"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

To keep our roasters at the top of their game and so ensure their continued brilliance in the roastery, 5 Senses is committed to keeping up-to-date with the latest industry tricks and techniques. For that reason, Richo, one of our crack roasting team members, has been putting his skills to the test at Coffee Lab International. Here Richo brings us a first-hand account of his week, fresh from Vermont …

When I first feasted my eyes on the state-of-the-art technology I would be using at Coffee Lab International, I knew I was in for a week of fun. In picturesque Burlington to attend a week-long roasting course, I was looking forward to meeting renowned coffee expert, Mané Alves.

Mané has clocked up close to 20 years in the coffee industry, specifically in roasting, cupping and research. He is involved in numerous coffee industry associations, including membership of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and the Technical Standard Committee. Mané has also been elected to the Roasters’ Guild Executive Council.

My course covered many aspects of the roasting world, including (obviously!) the roasting process, green bean sourcing and storage, and cupping procedures and practices. After classroom sessions, we were set loose on the three roasters in the workshop, and we finished each day by cupping the coffee we had roasted the previous day.

The cupping sessions were the real highlight for me. The sessions focused on comparisons between coffee types and allowed us to explore the best possible ways to achieve the highest flavours for each coffee. Our goal was to unlock the highest potential for each coffee by craft roasting according to bean density and the cup profile we were aiming for.

For one of the roasting classes, we paired up to roast a new Sumatran coffee for cupping the next day. I was itching to try this, knowing that it would be excellent practice for the Sumatran coffee that has just arrived at the 5 Senses roastery. I paired up with Kirk, an Aussie from St Ali in Melbourne. We set out to roast our Sumatran coffee on a Probat machine; the challenge was to roast the coffee so as to bring out the best possible flavour. The roast went exactly to plan. The following day everyone got to taste each others’ roasts — and our coffee was the crowd favourite. A gold medal performance!

My cupping results were really encouraging, confirming that all my cupping at 5 Senses has calibrated my senses to a good level! The lab work was fascinating. We experimented with the Agtron system and moisture testing and saw the correlation between this data and the flavours in the coffee, with some amazing results. I’ve got some great ideas to bring home for our very own 5 Senses lab!

The only hitch is going to be readjusting to Aussie driving. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve got into the passenger seat of the car I’m driving here!