Old Spike Coffee Roasters
Old Spike, located in Peckham, London is the UK's first Social Enterprise, Speciality Coffee Roaster.
Their focus not only on quality but also on social and environmental issues really does set them apart from the rest.
65% of their profits are used to support people affected by homelessness through a dedicated barista training academy in partnership with the Change Please Foundation.
This is an 8-week program covering practical and theory-based learning, mental health support, work readiness and financial assistance with accommodation.
All deliveries within a 5-mile radius are done on a bicycle or courier. They offer refill buckets to their wholesale customers to cut down on plastic waste. Their retail packaging is recyclable or compostable.
Old Spike pride themselves on their coffee quality, social impact and environmental sustainability. These core values are at the heart of their business and how they operate.
They take pride in their approach to sourcing speciality grade green coffee from countries of origin based on the principles of direct trade, quality and seasonality.
They are committed to establishing direct trade relationships with producers in order to ensure that they can provide a transparent price for their coffee which is well above the Fairtrade minimum. They achieve this by exclusively purchasing all their green coffee from a handful of speciality importers in the UK who are committed to these same goals and values.
All of these reasons are why Old Spike has quickly become a fans favourite at Batch coffee.
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The Origin
The Volcano Project coffee from Old Spike originates from Colombia.
Unlike its neighbour to the East, Colombia has many smallholder coffee farmers, with 60% of Colombian coffee farmers cultivating land of less than 1 hectare.
This obviously is exciting news to any speciality coffee roaster as there are many different micro-lots to discover.
With the boom in speciality coffee over the last decade, government or privately funded programs are incentivising Colombian coffee farmers to produce higher quality coffee rather than higher yielding commercial grade coffee.
Colombian coffee beans as you would expect with the amount of smallholders has an array of flavours and profiles to offer.
From the more heavier coffee’s that were traditionally marketed as high quality Colombian coffee in the 50’s through to the more delicate and complex varieties that are more recently coming out of Colombia.
What To Expect
Here’s what to expect from this tropical tasting Colombian coffee from Old Spike:
Team Batch brew method of choice - Pour Over coffee.
If you loved this coffee and want it to have it in your life again order directly from Old Spike Coffee Roasters now.
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The Origin
The Banka coffee from Old Spike originates from the Yunnan province of China. Banka is the name of the washing station that is named after the two adjacent villages Bank Ye and Bank Er.
Yunnan Coffee Traders manage the Banka wet mill and a portion of the 100-hectare coffee farm. The YCT have installed one of the regions first optical sorters (a machine that separates the defective beans by colour).
The group are also experimenting with processing techniques such as yeast fermentation as well as growing new varieties such as Pacamara and Yellow Bourbon.
This particular natural coffee from Banka has been sorted then fermented in the cherry for two days. During the drying process, the cherries are put inside of a solar dryer on raised beds for roughly 20 days. Once the cherries are dried, they are bagged and taken to the dry milled in Pu’er city for hulling.
China is a great example of how the coffee industry has evolved over the last few years and how the demand for quality coffee is now overwhelming the commodity market. Although coffee farming in China isn’t a new thing, it has been grown in small quantities for over 100 years. There has been a dramatic change over the last 20 years.
Grown mostly in the western Yunnan region of the country the terroir and elevation are similar to a Brazilian coffee-growing region. Much like in some of the Eastern African countries coffee and tea are often grown together in China, their opposing seasonality and similar growing conditions make them sustainable crops to pair. Some farms in certain regions have now completely changed to growing speciality coffee as the prices are better.
China currently is going through a coffee revolution. The amount of coffee that China drinks outweigh the amount that it grows. The figures are a testament to the sheer size of the country as the average person in China only consumes 4-5 cups of coffee per year, that’s compared to here in the UK where we drink around 350 cups per year and Finland (the biggest European coffee consumer) consume around 1500 cups per person per year. Although the consumption of coffee per capita is low they still rank as the 15th largest coffee consuming country and with a taste for speciality coffee emerging in some of their cities their consumption is predicted to rise over the next few years.
There have been some aggressive planning and expansion of coffee growing regions by the Chinese government that is trying to keep up with the demand of the lucrative exportation market. Production has doubled in the last five years and productivity is on the rise. Cup scores are also on the rise as international roasters start to become more interested in showcasing Chinese coffee as something more than a novelty.
China still has a long way to go in the speciality coffee world though, it is extremely young in the industry and although it’s quality and quantity have increased over the last few years it has been occasionally at the expense of some environmental issues. Droughts are becoming more frequent and shade trees are making way for more farmland which in turn creates more of a need for water and fertilisers. With the demand for quality coffee increasing throughout the world so is the demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly products, if China can manage to balance the two then we will start to see plenty more coffees from this region in years to come.
The Review
I’m always excited when I see an origin on a bag that doesn’t come around that often, especially when it’s on a bag of a coffee roaster that I love. I haven’t had a great deal of experience with Chinese coffee but they are fully on my radar as an origin to watch for the future.
The classic boozy, fermented fragrance of a natural coffee explodes out of the bag when you first open the Banka natural. This dark fruit aroma carries through into the brewing when there are definite notes of cherry whirling out of the blooming coffee.
The coffee starts with a buttery body that creates a delicious depth, notes of cherry linger in the middle of the sip and carry through into the aftertaste.
The acidity is fairly muted throughout the whole coffee which is fairly typical of most naturals.
As the coffee cools the sweetness intensifies. A flash of mango at the front of the sip evolves quickly into a richer milk chocolate sweetness that layers through into the aftertaste.
The Banka natural was an excellent example of a well processed natural. As always with Old Spike they were able to highlight the wonderful flavour profiles in all of the coffee that they showcase.
This one worked really well across the board, which isn’t always the case for naturals. The milk chocolate, buttery body enabled it to perform well in all brew methods.
