Third Wave Coffee Roasters |Antioquia | Colombia
The Roaster
Third Wave Coffee Roasters was founded in 2016 by Ajay Phakey. It came about after years of him working in offices and consuming the bland and passionless drinks from high street coffee brands.
After drawing inspiration from coffee scenes around the world, Ajay took the leap of faith and decided to start roasting his own coffee.
Third wave are all about quality and passion for coffee.
"They roast in small batches which enables them to control the many variables of coffee roasting more precisely and highlight the complexities in the speciality coffee."
Most of their coffee roasted in the light-medium range which gives the coffee the best chance to showcase its flavour profile and characteristics.
The Coffee
The Colombian Coffee from Antioquia originated from Finca La Mesa which is sat just outside of the picturesque town of Jardin in the village of La Linda. The small 2.5 Hectare farm belongs to Silvana Espinosa who acquired the farm 5 years ago.
Since then she has set about developing her knowledge of coffee production as well as developing the infrastructure of the farm.
Photo; Maria Pintado
There have been difficult times on the farm with Dona Silvana remembering times when they didn’t have the money to pay the worker because the coffee hadn’t dried enough to sell yet.
This lesson, in particular, helped them to become more organised and build increased drying space like the drying tent they invested in. Through the hard work now on the farm, they are producing excellent quality coffee year on year.
Silvana is part of the Cooperativa Andes which is one of the biggest in Colombia with 6000 members. The coop is very socially focused and is one of the first in Colombia to begin a pension fund for its members.
As well as this Silvana is part of the micro lot program the coop runs by providing extra support and technical advice to those with real potential and drive.
In the harvest, there are usually 5 workers helping to pick the ripe cherries from the trees. Each Hectare has about 4800 trees which the workers will usually return to every 6 - 8 days.
Once collected the coffees is the pulped and left to dry ferment for 24 hours. After this, the coffee is then washed and floated to remove the immature beans. The coffee is then transferred to the drying tent where it dries for 8 - 15 days, weather depending. This is lot 1 that was picked in the earlier phases of the harvest between October - December 2019.
The Review
The Antioquia, Colombian coffee from Third Wave Coffee Roasters begins with a smooth fragrance as soon as you open the bag. You can tell that the coffee is going to hold some richer chocolatey notes as soon as the coffee is opened. It is sweet and has a beautiful caramel aroma as the coffee brews.
First tastes of the coffee are exactly as you would have guessed from the fragrance. Smooth and rich, notes of dark chocolate running through the entire sip,
the sweetness follows and once cooled the coffee softens from its dark chocolate start with notes of caramel and a hint of orange rind.
The coffee is really enjoyable to drink, its smooth chocolatey flavours make it perfect for stovetop or espresso. Its rich body means it can take a splash of milk and still hold its flavour profile.
