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the blog of Stephen Leighton

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New views and all that stuff to do with Has Bean http://www.hasbean.co.uk

Organic Certification

A few months ago, we made a decision at Has Bean to be Organic Certified, after a number of years of letting our previous certification lapse. I’ve had a few people ask me why we have done this, so I thought I’d share my thoughts and ideas on this with you.

Many of our producers are not organic, but follow organic principles using sprays only when its the last resort. This is because some farms its not possible to be organic, due to climate reasons, plant disease and whether changes. But I’ve never meet a coffee producer that likes to spend money on sprays they don’t need, or to put chemicals in the ground of the farms they love.

But we do have some lucky producers who can use 100% organic certification, and pay a yearly charge to maintain the certification. It seems silly that the last part of the chain cant sell it as organic.


Added to this we also import green coffee for other roasters who expressed an interest in offering that certification too was the final push.


But theres something else that really interests me. Followers of old will remember that we used to be Biodynamic certified too. Whats Biodynamic mean ? Well let me give you the official and a more understandable approach.


Biodynamic agriculture is the oldest consciously organic approach to farming and gardening, and is one of the most sustainable in existence. It is founded on a holistic and spiritual understanding of nature and the human being, and builds on the pioneering research work of Rudolf Steiner.


I’m going to give you my Has Bean Steve summary of what biodynamic is in one short sentence. Biodynamic means the farmer gives a stuff about the farm, the land, the animals on the farm and the people that live and work on it. Like the sound of it? Yes, me too, and that’s why we are involved at the ground level. Ignore the hooky cooky stuff you may or may not have heard about (burying cow skulls and spreading small vial of lavender over many many acres), remember this – as long as growers follow the good principles of biodynamics then that’s good for the cup, the environment and everyone involved. If they want to pick when the moons at a certain part of the sky. Thats all fine with me is people, animals and the environment are looked after.


Lovers of natural wine will already know about biodynamics, and it has a very positive taste in that sector, so I’ll be interested to see how we can develop this with our coffee.


I’ve already started work trying to source some great Bio Dynamics, but already we have found some great organics that have started and will continue through the year.


This doesn’t mean that organics are better, or the non organic is terrible, its a step towards giving you some options and choices.

Ethiopia Single Farmer Coffee

We believe in knowing the producers we work with. Our aim is for you to know the names of the people whose farms your coffee is grown on. In some cases this has been super easy – in other cases, not so easy! One of the most difficult places to get information on has been Ethiopia – but we’re seeing a change and it’s an exciting one for us to share with you!

In 2008, Ethiopia implemented a Commodity Exchange (ECX), through which agricultural products like coffee are traded (take a look at a post I did here back in the day) . There were lots of positives of this modernisation, but one of the downsides was that it became a lot more difficult to trace where the coffee we bought had come from.

There were some little opportunities to work around these issues and the Ana Sora Natural which we’ve shared with you for a few years now was exciting for us as we could get to know the producer – Israel Degfa – and begin to build a relationship. Now, reforms introduced last year have made this easier for more coffees, funnily enough reforms that Israel has been involved in at governmental level, as an advisor.

There’s quite a few different components to the reforms, but one key feature is allowing producers a window to arrange a sale before their coffee goes to the ECX. The ECX is still involved – it’s where the contract is signed – but there’s more traceability and more opportunities for buyers to connect with individual producers, as well as a streamlined process.

For speciality coffee roasters like us, this is great news! As the first harvest after the announcement has now reached us, you’ll be seeing a few new Ethiopian coffee names appearing on the website – although many of these are very small, so they may not be around long.

The first is from the family of Tadess Roba. In fact – it’s the first two of these coffees, as we have both a Washed and Natural from them! We found these two totally separately on the cupping table, but I think you can imagine my excitement when I realised one of our favourite Natural lots was from the same family as one of our favourite Washed lots!

Well, enough from me! They’re available on the website now so go ahead, enjoy and don’t forgot to let us know what you think!

Ethiopia Tadess Roba Washed

Ethiopia Tadess Roba Natural

From London to Dubai

Both my self and Sonali are going on tour. Sonali is our Field operative for wholesale, and is hugely talented and uber coffee professional, will be kicking of the tour in London at The Gentleman Baristas this week in the first of the series Marco meets

Marco Meets is a series of events that aims to connect local baristas and tea/coffee professionals with well-known figures from the specialty tea and coffee industries.

A different speaker at each event will share their advice, insights and predictions. Designed as a meeting of minds, each event will be an interactive exchange of knowledge and skills for those working in the tea and coffee industries.

After complimentary food and drinks attendees can engage with the speakers, take part in brewing demonstrations and of course – taste some delicious coffees.

Sonali will be sharing her learnings and advice on how to make a career in coffee. She will be sharing how to develop your careers and coffee business whilst always focusing on quality and creativity.

You can get tickets here

 

Following this I will be in Dubai, talking about the the start to finish to what goes into choosing a champions’ coffee. From my experience of working with two f world barista champions and multiple semi and finalist competitors, we will be drilling down what it takes to find the coffee of champions.
I will be leading this event and will deliver his talks, engage in a discussion with our host and then open up questions to the floor. After the talk there will be a chance to sample some delicious Has Bean coffee paired with local food, I may even sneak some books across to sign if you want (did I mention I’m a published author)

You can get tickets here

We both hope to see you there

nodnoL Roundup

The dust is settling after one of our busiest ever weeks at Hasbean…

The London Coffee Festival has finished and we are at the end of London Coffee Week, and to celebrate the latter we decided to open a four day pop-up market in East London. A converted underground toilet was the scene for our pop-up home (please insert your own joke about has bean going down the toilet).

We saw this as a chance to meet old friends and make some new ones who were in London for the festivities, but also treated it as a chance to play. Petsie Williams was brought onboard as our donkey, to plan and make sure we knew exactly what we were trying to do, under the guidance of Dale Harris our resident donkey (two asses are better than one). Sonali our resident Field Operative, Will our new boy (what a way to start your first full week) and head Hasbara Katie did the rest.

Me, well – I flew from Stockholm to London and turned up at the pop-up on Wednesday night at about 10 pm when everything was done, bosses prerogative, right?

The space was a little rough around the edges before we got our hands on it and lots of work was done by the team to turn it into what you saw. I think in London they would have called it bohemian. The set up was simple we had four stations covering four different aspects…

TASTE: [H]AND

Just like [H]AND’s former iteration at Uniqlo’s 311 Oxford Street shop, this area was all about showcasing the awesomeness of collaboration through hand-brewed coffee. We had three different coffees on every day that showcased a selection of coffees from a different one of our long-term relationships, looking at processing and varietals and groups of coffees from one producer with different farms.

EAT: HasCream

Here we just had fun. No full food menu but soft serve ice cream with toppings to highlight Dale Harris’s signature drinks from his winning UKBC and WBC routines this year. This was fun, I got to play ice cream man, and the toppings were amazing. The brainchild of Petsie I’m fairly sure he had the most fun from this part. Click on the pictures below to see what we were offering…

WATCH: In My Mug

My video blog, looking at coffee, we had a mini Linea from La Mazocco that you could have a play with this week’s In My Mug coffee (also I recorded this week’s IMM at the pop-up). This was a chance to buy a subscription (thanks to those who did) but also for me to explain what it is and why I do it.

DRINK: Espresso Bar

It was the return of the Modbar where the team (i.e. not me – I make coffee go brown not wet) were brewing amazing espresso and milk based drinks for people to just enjoy. The Modbar gave us the perfect opportunity to have conversations without a big huge machine on bar, and for people to have drinks to enjoy and not think too much about. We also had a treat on the Saturday where Dale used the very last of this year’s competition coffee from his WBC routine that was all the fun.

But we also had another section on Thursday night…

PLAY: MINOR LEAGUES: LONDON
(presented by The Barista League x Hasbean)

Stephen Moloney (former Swedish Barista Champion and all round superstar) brought his fun competition to London with the help of the Has Bean Team.

The 1st round baristas in their teams (two) had 15 minutes to hand brew the best cup of coffee possible. The teams had access to the mystery coffee from 9 am the day of the competition. Teams were judged by 2 VIP sensory judges (BIG thanks to Martha Dalton of Coffee Bird and Tim Wendelboe of ….. well Tim Wendelboe). Teams had serve at least 300g of BREWED coffee to the judges in either Kalita or Chemex.

Round 2 – Smell (n)o vision the teams were blindfolded and placed in front of 5 glasses of ingredients. They had 5 minutes to guess what ingredient is in each of the glasses. Each team will have a different assortment of aromas to evaluate.

Round 3 – Competitors were given three cupping bowls and a funky map that they had to decide what Central American country they were from. This proved the toughest of the rounds with no one getting it 100% right.

The winners were Stephen and Sarah from Bailies and much fun was had by all.

Friday saw Jordan and Zachary from the infamous Sprudge pay us a visit, and they wrote the kindest article you can read here about the pop-up from a non biased perspective.

Much great food was eaten at Hawksmoor and the famous St John right by where we were. Great spending time with the team.

Thank you to everyone who swung by, hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

But it’s never ever happening again, we are all exhausted!!

Popping up to (in!) London

O hello there, friends! You may have noticed many not-so-subtle hints floating around the instagramosphere that I have some big news for you, so here I am to share the very exciting secrets I have kept safely beneath my big red bowler hat for the past few months!!

As you may or may not already know, this past year has brought all kinds of excitement to the team here at HasBean Towers, from our first-ever retail space with [H]AND to Dale’s WBC win and everything in between, so we wanted to share some of this excitement with you – now we’re not usually fans of running our own space at tradeshows (it’s much nicer for us to go out and spend time with the people one-on-one) but we found ourselves with an opportunity we simply couldn’t pass up: a whole little pop-up market area all to ourselves only steps from the London Coffee Festival !!

A market, you say? How could HasBean kit out a whole market?? As you might have noticed, we’re fans (or at least I’m a fan) of having lots of little projects on the go and this space gives us the perfect opportunity to showcase all of the things we do – so without further ado, here are all the things you can do at our pop-up market this Thursday through Sunday :

 

TASTE: [H]AND

Just like [H]AND’s former iteration at Uniqlo’s 311 Oxford St shop, this area will be all about showcasing the awesomeness of collaboration through hand-brewed goodness . Not only will we have different coffees on every day , but we’ve gone a step further – each day will showcase a selection of coffees from a different one of our long-term relationships

[H]AND is a place where you can sit back and relax whilst you taste, whether it’s a single cup of something lovely or a tasting flight of all three of the day’s coffees – for daily menu details, check [H]AND’s instagram @madebyhandcoffee

 

EAT: HasCream

If [H]AND is where you can drink HasBean, HasCream is where you can eat HasBean – how exciting is that !!!

I could tell you more of the details but honestly you’re just going to have to keep up with social media, all I’ll say about this is that the incredible Petesy Williams (yes, that Petesy Williams, the sig bev king) has been working away in the kitchen all weekend to put together some really fun things and, I kid you not, has been humming THIS whilst doing it, so you know it’s going to be amazing – we’ll be sharing some things on the HasBean instagram very, very sooooooon so make sure you keep those peepers peeled !!!

 

WATCH: IN MY MUG

For those of you who are new to IMM, this will be where you learn about the coffee subscription delivered directly to your door that comes with a weekly video cast – IMM is all about tastings, facts both daft and serious, and occasional interviews with special guests, but most importantly, we think it’s the only coffee subscription around that offers a different coffee EVERY WEEK

If you’re already a subscriber – or even if you’re not – you’ll be able to pop into In My Mug’s space to have a go at brewing your own espresso on a linea mini , what fun!!

 photo by Al Higgins for HasBean 

DRINK: HasBean

It’s the return of the modbar bar !! Across the market from [H]AND, we’re setting up an espresso and batch bar to serve you some cosy comfort / tasty goodness for anyone who just wants a coffee. Don’t get me wrong – we’ve got some really tasty stuff to serve up to you folks there, it’s definitely not boring, but it will be a totally different offering to what we have at [H]AND so that there’s something for everyone ! Menu details daily on the socials 😉

 

BUY: Ooodles of STUFF 

We’ve packed the van full of coffee and gear for all of your home coffee brewing needs ! We’ll obviously have some books floating about (Mr. Harmon’s “What I know About Running Coffee Shops” and Black Water Issue’s interviews with the WBC semi-finalists, “Regraphy”, as well as – why yes – my own “Coffeeography”) but we’ll also have some shiny new coloured clever drippers and the Tsubame range of kalita onsite, too – plus some HasBean merch !

 

photo: Ane Noss Bystadhaugen for The Barista League

PLAY: MINOR LEAGUES: LONDON
(presented by The Barista League x HasBean) 

Last but certainly not least, our good friends at The Barista League will be taking over the space to host a pop-up event, the Minor Leagues, that is all of the great stuff about The Barista League – fun format, super vibes, tasty beer – but lighter, grittier, and more flexible.

Spaces are super limited so if you want to compete – either as a team or by yourself – you’ll need to sign up now !!! SIGN UP HERE

 

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But STEVE , I hear you say , where I can I find this magical HasBean land away from the hustle and bustle of the festival?? Do I have to walk for ages???

No, my friend – tasty coffee and super vibez (to steal the term from my Irish friends ) are but a five minute walk from the Truman Brewery – use the map below or simply follow the red balloon, you’ll see what I mean….

Water, water, everywhere. And all the (fuse) boards did shrink

Hello and good evening from a very soggy Hasbean Towers everyone.

It is with a heavy heart that I come to you with some very sad news, I don’t think we’re going to be able to roast any coffee tomorrow : (

I popped into the roastery this evening and was met with a scene that I certainly wasn’t expecting, it appears a water pipe has burst = / on its own that would have been fine and fixable, but it has burst all over the fuse board and various other electrical things so there’s no power and everything is rather soaked.

We have a wonderful plumber and awesome electrician getting to us first thing tomorrow morning to do all they can to help, but as of right now I’m not sure what they’re going to tell me when they’ve seen what I’ve seen.

Because of the damage I do not think we are going to be able to roast any coffee on Monday the 5th of March. If we can get things sorted tomorrow, we will. If we can roast coffee tomorrow, we will.

All orders that don’t have coffee on them will go out as normal (as long as we can get power to the computers) but any orders with coffee on them will probably be delayed until Tuesday, March 6th at the earliest.

I’m so, so sorry for the delay that this is going to cause. We’ll process + ship every single order that we can as soon as we can, I promise. I was so happy that I thought we’d fought off the bad weather last week, but it appears to have waited for us to leave then snuck in over the weekend to cause mischief.

Please keep an eye on Twitter (@hasbean), Facebook (@hasbeancoffee) and Instagram (@hasbean) for updates, or email us at orders@hasbean.co.uk if you have any questions – I’ll do my best to keep you all in the loop.

Lots of love from a soggy Staffordshire coffee roaster,

Steve