Up Your Roasting Game

Stokes Tea and Coffee have sent us their top tips for coffee brewing. We recommend you see the full list of tips from their roasting expert by clicking here. Covering all things from why whole beans are so much better than pre ground beans, how water quality can affect your brew, and much more!

One of the key takeaways here, is that the quality of your coffee beans really does matter.

'The first step here is to find roasters that you can trust. The key things to look for is how much information they’re giving you about the beans. A good roaster will be listing country of origin, varietal, altitude and processing methods. You’re not looking for these to make any real assessment of the coffee yet, (we’ll get to that!), but if a roaster can’t tell you where their coffee comes from, they’re less likely to be giving it the care that it needs. It goes without saying this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it’s a very good starting point.' - Says Tom, master roaster.

We think you can't get much better than Stokes Tea and Coffee themselves!

Stokes Tea & Coffee has become known as Lincolnshire’s favourite coffee roaster. This award-winning family firm has been investing passion and pride into coffee roasting and tea blending for over 120 years.

Nick Peel is the 4th generation to run the firm which supplies wholesale, retail, and operates destination cafés in Lincoln together with a dedicated barista training academy.

The below are two of our favorite varieties from Stokes Tea and Coffee. These products feature a blend of specially selected coffee bean varieties, each grown in different parts of the world.

Stokes Premium Espresso Beans

Espresso Bean Origins:

Brazil / Honduras / Indonesia / India

Brazil:
Altitude: 900-1100m
Varietal: Unknown (it contains blends of green from small producers across the entire country)
Process: Natural

Honduras:
Altitude: 1200-1400m
Varietal: Bourbon/Caturra
Process: Washed

Indonesia:
Altitude: 1200
Varietal: Typica
Process: Washed

India:
Altitude: 900
Varietal: Robusta (this is a species rather than varietal)
Process: Natural

Flavour:

Dark Chocolate/Almonds/Caramel A traditional Espresso roast, rich and full of body, and a best seller.

Uses 15% Robusta to give an authentic Italian intensity. Expect a smooth nutty body with a rich, dark and slightly bitter chocolate aftertaste. This coffee is darkly roasted to encourage a rich, full flavour when accompanied with milk.

Stokes Samba Espresso Beans

Samba Origins:

Brazil / India

Brazil:
Altitude: 900-1100m
Varietal: Unknown (it contains blends of green from small producers across the entire country)
Process: Natural

India:
Altitude: 900
Varietal: Robusta (this is a species rather than varietal)
Process: Natural

Flavour:

A full-bodied blend of arabica and robusta, designed to give a full robust Italian style espresso flavour. Dark rich and gloriously full flavoured

Order your coffee beans here