Dark roast coffees are not something you see particularly much of in the speciality market. For a long time now, speciality coffee has tended to focus its attention on lighter roasts. Roasting lighter is brilliant for working with single origins when we’re teasing out delicate tones and flavours from the coffee. But roasting darker (within reason) has its merits too.
We’ve been wanting to bring you a big ballsy French roast coffee for some time. This coffee is actually a nod towards some of the great American roasters out there. In the US they’re very good at doing big, heavy brews that have sweetness and a syrupy body. We wanted to bring some heft to our coffee lineup, something that leaves you with a super long finish but moreish.
Closing the gap…
So we had this plan for our big-ass coffee, but we wanted to source it in the best way possible. We’re always looking to reduce the gap between what we pay for coffee and what the farmer gets paid (known as the gate price). This means there’s less going to middle men, and helps ensure the farmer is paid fairly. This is something that’s fundamental to our approach at Bad Hand Coffee Roasters, working to close that gap as much as we can.
Organic - but not ‘officially’
The coffee that makes up 90% of our French Roast blend, is from a small Honduras coffee farm that grows, harvests and processes its coffee organically. Coffee production in Honduras varies, and while there’s no unique characteristic of a Honduran coffee, we knew this was a place to go for big juicy sweetness that would stand up to a darker roast profile.
But there was a problem, while the farmer went through all the hard work to make sure this coffee could be sold as organic (which comes with a bigger price tag) there was a bit of a cock-up with the exporter.
You see, the farmer sells their coffee through an exporter in Central America who is responsible for filing the correct paperwork when shipping to Europe. This exporter was delayed in issuing the correct paperwork for our Honduran coffee beans before it left on the boat, and so the EU wouldn’t officially credit the coffee as organic. This would mean the coffee grower would lose out in quite a big way.
We wanted to make sure the farmer still got paid the organic price, and were determined to pay full price, despite the lack of certification. Turns out, our importers were already on the case. They made sure that the farmer was paid what he should be for such a banging example of a Honduras organic coffee.
So although we can’t technically call this an organic coffee, we know it’s been grown, harvested and processed in all the right ways to be considered organic - it just didn’t hand its homework in on time.
Get sippin’
Like we said, big body, sticky sweetness and a finish that stays with you long after you’ve washed-up your coffee cup. Hand roasted in Bournemouth and available on subscription soon, we’ve spent hours upon hours perfecting this dark roast to make sure it hits the bar for flavour - and we set that bar high.
If you’re looking for a no-bullshit, super well-rounded and balanced cup of the black stuff, then this French roast is the badass brew you’re looking for…