THE COFFEE JOURNEY

Our journey starts at the farms where our coffee beans are grown. Our Signature blend is sourced from Peru and Mexico, while our Rocha blend hails from Brazil, Peru and Uganda. Coffee beans are the seed of the coffee fruit, called a cherry, which is dried, roasted and ground to produce coffee.

Smokin’ Bean uses 100% Arabica coffee beans for our Signature blend. Arabica beans are planted at high altitudes as this is the premium positioning for the beans to grow. It usually takes around 5 years after planting for a coffee plant to yield a sufficient harvest.

Our Rocha blend uses Arabica and Robusta. Robusta can be grown at much lower altitudes as it is more resistant to environmental factors, such as warmer weather and rainfall.

When the cherries are ripe, they are stripped from the plant and delivered to a central collection point where they move onto the next stage in their journey – pulping. This is where the flesh of the cherries is removed so we are left with the glorious seed (the bean).

Depending on the individual site, the beans will be washed then dried, either in a mechanical dryer or by the air.

Once the coffee beans are dry, they are hulled to remove any remaining fruit and dry skin. At this stage they are known as ‘green coffee’. The green coffee is cleaned and sorted, then graded to pick out the best beans for the job.

At the mill or the export site, the coffee is often roasted in a sample coffee roaster so that the quality can be tested before it is shipped out. The coffee is quality checked by official, trained professionals (known as Q Graders) on site.

Next the green coffee is bagged into hessian sacks for transportation and shipped to our roastery in Glasgow. It’s not just any coffee roastery – it’s the first roastery in the whole world to be awarded the Carbon Neutral Gold Standard!

There, our coffee experts roast the beans to perfection in large drums. The drums are constantly rotating so we can be sure each Smokin’ Bean is moving and roasting evenly. We test each batch to make sure it’s up to our high standards.

The roasting process contributes to the delicious flavour of the finished coffee beans.

The coffee is quality checked again, then packed in nitrogen flushed bags, which keeps the coffee at optimum freshness. It is packaged just minutes after roasting to ensure minimal exposure to oxygen, which turns coffee stale.

Finally, it’s shipped out to where it’s needed most – your coffee cup!

Freshly ground and served through our bean to cup or traditional coffee machine, Smokin’ Bean tastes good. It tastes really good.