for espresso and filter applications, due to our belief and measurement, that a well-developed bean through correct roasting, is suitable for both preparation styles.

Green Beans

Pause Coffee Roastery is a Third Wave of Coffee producer, which implies it approaches coffee as an artisanal foodstuff, roasting only small lots of high-quality beans at a time, with the intent of showcasing the unique origin of each bean[1]. All the coffee beans used by Pause Coffee are graded above 80 out of 100 according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) classification, which allows the coffee to be classified as Specialty Coffee[2]. The green coffee is sourced via Falcon Coffee and has full traceability to the farm. Falcon Coffee only sources from fully sustainable farming operations and actively supports farmers to achieve quality and yield improvements on their crops[3].

Roast profiling

Coffee roasting entails more than just the degree of roast i.e. medium, dark etc. – the route taken to achieve the roast is also important. Again, using the symbology of beef, specifically a rump steak, we may have a steak grilled to the perfect colour, however, the centre may range from raw to well done. Factors that contribute to the roasted coffee bean’s development is the amount of conductive and convective heat transfer, the moisture level of the beans and the timing of the amount of heat applied during the roasting process. Basically, you want to optimise sweetness and aroma yet keeping a balance between sweetness and acidity. The variables that need to be considered with every roast are bean flavour characteristics, bean density, moisture level, ambient temperature and ambient humidity. In a world where everything is being artificially treated or enhanced, coffee roasting still requires skill to understand and control different variables to showcase a specific bean’s full potential. The Roast Master needs to be involved in every step of the way – this is just one of the factors that set an acceptable cup of coffee apart from an excellent cup.

Fresh coffee

At Pause Coffee Roastery, the roasted beans are packaged in air sealed and UV blocking packaging, as air and light lead to accelerated aroma degradation. When used for espresso, beans offer maximum flavour extraction between 6 to 30 days from the date of roasting. We mark each package with the roast date, to assure the end user of the coffee’s freshness.