Symposium Coffee Roasters | Grade 1 Sidamo | Ethiopia

Batch Coffee Review UK | Symposium Coffee Roasters, London, UK | Ethiopian, Washed, Sidamo | Best coffee beans UK | Speciality coffee roasters UK

Symposium coffee was founded by Steven Sheard & Phillip Oliver. With backgrounds in the military, business and academia the couple have united to create the London based roastery.

Symposium focus on East African coffees roasting their delicious coffee on a 15kg Giesen. The packaging they use is environmentally friendly and they are looking at ways to make the business fully green. Located in London they are trying out various methods of retail that have the lowest carbon footprint.

The Ethiopian coffee from Symposium is from the Sidamo region. Synonymous in the speciality coffee industry Sidamo produces some of the best coffees in the world. One of Ethiopia’s highest growing regions, the coffee grown here normally produces fruity and intensely aromatic cups.

The initial fragrance of the coffee is sweet and syrupy and reminded me of so many of the coffees typical of this region. The coffee starts with a subtle tang and rushes to the back of your palate like the first bite of a crunchy red apple. The tangy acidic flavours subside fairly quickly once the coffee cools and settles into a mildly sweet cup with an enjoyably light mouthfeel.

Once cooled all the way down to almost room temperature the coffee obtains a little more body and its syrupy intro reemerges with delicate notes of brown sugar.

The coffee is typically complex and was a delight to drink. It evolved throughout the cup, layered with vibrant and bright flavours to start then finishing with a deliciously sweet aftertaste.

An incredibly approachable coffee that can be enjoyed all day. Brewed in a V60 was my preference, but it worked well in a cafetiere too.

Coffee ReviewsTom23 March 2020Symposium Coffee Ethiopian Coffee, Heirloom, London1 Comment

How We Review Coffee?

We receive coffees from roasters throughout the UK to taste and review. All of our coffee reviews are our own words and thoughts, we don’t receive any form of payment for any of our reviews.

Our coffee reviews always start with an introduction to each independent coffee roaster.

At Batch, we are all about celebrating the incredibly talented roasters that we have in the UK and telling their stories. Each one roasting the coffee slightly different.

We then explore the origin of the coffee and take a look at where the coffee has been grown and the process that it has gone through once it has been picked.

Every coffee growing origin has a different set of characteristics when it comes to the final cup, whether it’s fruity and floral or chocolatey and full the origin of speciality coffee is always celebrated.

The last part of our coffee review is what we tasted in the coffee. Speciality coffee has some incredible flavour notes (more than wine), some dark and rich while others on the opposite end of the flavour spectrum are light and fruity, we try and explain what we taste in the coffee however like with many complex tasting foods or drinks it is also down to perception and personal opinion.

So if we have tasted orange zest and you get watermelon then that is brilliant and what we think speciality coffee is all about (as long as you like the coffee).

We then score the coffee on attributes like body, aroma, sweetness and flavour. Some of the coffees you may then find in our coffee club voted the best coffee subscription in the UK by the Independent.

How To Make The Best Coffee At Home?

There are many ways to extract the best flavour out of coffee. Take a look at our coffee guides for some tips on how to make your coffee the best it can be.

Where’s The Best Coffee Grown?

Coffee is grown all over the World however, speciality coffee is only within 20 degrees of the equator. It makes specialist coffee rarer than commodity-grade coffee with the added fact that it gets better the higher it is grown.

There are many great coffee growing regions in the world, in Asia, there is Indonesia and India that produce lots of great coffee.

Africa, the birthplace of coffee has numerous coffee-growing countries, Ethiopia, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda are known for excellent coffee.

South America has quality as well as quantity produced, some amazing coffees come out of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Central America also has some world-class coffee growing regions, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Nicaragua grace many cupping tables.

There are also many other countries that produce excellent coffee.

COFFEE REVIEWS

Symposium Coffee Roasters | Grade 1 Sidamo | Ethiopia

How We Review Coffee?

How To Make The Best Coffee At Home?

Where’s The Best Coffee Grown?