So we all know that Truth Coffee is world-renowned for their outrageous and ambitious steampunk themed HQ, behind the scenes though, the coffee quality team has been getting a new blend ready for release. It's called Black Honey and this is it's story.
We chatted to Alyssa Blom about the new arrival.
First of all, what is in the blend? Or is it a trade secret? How many coffees did you taste in the process of finding the perfect beans for this combination?
Not at all. We don’t do trade secrets. There are no secrets in coffee. Either you do things properly (usually the hard way) or not.
Sorting single origins all the way from about 60-70 initial samples. We roasted, cupped, made blends and repeated. After it all it came down to a fine balance of a 2 component blend of
Natural : Ethiopia, from the village of Gerbota
Red Honey Process : El Salvador, from the region of Comasagua.
What makes this blend revolutionary/stand out from the crowd?
We were always of the belief that great coffees had acidity. All of the great coffees did. It occurred to our founder that this wasn’t causal. If the great coffees all had acidity, and we, the speciality industry, were all chasing acidity to get great coffee, and the coffee was so often disappointing. Perhaps our first principles were wrong. What if they just happened to have acidity. What, in a moment of epiphany if sweetness were the thing, and our quest for the Black Honey blend began.
What were you looking for?
Sweetness. We relentlessly chased processes that drove sweetness in coffee. This with coffees with interesting and sweet flavours. We had to kiss a lot of frogs to find our Princes
What did you learn through this process?
Patience is key. To produce something special and different we need to do it properly but in the same breath to never get comfortable or sit still.
I think the best part for us is when we all tasted the coffee we had the unanimous face of "oh my word - do you guys taste that!"
