Blueberry, Chewy, Nostalgic
 
Did you know each dinosaur is connected to a flavour profile? As we come back around to the first dinosaur I released in 2023, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, I felt it would be fun to return to my first World Coffee Roasting Championship preparation experience. In 2019, when I won my first UK Coffee Roasting Champion title, I was working as the Head of Quality at DRWakefield, a London based family run importer.
 
At the time, most of my roasting was restricted to small probat sample roasting barrels, which while pivotal to my roasting and green knowledge, made it difficult to train for the world stage as I would need to turn batches on a six kilo Giesen for the actual championship. Luckily, I was supported by the coffee community and was invited by Red Bank Coffee Roasters to come use their space to train. While there, I had been experimenting with a few different coffees and Blueberry Candy was one of them.
 
I vividly remember tasting the roasts with the owner of Red Bank, and both of us being really blown away with how much it reminded us of a great tasting natural wine. We enjoyed the whole process so much so that we decided to go for a collab and release the coffee for Red Bank customers to buy. I can never express enough, the gratitude I will always have to Tom and Mick for being incredibly supportive on my journey.
 
I am pleased to be able to offer ‘Blueberry Candy’ as this Tyrannosaurus Rex release, seeing how well it fits with the Tyrannosaurus Rex vibe. Like the last T-Rex released, it is complex, chewy, and big. While there is less of that natural wine characteristic that existed back in 2019, I do feel there is a bit more complexity and sweetness.
 
The coffee is an H3, planted in 2015 and produced as part of the first wave of F1 varieties. It is a cross between Caturra and Ethiopian landrace varieties, supporting its cup quality, and it has been naturally processed. These cherries have been hand-picked, and then set to dry in two stages at low temperatures in order to enhance the fruitiness of the coffee.
 
I wanted to preserve the liveliness in the cup, while capturing a sweetness that I felt would support the already bright notes. For this I decided to try a different approach than the one I had in 2019, and the result has been quite delicious.
 
I found the cup to be full of berries, with notes of blueberry and redcurrant, candy like notes akin to a nostalgic lime Starburst, big and chewy like a Bakewell tart, and cooling into notes of honey, Madagascan chocolate, amaretto and dried papaya. But let me know what you’re tasting, as the batch I’m describing was just roasted and I’m sure it will open up even more after about a month of resting!