Let us start by wishing you all well, we hope that things are looking up where you are, and you remain positive and mindful.
We are privileged to have so many amazing customers and so glad to be able to bring you amazing coffee and all right tools to get the most out of them…you know where to go if you need a mid-month beans top up or something special for your home brew bar
This month we return to Sweden and Morgon Coffee Roasters…there is are a few reasons we love to feature them, they are amazing people and their coffee is always so amazing! We had a catch up with Markus Vestergaard, please enjoy the following interview, full version on our website and bitesize edit printed for your box! We whole heartedly recommend you try their cupping tip! Have an amazing time, thank you for being part of Bean Bros.
How are the fresh, seasonal offerings looking this year? Any you are particularly excited about?
We’ve got a lot of exciting and delicious lots lined up for the coming months! What we’re most excited about and also very proud of is that despite the current state of the world we’ve been able to buy coffee from all the producers that we’ve been working with long- term. Our commitment to the producers has been a driving force for Morgon and this year we were planning on taking it even further. We planned for bigger and even some specially prepared lots as well as a lot of travelling. In February/March we obviously had to rethink and change plans and tactics. We were still very set on delivering on our promises to the producers as well as purchasing the special lots we’ve asked for and we’re so happy that we were able to do it and to share some of it with you!
How is business at the moment? Good to see you posting about lots of web orders...tough times but the world still needs coffee, even if consumed in different places?
2020 has been a real rollercoaster so far. We started out with crushing the goals we had set for the first quarter and almost running out of all of our coffee way too early. Then mid-March we went from roasting almost every day to close to nothing. Luckily that was a one time all time low, but it sure was scary. With so many businesses having to close all around the world and people being stuck at home we realised we had to quickly pivot to retail if Morgon was to survive this crisis. To say we’ve been overwhelmed by the love and support from the people choosing our coffee for their quarantine or home office fika, would be an understatement. Seeing our little blue bags ship to all over the world has definitely helped ease the stress of running a small business during these events while also worrying about the health and safety of our friends and family and everything else going on.
Have you had to stop any farm travel plans you had this year?
This year was going to be the busiest travel year so far for us! We had planned revisiting Ethiopia, Colombia and Costa Rica as well as travelling to Brazil and Kenya for the first time. It’s a shame for sure, but it’s also such a privilege to be able to travel like that, and a very small price to pay in the great scheme of everything of the whirlwind that’s 2020.
How do you run cupping at the roastery – do you all always agree or is there lots of debate too?
After working together for so many years we are all pretty synched when it comes to coffee preferences. We do discuss and debate, but it’s usually in regards to what can be done to improve something or what volumes to purchase other than that it’s very rare that we have a disagreement at the cupping table.
Love your posters...great to be able to treasure some of the bag art rather than losing it when the cups are gone!
Thanks! We love them so much too. The first idea of our design concept were to increase the perceived value of coffee, a massively undervalued product. We wanted to extend the experience from flavour and aroma to storytelling with fun and inviting design. As beautiful and unique every coffee we work with is, we wanted to match that in the design, making kind of collectors items of them, like the hockey cards from when we were kids!
Great selection for this month, tell us a bit about them
We’re very happy with the picks you made for your subscribers! We’ve got Refisa from Nensebo, Ethiopia. This was our first East African pick for this year and it stood out already as a pre-shipment sample. Cupping early Ethiopian samples can be tricky as they tend to be very closed and herbal before opening up later in the year. Refisa didn’t have this issue what so ever as it was very floral and sweet and expressive already back in March. We love the sweet grape fruit, black tea and peach notes and the complexity of the cup. The complexity is what our designers Elinor and Simon (quite literally) are mirroring in the finished design.
The second coffee is a honey processed Catuai from the Montero family in Tarrazu, Costa Rica. We first met them in 2016 and we’ve been back several times since as well as had the honour of hosting them when they came to visit us in Gothenburg. Their Cataui was one of the first coffees we ever purchased for Morgon and we’ve been buying it every year since. I know a lot of us roasters say this about almost every coffee, but this year’s lot is hands down the best one so far! It’s got that beautiful structure and creamy sweet chocolate biscuit notes that we’ve loved since 2016, but this time it’s much brighter, fruitier and the plum and stone fruit notes really shine.
Third is Gichathaini from Karatina, Kenya. This is a first for us as Morgon, but before starting our own roastery we’ve worked with coffees from the Gichathaini factory and the Gikanda Cooperative Society. This lot immediately stood out as an old friend when we did a blind cupping of Kenyan coffees earlier this year. We’ve been noticing a big shift in profiles coming out of Kenya the last couple of years. The profile is getting more floral and red apple-forward while big, bold, juicy lots like this one, with notes of black currants and rhubarb are getting more and more rare. We love both profiles, but this one just takes us back to why we fell in love with Kenyan coffee many years ago.
Any brew recommendations: recipes you would like to share?
If you have the time you should try to cup them all! It’s such a great way to get to know a coffee before playing with recipes. We use 200 ml water to 12 grams of medium ground coffee. Let it steep for four minutes, while taking in the aroma of the coffee and then use a spoon to break the crust with three ”stirs” to the bottom of the cup. Once it’s cool enough to try you’ll have a great sense of what we’re tasting when we tinker with roast profiles during our production cupping at the roastery! We’ve also got videos on our Instagram TV with Christians favourite V60 recipe as well as one with the Swedish Aeropress Championship winning recipe if you want to give that a go.
