What a couple of weeks it has been here at Stewarts. I intended on keeping this blog regularly updated but things have been crazy here so I thought I would bring everyone up to speed on what we are doing.

Over the bank holiday weekend we spent some time down at Nottingham Castle with All About Tourism and The Great Food and Drinks Festival. We were serving coffee all weekend, next to the bandstand with incredible music put on by I’m Not From London. It was fantastic!

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I was joined by Laura Marano (taking the photos and therefore not in them!!!). A good friend of mine that heads her own company focusing on sustainable products from artisans in Kenya and Ethiopia – Tibeb. Having been born in that part of the world and having strong Italian roots as well, making coffee is just innate to her. We had a lot of fun whizzing up cappuccino’s and talking about the coffee to anyone willing to listen. We are planning on doing lots more of these events and we will be updating our Facebook page with all of our upcoming events so make sure to head over, give the page a like a subscribe to our events.

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When all the coffee making was done it was time to put ourselves to the test as we were joined at the roaster by Matt Lasek and the Cimbali team, who had come to Nottingham to see (what we like to think is) a great, small roaster with big ideas.

Matt is one of the UK’s leading experts on coffee and to say I learned something would be an understatement. The exciting thing here is that Matt is hoping to return very soon and use our roaster to create some experimental blends and test out some single lot coffees. So we can share what we get up to with all of you guys!

As I got a day off on the weekend, I of course went searching for a great cup of coffee. I ended up in Sheffield at Tamper Coffee. Founded by Jon Perry, originally from New Zealand he brings that beautiful, rustic, artisan vibe to the centre of Sheffield.

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I checked out the Sellers Wheel shop that was just beautiful. I had 3 coffees, an espresso, which came from their Tamper Signature blend, a latte that was the Clipper Blend and finally an Aeropress, which was a single origin from Rwanda.

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The espresso was a deep, fruity taste with a lovely light finish. The latte was overwhelming with a gorgeous, earthy, nutty flavour that really cut through the milk. The Aeropress was a little disappointing, the Rwandan coffee didn’t give any big flavours off and was fairly mild in comparison to the other two. I felt like the Aeropress recipe may have needed a slight adjustment but I have to say this was my first Rwandan coffee so it could be typical of the region. I guess I will just have to go back and try it again another time…what a shame!

 

Then our final round up. We had a new sticker come in that is a giant logo that we have stuck up on the main wall in the show room. We are really happy with it and though it took 3 of us a fair amount of time to get it all on properly it is definitely worth it.

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Finally we have started messing around with some video stuff! We have created our first draft video that we are now working on. We are basically deciding whether or not I am good enough in front of the camera to pull a non scripted video off or whether my jokes are just that bad I need to be never given air time again!

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As always, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where we will be once again posting regularly and in the next 2 weeks we will be releasing information on our 2 biggest projects to date!!!