Far Away Hill Coffee Roastery

  I was asked an interesting question last week. How many cups of coffee should i get from 1kg of coffee. My immediate answer was 50-54 cups is the standard figure. The person asking this question said he was told, by a reputable coffee company, that he should be aiming to get 100 cups per kilo. This dealer insisted that he should only be selling single shots of coffee, and that way improving his margins. I was somewhat perplexed by this. Firstly, the coffee shop in question have an old school three head machine, which has given years of faithful service - always with double shot filter baskets in the portafilters. Secondly, to now change this to single shots would mean sourcing single shot filter baskets and switching the double shots out. Not a big job at all, but it does lead on to a number of other challenges. Are you going to sell your coffee in smaller cups? How will your customers, used to a normal double shot (which, in my opinion is the industry norm) react to this?...

There is a fair amount of debate in coffee circles about the importance of crema from both an aesthetic and taste perspective, so I thought I’d add mine. To start off, let me give you a little background information. As coffee means come out of a roaster, they are immediately cooled, to arrest the roasting process. After cooling, the beans emit a large amount of carbon dioxide. This is called de-gassing, and is what beans cannot be packaged immediately after roasting. Personally, I aim for 24-36 hours before bagging the coffee. The coffee beans still contain a quantity of carbon dioxide, and becomes and important component of an espresso. I’m going to digress even further from the subject and talk about scuba diving. I’m sure you’ve all either been lucky enough to go diving or have seen movies about it. At the end of the dive, the importance of ascending slowly (always go up slower that your bubbles, was my instructor’s mantra) and doing a safety stop or stops, depending on the duratio...

This is a pretty loaded question, I know, but there are a few guidelines and suggestions that i can offer. The key things that it boils down to is personal preference and, of course, the depth of your wallet. At the outset, let me state that i am NOT a fan of coffee pods. Apart from the looming environmental disaster (contributions to land fill on the scale of plastic water bottles, I’m led to understand), the pod fails really in the freshness stakes. As someone once stated, pods are the McDonald’s of the espresso world - consistently average, but never great. That great coffee requires freshly roasted coffee, ideally ground just before brewing , and correctly heated water. ( Please guys, particularly plunger users, never pour boiling water directly onto your coffee. You will burn the coffee and destroy or damage the oils inside the coffee that gives that wonderful flavour) Let boiled water stand for several minutes before using it. Most coffee machines allow a degree of control, but ...

Some of you might be wondering how the name “Far Away Hill” came about. When I started the roastery, I wanted a name that was unique, and that proved a challenge, as so many names that I might have chosen were already in use. Not necessarily locally, but I wanted to avoid any possible over-laps with another coffee related business. I also wanted something that said a little about our family. As children, we both grew up as Anglicans. In my case, I attended an Anglican school. We no longer practice as Anglicans, although we are very active in our new church. Despite this, some of the hymns we grew up with have remained favourites of ours. So i decided, what better way to reflect our faith than to incorporate and old hymn into the name of the roastery? The hymn that we both liked, especially as it was one of Gran’s favourites as well, is On a Hill Far Away. The words are below. On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross The emblem of suffering and shame. And I love that old cross, wher...