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I recommend trying Londinium coffee

I bought Londinium espresso beans from Reiss for the first time a couple of weeks ago, 2 bags each of the Bolivian and Brazilian.
A bit of an indulgence considering shipping to opposite side of the globe plus local vat of 25%, so not something
I could or would do often but I'm very glad I did, have been enjoying both a lot lately.

This brazilian is a better single origin than any other I have tried or have been able to roast my self, by a mile.
Took only a couple of shots to dial in to get a perfectly balanced and very sweet espresso. I'm getting wonderful caramel and
milk chocolate flavour. Found it best for my tastes at ca. 16g coffee and a 2:1 ratio extracted around 30-32 seconds.

The bolivian took a bit more time to dial in and in my short experience it has a much narrower "sweet spot",
but it's incredibly rewarding when extracted right. I had to calibrate zero-setting on my grinder (ek43) finer to get the best out
of it and after that have been getting some of the best espresso I have managed to make at home. Again a very sweet espresso
with good body but a more complex cup with juicy acidity. I think it's incredibly hard to put words to nuances in coffee but I'm
tasting mango and cocoa. So far got the best espresso for my tastes with ca. 17g coffee and slightly higher than 2:1 ratio,
maybe 35-36 grams out in around 35 seconds. Still have a bag left to enjoy.

I enjoy fruity, sweet and juicy coffees but have often been struggling to make good espresso from espresso beans bought from specialty
coffee chains here in Norway. It's not that they have been poor quality but that they tend to be roasted slighly too light for my tastes
and so the acidity has a bit too much 'bite' and is difficult to tame or round off, even when dosing lower, grinding finer, extracting more
volume etc. In my own roasting I also sometimes struggle to get this balance right and to manage to tame the acidity while not roasting
too long or dark and introducing roasty flavours or baking the coffee. I don't have access to very high quality greens here locally either,
as there are only a couple of places to buy from for home roasters.

Wish I'd bought these coffees a long time ago, they have taught me more about what to aim for when roasting and what works best on
the londinium machine. I recommend trying them if you can and haven't done so already.

Comments

  • thank you for taking the time to write remi

    i do appreciate feedback on the roasting as it stands in the shadow of the machines these days

    i would say we currently have good coffee, albeit only two origins, and as i have long promised i will be replacing it with excellent coffee when the time comes

    i roast all the coffee myself, i enjoy doing it, and i can say our process ensures a very high level of consistency from batch to batch

    i have been trying to send the coffee internationally on standard mail services and i have given up as probably one in two parcels were being requisitioned prior to arrival with our customers and the parcels that did make it to destination were very slow arriving

    so thats why i only use courier services; yes you pay a premium but you can track its progress from the moment it is collected from me until it arrives at your door. for most of my customers their time is extremely valuable and having to take time out to flag that a parcel has not arrived and do some local country investigation is a cost on time that far exceeds the premium for the courier service

    to try to compensate to an extent i have priced our coffee very competitively for the quality you are receiving

    i look forward to taking the covers off a new and extended range, probably 5 or 6 origins, early in the new year

    kind regards

    reiss.
  • I've got some in the post. Looking forward to trying :)
  • For the last year, I have only been buying Londinium beans at the rate of 1.2kg per month. Enough for me and my guests who drop it for a coffee. Mostly order Brazilian and occasionally Bolivian. As Remi has mentioned, the Bolivian requires special brewing attention. Obviously both beans produce very good coffee which Remi has described better than I.

    Buying 3kg to spread the freight cost is an effective approach. I freeze a large portion of each order and that seems to retain the favour until the beans are loaded into the E10 hopper. I maintain about 500gms in the hopper to keep the same weight of beans on the burrs.

    Living just across the Tasman Sea from Reiss means reasonable and timely freight.

    Thoroughly recommend you try them.
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