“Brew. Make errors. Make adjustments. Learn. Enjoy.”
This is the advice from Florian Hessel, Co-Founder at Stooker Roasting Co – a company that lives for traditional roasting, fine coffees and bringing unique flavour characteristics of coffee to its customers.
“The roasting process can make or break a good coffee,” continues Florian, “however good a roaster you might be, you can never roast a low quality green coffee bean into something that tastes sweet, balanced and yummy in your cup – you need a high quality green coffee bean. Then, roasting comes into play and it’s important to know that roasting is an art, a science.
“In the end there is no true flavour of coffee, and that’s the beauty. There are so many amazing tasting beans with such a wide variety of flavours!
“However, the best cup of coffee in my view has to have balance, sweetness, something fruity, a smooth acidity and a great mouthfeel. Personally I really enjoy coffees that have flavour characteristics like orange or tangerine in them.”
Hospitality Training
Stooker Roasting Co also provides free training to those within the catering industry that use Stooker coffee and are looking to offer training courses for consumers as well.
Stooker teaches people how to tell the story of the product, how to match the taste to their menu and how to optimally extract the beans - as well as how to froth milk perfectly.
In just a few months they will start their Stooker Academy, which will offer SCAE-certified training modules.
At the Amsterdam Coffee Festival
Stooker Roasting Company will be bringing a new coffee that originates in the Gakenke district in Rwanda.
“It’s an extraordinary coffee,” explains Florian, “and it has a lot of similarities with coffees from the Yirgacheffe region in Ethiopia. It’s delicious as a filter coffee, with a smooth raisin-like sweetness, and a great acidity throughout.
“This coffee was imported by This Side Up and did really well in the last Rwanda Cup of Excellence competition so we’re really excited to hear the feedback of the festival visitors on this one!”