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The story of Highland Coffees
My name is Sarah Sherlock. I have lived in Ethiopia, where the Arabica coffee bush comes from, and Kenya, where the most prized plantation coffee is grown.
On returning to Scotland from Ethiopia during the freezing winter of early 2001 I noticed that there wasn't much Ethiopian coffee about in the area where we live. At the same time there seemed to be a lot of coffee and coffee-making equipment on sale in the big towns which only bemused, rather than enlightened, my friends!
So ... I decided to set up my own roasting plant where I could roast only the best Arabica beans, from known places of origin. I selected the 'grand crus' of East Asia and Central America as well as the exciting and unpredictable Ethiopian bean, which is nearly all wild and therefore organic.
After extensive research I now have a fully functioning roasting and packing plant located in a converted stable block next to our local castle. Our storage facility is cool, clean and completely dry - the perfect conditions for storing green coffee beans.
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I have a small cupping room where I can taste the coffee at every stage of production.I cup any sample beans that the importers send me for flavours that would make an interesting, or complementary, addition to my list. Then I cup after the roasting to make sure my technique is right for the particular bean. |
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| I also provide a highly personal service of cupping and blending for any clients who request it. |
Much is done on intuition and craft. I do not use the automatic systems that the big roasters have. Because I have travelled into the coffee-bearing forests in south-west Ethiopia (at that time I was illustrating the flora of Ethiopia and had students with me) I could see how fragile is the habitat there. So I also wanted to promote any attempt to enable local people to make a decent living harvesting in their forests, not the forests themselves.
Ethiopian forests are the repository of the gene pool for Coffea arabica. The threat there is not from wealthy plantation owners, but from villagers who are desperate for that extra patch of land to grow yams or grain for their families. In this area, as in others, speciality coffee is often grown by the smaller producer, who would get several times more for growing narcotics, than for coffee.
Each coffee from various parts of the world has its own unique, consistent taste which derives from the soils and mulch where it grows. Like wine, coffee portrays different moods and personalities, and I have had fun trying them all. I hope you do, too! |
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