Coffee Gems, coffee experiences and shop

About

The smell is what hits you first, followed by the feeling of steam against your lips and cheeks. And then, ever so slowly, your taste buds come alive with an abundance of flavour complexity.

Indulge your love for coffee at one of the UK’s very few highest-quality artisan roasteries. Fun and informative, hands-on coffee making and tasting experiences that explore what makes speciality coffee special. We offer an immersive variety of four (4) unique coffee experiences for coffee enthusiasts of all levels and expectancies.

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned coffee connoisseur, we have something to suit your taste buds.
Here there are our experiences:

• COFFEE SENSATIONS
You’ll be taken on a journey of flavours, pairings and sensations to discover new ways to enjoy the world of our ‘gems’. From Ca Phe Da, a traditional Vietnamese iced coffee drink to the wake-me-up Cafe Cubano and a perfect espresso martini, all paired with some of the expected and more unexpected but delicious accompaniments (Ricardo will be convincing you cheese with coffee ala Colombian style is the way to go!).

• COFFEE JOURNEY EXPERIENCE
After an introductory welcome cup of coffee, we’ll look at green beans and explore how varietals, altitude, soil, post harvesting processing methods and style of roasting affect the coffee flavour profile.

Guests will discover how we create different profiles for the perfect espresso or filter roast. Then it’s time to grind the beans and “cup” the coffees; going through a coffee journey identifying and exploring unique flavours to find your coffee taste preferences.

A minimum of three coffees will be brewed during the experience, and small snacks will be provided to soak up the caffeine! Warm clothing and comfortable shoes are advisable.

• COFFEE BREWING EXPERIENCE
Learn how the V60, Stove top (Bialetti), Chemex and AeroPress used with the same beans, all produce a different cup of coffee.
An immersive, exciting, hands-on experience covering how water temperature, extraction time, grind size, and a whole bunch of other factors can drastically affect the final cup and we’ll explore how simple and effective changes can enhance the flavour.

This experience will cover everything you need to know about treating your beans right and brewing fantastic coffee at home. You’ll learn how to set up brew recipes for individual coffees, detect if something isn’t quite right and what you’ll need to change to fix it. As well as the principles of brewing, there’ll be lots of tips, tricks and useful advice for getting consistently great results no matter your preferred beans or brew style.

After an introductory welcome cup of coffee, guests will discover how we create different roasting profiles, then it’s time to start brewing, tasting, assessing and tweaking how to get the best flavours and your coffee preferences.

A minimum of four brew styles will be covered during the experience, and small snacks will be provided to soak up the caffeine! Warm clothing and comfortable shoes are advisable.

• COFFEE MASTERCLASS
Turning those incredible beans into delicious coffee, especially when it comes to espresso, can be something of a science as well as an art. We want you to be confident with your equipment and ability to extract the very best flavours from your speciality coffee; it’s what makes it special.
So, come join us and learn the methods for making espresso and espresso based drinks from start to finish. We’ll break down the process into logical steps so by the end of this experience, you’ll not only know what to do, but why you’re doing it.

We’ll cover how you can influence various brewing parameters to perfect the extraction and produce the tastiest cup! And if you’re experiencing issues with your espresso - thin sour shots, or slow muddy shots for example - we’ll work through ways to help you correct the problems, and prevent common issues arising in the future.

You don’t need any prior experience to attend this masterclass, so if you’re starting completely fresh, that’s ok, or if you already know a bit but want to learn more, this is the perfect session to bring your espresso to the next level.

We’ll take you from the basics of using your equipment to more advanced espresso extraction yield analysis... if you're willing to geek out with us a bit!

After an introductory welcome drink, guests will discover how through roasting we create different espresso beans profiles.

Then it’s time to go look at the machine and its parts, discuss espresso extraction, calibrate our palates to understand over-extraction and under-extraction, how we can achieve the correct extraction for every shot ensuring sweetness, acidity and balance, bean grind, proper dosing, distribution and tamping techniques, achieving the correct temperature and consistency with milk texturising, pouring techniques and cleaning processes.

About Your Host; Owner and Coffee Whisperer, Ricardo.
Ricardo's love for coffee started where coffee grows, in a remote Colombian region named Huila. He grew up on his grandparents' estate and fondly remembers the coffee plantations blooming, dressed in white, with scents of jasmine and his grandmother using a copper pot to roast.