Atkinsons Coffee Roasters
Atkinsons Coffee is a coffee roaster located in Lancaster, UK.
On my return to the UK after living away for 7 years I came back to a new and exciting coffee scene which had emerged during the time I spent away. Trying to find roastery’s wasn’t hard, with the majority of brands having a strong presence on social media and most cities and even big towns having at least one coffee roastery.
Atkinsons was a name that I already knew though. A coffee giant based in Lancaster that has been around for 180 years.
A fantastic brand that has seemed to still stay relevant and grow with the ever-evolving coffee industry.
They seem to have hit the sweet spot between tradition and innovation, with their coffee appealing to all ages and tastes. Their branding classy but also slick enough to keep up with the flurry of peacock branded bags.
The Coffee
Prototype is a blend of the same coffee but different processing methods. The idea was to produce a coffee that represented the changing seasons associated with coffee production and for people to appreciate the changes in taste throughout the year.
A great concept in my eyes as I think as a coffee professional it is important to continually educate customers about what they are actually drinking.
The Review
To begin with, the fragrance of the Brewing coffee was a sensational fusion of colourful flavours, something that not all great coffees have but a part of the procedure I particularly enjoy as it’s like a teaser for whats next.
The coffee itself once brewed was packed with flavour, straight away I tasted apples but not as sharp as some coffees, more of an apple pie sort of taste. The cup then progressed to a suggestion of plumb in which then the more richer notes expressed themselves too; caramel and vanilla.
Overall the coffee was a hit for me and a few of my friends that I shared it with. The evolving taste from apples to caramel is a sensory metaphor for the changing environment that the coffee producers in Ethiopia are faced with every season.
Of course, I am always swayed towards any sort of pour-over method of filtration so I must say that V60 was probably my favourite extraction when it comes to Prototype. I did also use my cafetiere for this which is normally what I turn to for a larger group of people and it performed really well with the more bolder richer notes moving to the front.
