2008 & 2009 Finalists
in The Sunday Telegraph
Sydney Metropolitan
Awards for Excellence
Coffee at Sea la vie
We are determined to serve you an excellent cup of coffee at Sea la vie. To achieve this we choose to serve Danes Gourmet Coffee. Danes are renowned specialty coffee roasters based locally on the Northern Beaches. Why did we switch? Have a read of the notes below that explain how we serve you the best possible product.
What is coffee – where does it’s life start?
Interesting Fact: Coffee cherries start out as a flower then develops into a cherry which can be either yellow or red (depending on the variety).
Coffee cherries grow on trees in large plantations.
There are 2 different species of coffee beans; Arabica & Robusta, and within these 2 species, there are 100’s of varieties.
Some countries that grow and produce coffee are; Africa, Ethiopia, Colombia, PNG, South America and India. (Not listing all).
From the tree to the coffee roaster
There are a number of different processes in removing the cherry, all of which result in a different flavour.
The coffee then goes through a sorting process.....
As a green bean (before it’s roasted), it can quite easily last up to 12 months without becoming damaged or degrading of quality.
Getting the green bean from the farm to the roaster
Coffee is a heavily traded commodity, second only to oil in terms of volume.
Coffee is grown in some very poor parts of the world.
Typically a broker will buy from a farm and distribute to a country.
More and more though, roasters like Danes are getting in touch direct with the farmer. Danes calls this ‘True Relationship Coffee’ meaning the purchase of green beans direct ensures the farmer benefits by getting a fair trade or fair deal for a product they work so hard for.
Danes Gourmet Coffee is a Specialty Coffee Roaster. ‘Specialty’ is something of a special or distinctive quality, mark, state or condition. Only a small percentage of coffee from a plantation is classed as special.
At Danes Gourmet Coffee they only use the highest quality beans and in securing this special product a price that reflects this quality must be payed.
The roasting process:
Once coffee is purchased as a green bean, it’s roasted. This is an art form mastered over years.
Each origin of coffee will have a different size, shape, moisture content and bean density, therefore many different roast profiles need to be created.
A blend is simply a variety of different origins blended together to create different flavour profiles and to give more complexity than just a single origin on it own.
As heat is transferred into the bean many changes occur:
Colour change – from green to brown
Up to 20% weight loss
Increase in size
Loss in moisture
Life after the roasting process– how to care properly for the coffee?
It’s because of this unsettled transformation, at Danes they roast on a weekly rotational basis so that they only offer the freshest and highest quality coffee at its prime.
After roasting, the coffee bean becomes very temperamental, meaning it doesn’t like anything! …. Not moisture, not sunlight, not temperature change, not humidity, and especially not oxygen.
Coffee is hygroscopic. This means that it readily absorbs moisture from, or releases it into the atmosphere.
Immediately after roasting, coffee must be packed. The coffee should go into an air tight triple foil bag with a 1 way valve so as to release the gas the beans emit after roasting but not to let oxygen in. At Danes they gas flush their bags so only 2% oxygen remains. Through this method coffee can last up to 4 weeks if stored correctly.
Coffee is at its prime between the age of 1-2 weeks. During the first week all the gases are just too unsettled and the coffee is just too unmanageable.
Because coffee moves from being a robust life as a green bean to a very fragile and temperamental life after roasting it’s extremely important we take care of your fresh roasted coffee to ensure we maximise your coffee drinking experience.
