Blog

As a whole-bean only subscription service, one of the questions we get asked most is what grinder to buy.

Now, this can often open a can of worms as everyone has their own preferences and budgets… then chosen brew method will also impact your choice.

We have another exciting line up of coffee planned for you this month - so please click the link to see the August Dialled In subscription coffee in more detail.

Vagabond Coffee - London

When we started the Dialled In subscription, the first roaster that we went and visited personally was Vagabond Coffee on Holloway Road in North London.  We spend a good hour and a bit chatting to head-roaster Paul about all things coffee and it was absolutely fascinating.  We've kept up a good relationship with Paul and team Vagabond ever since and Paul even made a welcome appearance at our first public coffee cupping down at Amoret in London last year.

So we were thrilled when he mentioned that he had a few sacks of Tanzania coffee (a couple of different processing methods) waiting in the warehouse to be profiled.  We got in quick and managed to snaffle one of the coffees as a bit of an exclusive for the subscription.  We then worked with Paul (remotely) through the profiling process and are really pleased to be showcasing their washed processed Tanzania to kick off this month's coffee.

The Tanzania comes from Glanmalure near Ngila in the Arusha region of Tanzania and comes with notes of blackcurrant, blackbery and brown sugar.  Paul once described it to me as a mini-Kenyan, and I think that's quite an apt description.

All our members will be receiving this Omni-Roast coffee to enjoy.

Origin Coffee - Cornwall

As regular travellers from Yorkshire to London (when train travel was still a thing) we used to visit the Origin coffee shops on Euston Road regularly and always enjoyed the variety they had on offer.  We are thrilled to be partnering with Origin Coffee this month on the subscription and with the award-winning quality of the people and coffee at Origin, you know you'll be in good hands.

The coffee we selected this month is a washed Nicaragua from the Mierisch Family's Los Altos farm in the Jinotega region of Nicaragua.  This coffee has wonderful notes of Roasted Almond, Chocolate and Brown Sugar and makes a bit of a change from some of the fruitier numbers we've showcased recently.

All our members will be receiving this Omni-Roast coffee to enjoy.

Five Rings - Cardiff

We've had the inside track (pardon the pun) on this roastary for a while now and are really excited to be able to bring them in for you to enjoy.

Something we've noticed since the very early days of Dog and Hat is that coffee and cycling really do go hand in hand... and we have an extremely large contingent of keen cyclists on the subscription.

Five Rings is a new coffee roastery that has been set up by cycling legends Callum Skinner (Olympic Champion at Rio 2016), Owain Doull (Olympic Champion at Rio 2016) and Philip Hindes (Olympic Champion at London 2012 and Rio 2016).  Each of their coffees is named after a highlight (or low-point) in their careers and you can find out more about each story on the coffee info cards when the coffee arrives.

We will be bringing in their washed Colombia coffee (Cali Crash) with notes of Orange, Cherry and Caramel.

All our 3 bag members will be receiving this Omni-Roast coffee this month.

Curious Roo - London

We are great advocates of continued learning here at Dog and Hat and, as we were progressing on our journey through coffee, we put our SCA training in the capable hands of the wonderful team down at Artisan Coffee School in Ealing, London - we loved heading down to their training room and we really do miss them.

Thankfully, attached to the coffee school is the Curious Roo roastery and they are roasting us up a fantastic natural processed Uganda which has tasting notes of (amongst other things) Wine Gums... it's a wonderful example of natural processed coffee.

All our 4 bag members will be receiving this coffee. 

Dialled In Dark(er)

The Dialled In Dark(er) members will be getting a Brazil from Five Rings and Curious Roo's Barn Door Blend this month.

Dialled In Decaf

For our Decaf subscribers, Origin Coffee will be providing their Rwanda decaf alongside Curious Roo's decaf blend.

Dialled In International

There are still a couple of days left to get your orders in for this month's Dialled In International featuring a Burundi (for Filter subscribers) and a Brazil (for Espresso subscribers) from La Cabra in Denmark.  The Burundi has notes of Redcurrant, Honey and Rooibos Tea... while the Brazil has notes of Chocolate, Brown Sugar and Pecan.

La Cabra are keen followers of the Omni-Roast school of roasting, so we have split the coffee based on tasting notes - therefore, if you are a filter brewer and would prefer the Brazil or an espresso user and would prefer the Burundi then please just let us know.

In alongside La Cabra are returning favourites Ineffable from Seville with a natural processed Rwanda with notes of Pineapple, Papaya and Rum.

In this blog we’d like to shine a spotlight on our sustainability, environmental impact and carbon footprint policies.

As a mail order coffee subscription company here in the UK, we realise that we must always carefully monitor our climate footprint.  We have speciality green coffee shipped from origin thousands of miles away to storage warehouses in Europe,  From there the greens travel to our partner roasters (both here in the UK and further afield).  The roasted coffee then makes it to us and then finally to your doorstep to enjoy.

As such, we put environmental and sustainability at the centre of everything we do and there’s a couple of fairly new initiatives to get you up to speed with.

We hope everyone is enjoying a little more freedom to go about their daily lives these days.

Click the link to see the July Dialled In subscription coffee in more detail.

For the last few months we've been working behind the scenes on something pretty exciting and we're very pleased to introduce you to our first transatlantic roaster - Rabbit Hole Roasters from Montreal in Quebec, Canada.

The rest of the coffee lineup this month has a distinctly Yorkshire flavour to it with our local North Yorkshire roaster Roost Coffee joining returning favourites North Star and Casa Espresso from the west of the county.

Click the link to see the June Dialled In subscription coffee in more detail.

Firstly we hope everyone is still staying safe and well during these strange times.

Since we started Dog and Hat back in 2017 some months have just been plain sailing - they run smoothly and we don't hit any challenges... then there are some that definitely don't follow this pattern.

The coffee we've chosen this month is designed to reflect those more challenging months and return, in some small way, the kindness we've received and continue to receive from the awesome folk in the coffee and hospitality industry.

Click the link to see the May Dialled In coffee in more detail.

Well, these are crazy times we live in, but we are going to continue with our plans as best as possible.

This month we take a return trip to Amsterdam to include one of the most exciting speciality coffee roasters in Europe in the subscription - Friedhats.

Joining Friedhats will be one of the UKs most popular and consistently excellent roasters - Dave at Crankhouse Coffee down in Exeter along with Zach Chipp at Chipp coffee in Leeds (and Edinburgh) and finally we have Limini Coffee from West Yorkshire.

Click the link to see the April Dialled In coffee in more detail.

This month see us return to the continent to bring you one of the most exciting coffee roasters in Amsterdam - Rum Baba - then to complete the lineup we have three returning favourites joining them.

First up are one of the most requested roasters that we partner with - the amazing Matt and Anabelle down at Hundred House in Shropshire.

Alongside them is Ste at Django over in Southport, Merseyside.  Ste has been with us since our very first subscription back in 2017, so it's always a joy to get he chance to work with him again.

Finally, returning for this month we have the most requested coffee in the history of Dog and Hat - Lee at Foundry and his now legendary Ethiopia Rocko Mountain

Each month, we go through an extremely rigorous coffee selection process culminating in each selected coffee being profiled on our standard equipment under lab conditions.  We do this for both filter and espresso coffees.

The reason we do this is simple.  I’m sure we’ve all experienced that frustration of getting an exciting new bag of coffee that we just can’t wait to get stuck into… and then we end up spending the first 3 or 4 coffees working out how to get the best out of it.

To help alleviate this most frustrating part of the coffee experience, we have standardised our testing approach to provide you with a better frame of reference to allow you to start you dialling in process from more educated position… hopefully reducing the number of wasted dialling in attempts and ‘sink-shots’.

Click the link to see the March Dialled In coffee in more detail.

Once again we have two new roasters joining us here at Dog and Hat alongside two old favourites.

The first new roaster is The Missing Bean who have been roasting away in Oxford since 2014 and joining them is a new local roaster from Leeds - the cycling loving Echelon.

Making a welcome return to the subs are Quarter Horse in Birmingham (after a fortuitous meeting between Nathan and Dave at the coffee shop) along with Dan and Francis at Moonroast down in the New Forest.