Welcome to the first subscription edition of our 4th year - we hope everyone enjoyed the special birthday box coffee and sherbet double-dips... we think we had almost as many people complimenting us on the sweets as on the coffee last month :-)
After including two of the biggest names in UK speciality coffee last month, we are going back to our roots to find you a few of the less well-known roasters from across the UK and Europe.
Please click the link to see the October Dialled In subscription coffee in more detail.
Nero Scuro - Italy
I'm sure when Italy is mentioned in the same breath as speciality coffee, one name comes to mind... and for good reason. However, there is an entire speciality coffee scene in Italy that still tends to go unnoticed and rather overshadowed by the image and taste of 'traditional Italian espresso'.
Nero Scuro are based just outside Venice and have been doing their bit to further the cause of speciality coffee across Italy since 2013. This year they have gone through a re-branding exercise - we absolutely love the result and hope you do too.
The coffee that we have chosen for the subscription from Silvia and Paolo is a washed Colombia coffee from the renowned coffee farm Finca Granja La Esperanza with crisp, clean tasting notes of Pink Grapefruit and Vanilla.
Nero Scuro produce separate Filter and Espresso profiles and all our Filter and Assorted members will be receiving their Filter roast with our Espresso members receiving the Espresso roast.
Dhan Tamang - Winchester
Continuing our recent theme of bringing SCA competition winners into the subscription, we are thrilled to be partnering up with Dhan Tamang's DT Coffee roastery down in Winchester, Hampshire.
Dhan is a 6x UK Latte Art champion, author, and coffee trainer - now, if you've never seen Dhan's Latte Art skills you really are missing out and should take a look right now, go on, the rest of this blog can wait :-)
The coffee we've chosen from DT Coffee for this month's subscription is a washed Honduras coffee with sweet notes of Honey and Lemon - all our members will be receiving this omni-roast coffee.
Symposium - London
Next up we have both a fairly new roaster and also a completely new origin for us. Steven Sheard started Symposium Coffee Roasters at the start of this year having previously had a varied life and career studying Philosophy (which is where the name derived from - a post Greek banquet discussion group and also a book by Plato) and serving in the British Army.
The first coffee that we have selected from Symposium for the subscription is a really interesting one as it comes from the 3rd smallest coffee producing nation in the world (by export volume) - Zimbabwe, which exports just over 600 tonnes of coffee (compared to a country like Colombia which exports over 800,000 tonnes).
Our 3 and 4 bag Espresso and Assorted members will be receiving this Espresso roast coffee with notes of Sweet Tea and Dried Fruit.
However, our 3 and 4 bag Filter members will instead be receiving a washed Kenya from the Rukera Farm in the Kiambu County region of Kenya with initial notes of Grapefruit that cools to Blackcurrant and Honey.
Lincoln Coffee - Reading
Finally, for our 4 bag subscribers, we are pleased to introduce Yurtesh and his Lincoln Coffee House roastery down in Reading, Berkshire.
When we first spoke to Yurtesh we were really impressed with his plans for the roastery as well as the coffee shop side of the business (they have just further expanded and opened up a coffee shop in Twyford).
The coffee we have selected is his natural process Guatemala from the Finca La Bolsa farm in the Huehuetenango region. Guatemala is still synonymous with washed coffees, but this is the second time we've been able to showcase a natural process from the country. Naturals from Guatemala always tend to have a great fruitiness to go with the floral notes, and this coffee is no exception.
All our 4 bag subscribers will be receiving this omni-roast coffee to enjoy.
Dialled In Traditional
Our subscribers on the Traditional subscription this month will be getting a pair of great blends. First up from Nero Scuro is their take on a speciality coffee Italian espresso - the Yes Blend (80% Brazil and 20% El Salvador). Then from DT Coffee we have their house blend with a classic makeup of 60% Brazil and 40% Colombia
Dialled In Decaf
For our Decaf subscribers, DT Coffee will be supplying their Rwanda washed and CO2 Decaf. Then Lincoln Coffee will be providing their Mexico Washed and Swiss Water Decaf.
PHOTO CONTEST - In conjunction with DT Coffee
DT Coffee are also supporting the subscription photo contest this month and it's going to be a good one. As you can imagine, we are taking full advantage of having Dhan on-board and this month's competition will be a Latte Art photo contest - simply give us your best latte art shot with the DT Coffee bag in shot and you could be in with a chance to win this month's super-special prize - a Latte Art Masterclass voucher for DT.
We know we have some pretty useful Latte Artists on the sub and to help us pick a winner in the final round we have enlisted the help of Dhan himself. Now, we also want this to be an inclusive competition and the early rounds will be voted for in our standard Instagram World Cup format, so (based on some of our previous contests) absolutely anything could happen... it should be good fun for everyone :-)
