Rounton Coffee | Blog

01/08/2019
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Why Do We Cup Coffees?

What is Coffee Cupping? Cup tasting (a.k.a cupping) is the process of objectively assessing the quality of coffee samples. If you’ve seen anyone with what looks like a soup spoon, slurping loudly at a table full of coffees, they’ll have been cupping! Coffees are scored according to Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) protocol using this sheet, and the resulting total gives us an indication of the quality of the coffee – anything scoring 80+ being classed as specialty grade. This protocol gives us a shared language to use when talking to... Read More

21/06/2019
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Our New Roaster

Why Do We Need A New Roaster? Every journey has its first steps, and for us, that took the form of some pretty humble beginnings. After spending time in Sumatra and deciding to take the plunge into the world of coffee upon returning home, Rounton Coffee Roasters was born – but we had nothing to roast coffee with! We started out by buying a 10kg drum roaster from Toper, imported from Turkey. In our infancy, the roaster would be turned on once a week, and we would roast a handful... Read More

13/06/2019
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World Of Coffee ’19 – Our Thoughts

We’ve just returned home after a great trip out to Berlin, for the annual World of Coffee (WoC) – one of the biggest events in the international coffee calendar. We’ve visited WoC before, and having learned so much in Amsterdam in 2018, we decided that this year we’d learn a lot if the whole team took the trip to Berlin, to see what’s new in the coffee industry. Our goals were simple: meet as many people as we could (roasters, importers, farmers, famous coffee folk), and learn as much as... Read More

05/04/2019
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Arabica vs Robusta – The Clash of the Coffees

You’ll have seen it everywhere – from supermarket shelves to fast food outlets; from high street coffee chains to the most niche speciality coffee houses – ‘100% Arabica’ seems to be something that everyone boasts about. But what does it actually mean? We want to go one step further than just saying we use 100% Arabica coffees, and explain the background behind the claim: what that guarantees to you as a consumer, and what the alternatives are. First things first, a little science lesson… A quick delve into our biology... Read More

07/03/2019
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Introducing… Tomas Keavney

Name and Occupation Tom Keavney – Training & Marketing If I’m not roasting, I’m out and about catching up with the people we supply with coffee, running our Barista Skills Course. I like to share as much as I can about how we source our coffee, how we roast it, and how to make it taste delicious. You can also find me writing all sorts of stuff – whether that’s keeping the Rounton Coffee social media accounts up to date with what we’re getting up to, writing blogs for our... Read More

18/02/2019
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Introducing… David Burton

Name and Occupation David Burton – Head Of Coffee. My role involves deciding which green coffees we source, by assessing samples from farms all around the world. I also oversee all aspects of quality control, from the grading of green coffee, to making sure that our roasts are showcasing the best of what our coffees can offer. You’re only as good as your green! How did you get into coffee? Like the majority of coffee professionals, I fell in head first (straight down the rabbit hole). I met a very enthusiastic guy ... Read More

11/02/2019
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From Origin To Cup – Roasting

At the heart of what we do, we take raw, green coffee beans, and roast them. But what does it mean to take a hessian sack full of beans and transform them into something delicious? There’s something unassuming about a green bean – it doesn’t have the same standout aroma as a roasted one, and to chew on one would be nothing short of disappointing – vegetal and grassy. The magic, of course, is in the roast.  In the simplest possible terms, the roaster is where the green beans are... Read More

04/02/2019
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It’s A Bit Like Wine: Coffee From Around The World

Historically, it has been all too simple to think of coffee as just a thing that you find in a bag on a shelf in a supermarket. It has been there to serve the purpose of keeping us caffeinated, and aside from how strong we want it to be, there haven’t been that many other factors to consider when choosing what to brew at home. In more recent years, people have been paying more attention to the descriptors that are attached to the coffee they are buying. Whether that’s picking... Read More

04/02/2019
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Introducing… Guy Snead

Next up in our ‘Introducing…’ series is the man who keeps our coffee tasting great, Guy! If you’ve ever placed an order with us, he’s the one pulling the strings so that everything goes according to plan. He’s the King of Efficiency, a bottomless pit when it comes to food, and the most curious man you’ll ever meet… Name and Occupation Guy Snead – Head Roaster. My job is to make sure that the way we roast coffee is up to date with the latest practices in the industry –... Read More

22/01/2019
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Introducing… Mike Riley

Welcome to our ‘Introducing…’ series! We’ve interviewed some of the people that make Rounton Coffee tick – whether that’s people in our team, people who we’ve met along the way, or figures in the coffee industry that help us do what we do – we want to be able to share with you the stories of the people behind the coffee you’re drinking. First up is arguably the most knowledgable mind in coffee that any of us know, the brilliant Mike Riley!  Name and Occupation I’m Mike Riley. I’m in... Read More