10 March, 2018
Uncommon Ground Coffee Roastery
I first came across Uncommon Ground when I started working my way through the South West and South Wales Independent Coffee Guide last year. The Coffee Shop is situated at 10-12 Royal Arcade, Cardiff (CF10 1AE). Initially the owners, brothers Ian & Paul Hayman, planned on roasting their own coffee in-store, but this now actually takes place at an industrial estate in Mountain Ash. I was very excited to visit the Roastery last month to partake in a Coffee Roasting Workshop, where I would be roasting coffee beans and creating my own blend!
The workshop began with a ‘cupping’ session. This is a method usually used for grading and buying coffee. It allows a ‘cupper’ to taste a lot of coffee at once and enables them to compare and contrast different coffee. In a cupping session, you grind the coffee and top with hot water in a bowl or cup. After 4 minutes, you use a spoon to break the crust that has formed and stir the coffee a few times. At this point you can smell the aroma of the coffee. After a further 6 minutes you taste the coffee by dipping a spoon into the cup (without disturbing the coffee grounds) and you slurp the coffee, as if you were slurping soup! This allows you to aerate the coffee. Usually the cupper would taste each coffee a couple more times. I got to taste 3 different coffees in this way, a Brazilian, a Sumatran and a Colombian coffee (the three types of coffee bean that I would subsequently be roasting). Tasting the coffees alongside each other definitely allowed me to detect differences between them, and to start to try to describe the aroma, flavour, body, acidity, sweetness, aftertaste and balance, although this is a real skill!
Then it was onto roasting the coffee, using this Diedrich Drum Roaster!
The World trades coffee as green, unroasted beans, which is how they appear after they are harvested and the cherry fruit and parchment have been removed. As they are roasted, the beans change from green to yellow to various shades of brown. At the workshop I got to roast the 3 types of coffee bean in separate batches. The chief roaster had worked out the best combination of conditions, namely temperature and air flow, to produce coffee beans with the most desirable taste profiles. Once these conditions have been decided upon, a computer program called ‘Cropster’ can be used to produce a graph with the ideal curves of ‘bean temperature’ and ‘rate of rise’ for each coffee bean plotted on it. Roasters then have a set of guidelines to follow to achieve beans of the same roast quality.
Green beans (which smell grassy and not like coffee at all!) are loaded into the preheated drum of the roaster and are agitated constantly, whilst the drum is heated by gas flames. The gas level and air flow can be adjusted during the process. The first part of the process involves drying the beans, as they actually have a humidity of 8-12%. Next the beans will start to brown and at this point will smell like toasted bread or hay. Beans are taken to a point called the ‘first crack’ (at approx. 9-10 minutes), where the beans crack open and almost double in size as the moisture in the bean escapes. This can actually be heard and is likened to the popping of corn! Following on from this first crack is a period of ‘development’. This is the part of the roasting process where the desired aroma compounds (of which there are 800-1000!) are developed and the best roast profile produced for the coffees characteristics. Development time is generally 15-25% of the total roasting time. Light roasted coffees are generally more acidic with fruity flavours as light roasting brings out the character of the raw coffee better. Dark roasted coffees are usually more bitter. We roasted the 3 types of beans to fit an espresso roast profile.
Before and after!
Once the beans were roasted, I had to decide how I would like to blend them! This is where the cupping comes in useful. I had really enjoyed the complex flavour of the Colombian beans, so decided to use 50% of those with 25% each of the Brazilian and Sumatran beans! My blend had to ‘rest’ for approximately a week before I could brew the coffee. This allows the carbon dioxide to be released and is when the coffee is at its best. Rest assured though….. the coffee beans have since been put to good use in a fair few flat whites! And my, did those beans taste good! Roasting the beans and creating my own blend certainly made me appreciate the work that goes into producing a great cup of coffee (and that’s not the whole story….. we’ve also got to consider the skill of the farmers and baristas!)
It is a blend of these 3 beans (50% Brazilian, 30% Colombian & 20% Sumatran) that is used as the house espresso blend at the Uncommon Ground Coffee Shop. There are plans afoot to start up an online coffee subscription service and there are a number of wholesale customers using the Uncommon Ground beans as well. So onto the coffee shop…
Uncommon Ground is an independent, family run, speciality coffee bar situated in one of the Capital’s historic arcades. The shop has a quirky feel, with exposed brick walls and copper kettle lights hanging from the ceiling. My favourite feature is the large wall mural that depicts the origins of the Uncommon espresso blend! It’s an ideal spot for socializing, business meetings or even grabbing a take away. The glass front and outside seating are well suited to relaxing and watching the world go by, whilst there are a mix of communal and intimate seating spaces inside to choose from. They serve a range of espresso based drinks (made with the house blend of course!), as well as single origin filter coffees, teas and soft drinks. Food wise, there are a range of delicious paninis, pastries, homemade cakes and other sweet treats. When I’m in Cardiff, Uncommon Ground is usually a port of call!
Thank you to the guys at Uncommon Ground for expanding my knowledge of speciality coffee! As well as the Roasting Workshop, they also run Barista Skills and Home Brew Coffee courses.
Opening Hours:
Mon-Fri – 8:30am – 5pm
Sat – 8:30am – 6pm
Sun – 9:30am – 5pm
Website:
Instagram: @_uncommonground
Twitter: @_uncommonground
Facebook: Uncommon Ground Coffee Roastery