Tagged: mst

Coffee Tasting: Santuario



The coffee is bought from Atkinsons coffee shop (http://www.atkinsonsteaandcoffee.co.uk) in Lancaster, purveyors of fine coffee and teas. The coffee is roasted in the shop by talented experts so the taste experience is enhanced by the superior skill of the staff.

Atkinsons Coffee shop in Lancaster. (This image is taken from Atkinsosn own website, all copyright and image ownerships remains with Atkinsons.)



The coffee is a regional winner (North West Taste Awards 2010) and so attracted my interest. The coffee was freshly ground by Atkinsons for cafetiere so that we could have an unadulterated tasting in the office (our excellent coffee machine grinds the beans to cup, so would need a thorough cleaning to make it acceptable for tasting).

The coffee has a soft scent which confused me as I wasn’t quite sure what notes I could detect, Matt (mst) thought that there was an element of nutmeg to it, which he could also detect in the taste, to my thinking it was a slightly nutty chocolate. The chocolate continued when on the palate where the coffee was very smooth and I thought I caught a zesty afterpunch which I imagine could be bitter if brewed too richly. Leigh enjoyed her tasting, she thought the coffee was smooth and not too bitter (an important facet for her as bitter coffees require her to use a little brown sugar when drinking them black).

For completeness I tried the coffee with a little milk (I know sacrilege, the horror, the horror) and found the milk a tad overbearing so a Latte would no doubt drench the subtler flavours of this blend, but a good cappuccino if made on the richer side would probably be quite nice.

A little research on the internet pulled up an article on Londinium Expresso (http://londiniumespresso.com/blogs/londinium-espresso-blog/1472762-new-in-columbian-santuario-estate-bourbon-variety) where they have tried this bean as an espresso, they note that the bean needs to be rested after roasting to take away the acidic edge that it apparently suffers from.

Since we never made an espresso it is hard for me to comment upon this, but I did detect citrus/zesty notes (which Londinium Expresso have as flavour of Orange) which could be linked to acidity I imagine. I can only assume that the reason it wasn’t acidic to our tasting is because Atkinsons know their coffee.