It’s March and winter is almost behind us in the Northern Hemisphere. Here for you, this month is a spring drop with vibrancy and something we can all smile about…Drop Coffee Roasters! You can subscribe to our coffee box here
We caught up with Joanna Alm, who was kind enough to spare some time whilst out in Nicaragua visiting producers.
Interview by Kris Thurbin.
We love following what Roasters are up to, 2019 looked great, including a place in Top 10 for Best Coffee Roasters around the world – do all these accolades and competition wins continue to drive you?
The work we do when we are not “on stage” is Drop’s 110% focus. Therefore, getting some acknowledgment has an element of surprise, because we are simply busy working!
With that said, it is a great boost of energy to continue the hard work. But that only works with prizes for things we do that are true to Drops vision, e.g. we have always roasted and brewed the way we love our coffee served, not what we think a judge would like.
The World Coffee Championships has always been big for us, when we have been there either in brewers, barista, latte art and roasting. We have learnt a lot by competing in these competitions.
How involved is Stephen Leighton with Drop Coffee? Is there a particular part of the process he supports?
Steve is 50% partner with me in Drop Coffee. He is un-doubtably the best person possible to have as a business-partner, he loves coffee but also holds so much experience in how to run a coffee business.
For all big decision making we are 50/50, but I run Drop on daily basis. I would love to have Steve more involved in the company, but unfortunately for Drop, Steve has a full-time job at HasBean and Ozone, plus sourcing for 3fe where he is a partner as-well.
Many of the Central and South American producers Drop is working with have been introduced by Steve, and we do make a good buying team. I just talked Steve in to running Drop’s Twitter, so truly recommend going to chat with him there!
What do you have planned for 2020?
Right now, I am in Central America on a buying trip, visiting the producers we are working with here.
The relationship with them, and our shared sustainability and quality focus takes time, which is fantastic. There are a couple more trips to come this year.
Then it is a nice circle of making sure the coffee lands in Sweden well, roast and QC, and release it.
Business as usual, is very exciting and not a single day is the same with a catalogue of fresh coffee, a café plus two coffee bars and a roastery :)
Do you have any competition plans for this year?
Unfortunately, all of the SCA competitions in Sweden are cancelled this year. This is super sad for the baristas and the Swedish coffee community. So thereby, all competition plans just got cancelled. But sometimes we do internal competitions, so I am sure we will make something happen at home and have some fun around that.
How do you recommend our subscribers get the best from your coffee this month?
I love filter coffee!
As we roast for the most possible vibrancy and sweetness, the coffee is on the lighter side.
I find it important to use a brewing temperature of 93-96 degrees on our coffee to extract all the flavours properly and at a brew ratio of 63 gram per litre.
The coffee is roasted to suit any brewing method. If you brew it for espresso, you can expect a light, fruity and juicy cup. However, it takes a great grinder to be able to dial it in at home, so another brewing method would be easier to get the most out of the cup.
For espresso we brew 18g to 38 g on closer to 30 seconds.