Interval Espresso

V3: Anoxic Washed, Typica, Heavy Roaster Influence - Best brewed with Espresso, Moka Pot, French Press
3 key notes: [Dark Chocolate, Hazelnut Brittle, Syrupy]

We roast on the lighter end of the spectrum and we've never hidden that, but we've always planned to complete the core range. Lightest, Light, Medium and now, finally, Heavy. This espresso is profiled entirely with traditional 9-bar 1:2 in mind, and a percentage of all sales will be donated to the Jerwood Space, a not-for-profit that subsidises rehearsal space for emerging theatre producers, writers, directors, choreographers and companies. By purchasing this espresso, you are directly helping the next generation of theatre practitioners access affordable, dedicated space to create their work.

We think a lot about the trilemma of green buying: out of cheap, ethical and high quality, you can only pick two. Here we're choosing affordable and ethical, sourcing from farms completing excellent ecological work, alongside buying the lower grade bulk production from producers already in our network. It's always frustrated us that speciality roasters will champion social good then only sweep in for the top microlot, leaving bulk production to the side. We've been guilty of this ourselves at times, and this espresso is our chance to make amends and become better partners with the producers with whom we work.

By shifting our focus from intrinsic cup quality (the hunt for sparkly acidity and intense aromatics) towards extrinsic value, the attributes that exist around the coffee rather than in it: who grew it, how the land is managed, and whether we're buying in a way that actually supports bulk production, we gain the space to lean into the flavours we add through a heavier roasting influence - roasting as a transformational value add.
This will not be some cheap, bitter & smoky afterthought - we intend to source and roast this with the same care and attention as everything else on the range, just pointed in a different direction.

We intend this to broadly be a single origin coffee, but future versions may also be blended.

V3:
When importers purchase coffee for "spot" (coffee that is available off the shelf, at the warehouse, to be bought at your leisure - much in the same way as you might purchase roasted coffee from this very platform) - they take on a risk that that coffee may not sell. The producers have been paid prior to export (in most cases! there are terrible exceptions to this) so the risk sits entirely on the importer that if a lot does not move, it will sit in a warehouse, racking up storage rent and financing fees, and eventually the season will move past it. This risk factors into the price - spot coffee is the most expensive option because you pay for that risk.
But small indie importers, especially those that are origin based/more exporter than importer - even with the prices factored in, the oft do not have the same deep pockets for risk and commercial channels to clear exposure that a gigantic multinational has, and often face much steeper rates for finance comparatively. It may be that having coffee on spot for too long can represent an existential risk; and a coffee that did not sell - and it could be for no fault of its own other than not enough of the right people even saw samples of it! represents a lower chance that that producers coffee get bought the next year - after all, it becomes a risky gambit.

With this latest Interval, we're helping Chacra coffee - a tiny, farm driven vertically integrated exporter/importer out of Peru clear some of their UK position. Fredis Rodríguez farms coffee in a region with extreme poverty; and was previously growing corn and maize with limited profits. Since moving to growing coffee as a cash crop, he has seen a significant improvement in income and support for his family, and it's indicative of the impact coffee can have - as a crop that can be dried and shipped for international export /relatively/ easily (compared to those that might need reefer containers, let's say), carrying value above and beyond fungible crops, it is capable of bringing measurable changes to peoples livelihoods in lower development areas that are suitable for growing it.

We think it's very, very easy at this point for a roaster to veer into a saviour narrative; so we should be very clear: Chacra have put in the hard yards finding and supporting producers in these extremely rural parts of Peru, and paid the maximum farmgate price and took the risk on to bring it to the UK - they are the one who is creating the impact. We're taking up a small part of that ensuring there was a buyer on the other end, because we think this coffee was delicious and perfect for the brief.

We're tasting:
Super chocolatey - we're tasting devil's food cake (think fudge & chocolate) with a syrupy body. In the finish there's a little dried fruit and hint of process character that reminds us of sherry soaked raisins, but the overall character is rich and low acid.