One of the best parts about the Discover Great Coffee Club is unearthing new roasteries from around South Africa and tasting their coffee - often in far flung or remote places, these roasters usually have a completely different take on things. This week's featured roastery is Wild Coast Coffees based in Kei Mouth. Ian Williams is the human behind the brand, and this is what he had to say!
"WILD COAST COFFEES, based in Kei Mouth, a sleepy little holiday town at the mouth of the Great Kei River, bordering the Eastern Cape from the Transkei, started at the end of 2020. The dream was to start roasting coffee with origins in Africa. As Africa is the origin of the coffee bean. It would also keep the product local, albeit only local to the continent of Africa.
The roasters I liked were above my financial means, and without finance, I designed and built the first roaster, a small fluid bed roaster capable of roasting 600g of green beans at a time. Totalling about 2kg of beans per hour.
Samples that were dropped off at prospective clients that had already established suppliers, were met with a lot of reluctance, but once they had tasted our coffees, the reviews were very positive, and the orders started pouring in. Within a year we were roasting 5 days a week, and as the word spread about the clean wonderful tasting coffee, that was neither bitter nor acidic. The flavours being commented on were just the exceptional taste of fantastic coffee.
I had to get a larger roaster, concentrating on the flavours that were being experienced, still without finance being available, I had to use my own initiative and build a second roaster, this time one that did a batch of between 2,2kg and 2,5kg of green beans. The tastes of the coffee had to remain constant, and a second Fluid bed roaster was developed to these specifications, by means of hot air elevating almost floating the beans in a vortex of air, blowing off the chafe and smoke that normally get roasted with the beans, resulting in the taste of the beans that are clean and without bitterness."
Our Slogan - “Experience Africa through the taste of coffee”
We invite you to experience the Bensa region of Ethiopia with our ETHIOPIA BENSA a medium roasted Ethiopia Washed Sidamo bean. It is aromatic, having a nice sweet, clean, flavour with a hint of florals and nicely balanced with a slight lemony acidity that compliments the natural flavour of the beans, with beautiful aftertaste without bitterness.
Espresso - not for the faint hearted! If you love South European styled espresso, this is for you!
We absolutely loved this Flat White - the creaminess of the milk brought out some lovely dark chocolate notes and the deep red fruits reminded us of christmas cake!
The pourover was brewed at 1:15 with 20g of coffee and 300g water using the Clever Dripper and a No4 filter paper. We got a strong, intense coffee from the BENSA, and we enjoyed this very much!
Kei Mouth
Experience Africa through the taste of coffee! This Ethiopian Bensa is a medium roasted, washed Sidamo bean. It is aromatic, having a nice sweet, clean, flavour with a hint of florals and nicely balanced with a slight lemony acidity that compliments the natural flavour of the beans, with beautiful aftertaste without bitterness.
