What is specialty coffee?
We started in 2013, importing coffee from Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and selling wholesale. In 2014 we adapted our business model and opened Milton Keynes' first specialty coffee shop.
Speciality coffee is different to commodity coffee, that served in most chains and family cafes. Specialty coffee is grown and harvested by artisan farmers, in most cases using skills and techniques honed by generations of the same family on their particular farm or estate.
This means the farmers intrinsically know every detail about their land, water and processes that result in their coffee grown consistently to the same highest quality every harvest.
Specialty coffee is roasted to a particular profile, usually as a result of testing by the roaster or at the request of the coffee shop it is being supplied to (as in the case of Bogota Coffee Co.).
A coffee can be called specialty once it is cupped (tasted by slurping like wine) by an expert body (such as the SCAA – Specialty Coffee Association of America) and receiving a score of 80+ on a tasting scale of 100.
Our house espresso is roasted by Rave Coffee, based in the Cotswolds in the UK. We chose Rave for their attention to detail in sourcing and precisely roasting each batch of coffee, along with consistently high levels of customer service. We pride ourselves on supporting other small independent businesses and no one exemplifies why we choose to do this better than Rave Coffee. Learn more about them here ravecoffee.co.uk
Coffee Recipe
A coffee recipe is the amount of ground coffee and the amount of hot water flushed through it (extracted) to create a single or double espresso – the base of the most popular coffee shop drinks. Slight differences in weight of coffee, water temperature, extraction time, amount of boiled water extracted, will affect quite distinctly how the coffee tastes.
Coffee recipes differ for every different bean and the cafe ends up with the recipe by trial and error – either by them or the roaster that supplies them. At Bogota Coffee Co. our current bean for espresso has been roasted to a profile we requested and our own trial and error resulted in a recipe of:
Brew time window (amount of time coffee is allowed to extract)
is 25 – 30 seconds
Cup size, Milk, Temperature and Soy
At Bogota Coffee Co. we offer one size of each drink to have in the cafe and two takeaway sizes – 8oz and 12oz. Because our coffee is grown, harvested, roasted and prepared to standards that reflect its quality, we want you to enjoy your drink as it’s meant to be tasted.
It makes sense that the more water or milk you add to the coffee, the less of the natural flavour you will taste, likewise with any syrup added to it. Bigger is not always better, as the more milk in a drink, the more it is diluted and the less it will taste how it is meant to taste.
Milk steaming and texturing is a fine art. Some coffee places steam milk differently for each drink. With specialty coffee all drinks are steamed in the same way (with the exception of a macchiato), this brings out the true taste of the coffee.
When milk is steamed it heats the fats and they stretch so that a velvety texture is achieved, making the coffee creamy and full of flavour, not burnt or bitter. At Bogota Coffee Co. we steam our milk to between 50 – 60c so that it is hot, but not boiling.
If boiling milk is poured onto coffee it will burn it and impair the flavour. We steam every drink to this temperature but if you would like it hotter just ask. Plant milks such as soy are not meant to be heated, they have no saturated fats and separate when they hit hot water. Through trial and error we have found the optimal way to steam soy milk so it can be enjoyed with your coffee.