Carnival Coffee Roasters
Carnival Coffee Roasters, are an eco-friendly, speciality coffee roaster based in the heart of Penge, South East London.
Their love for life resonates through their bright and bold branding that always brings a smile on our faces each time they pop up on our Instagram feed.
Carnival are an inspirational team. Their focus on providing an eco-friendly product is a great example for future roasters to follow. Their ethics transcend all the way from Colombia where they support sustainable coffee projects all the way to South East London where they offer local delivery on a bicycle.
Their story started in Medellin, Colombia where they grow and produce coffee on their family farm. The farm has been in the family for generations ever since Juan’s Grandfather won a mountainside on the outskirts of the city in a very lucky game of cards. Even more luckily the conditions were ideal for growing coffee.
Fast forward to today and Juan's Parents, Aunties and Uncles still live and work on the mountainside. The coffee farm is surrounded by orange groves and banana plants with a waterfall separating the boundaries with neighbouring farms. Traditional drying methods are still used.
Carnival hand-roast all of their coffee in Penge inside their garden workshop. They are passionate about amazing coffee and spend their days, roasting, testing, tasting and repeating to ensure you get the best possible tasting beans.
The Coffee
The Pha Yar Gyi Kone coffee from Carnival Coffee originates from Myanmar and is grown in the Ywangan district in the Southern Shan State of Myanmar. Pha Yar Gyi Kone is a village consisting of 200 households. A small team manages the production of coffee.
The team have invested in local schools and more drying tables for their coffee harvest. Ripe cherries are picked and delivered to a central point in the village. The cherries are then spread out on drying beds. The drying takes between 11 and 32 days, the cherries moved around every hour or so to ensure even drying.
Coffee from Myanmar is undoubtedly one of the most interesting speciality coffee growing regions out there. Just 5 years ago Myanmar was not on the speciality coffee map until it appeared on the cupping table in a speciality coffee association expo.
Since then, coffee from Myanmar has exploded onto the speciality coffee scene. Coffee growing countries throughout the world are trying to keep up with growing demand of coffee consumption and this is extremely apparent in Myanmar.
A country that was isolated for many years now faces new challenges in exportation and infrastructure. Speciality coffee isn’t a crop you can plant and harvest, it requires knowledge as well as machinery and the ability to transport the coffee.
Photo: Indo China Coffee
This all obviously costs money and with new banking systems propping this up with loans the speciality coffee industry in Myanmar is fragile.
However, there has been a real effort in producing high-quality coffee in Myanmar, their passion and dedication have created a healthy competition between farms and their strife for quality is a reason why we will probably start seeing more Myanmarese coffees in our speciality coffee shops.
Photo: Perfect Daily Grind
The Review
I was super excited to try the Pha Yar Gyi Kone coffee from Carnival.
I have reviewed ground coffees from these guys before and love their roasting style. The coffee that they roast is showcased as espresso or filter, however, feel that the filters that I have tried lend themselves to all brew methods.
Opening the bag for the first time suggests we were in for a treat, I couldn’t put my finger on any specific flavours from the fragrance but there were certainly some sweet flavour notes.
The brewed coffee starts sweet and has a smooth mouthfeel that acquaints itself with your palate before expressing a few fruity notes of sugared grapefruit that tickles the corners of your mouth.
As the coffee cools the sweetness develops and more sugary goodness evolves from the brew, notes of strawberry jam and honey layer together and take the brew from its initial grapefruit flavours into a deliciously sweet brew.
The coffee worked wonderfully through a V60 but for me, an Aeropress really accentuated the sweetness and the overall complexity of the coffee.
