In Claire's Cup: Fullsteam Espresso
Claire Wallace is a Coffee Roaster, a Q-Grade certified taster and the UK’s 2nd best Barista. Here she’s letting us know the coffee she’s currently drinking as well as a bit about its backstory and what makes it unique. This month Claire has been savouring our flagship coffee., Fullsteam Espresso, which is a medium espresso roast made entirely of beans from Colombia.
In 2007 Volcano Coffee Works founder, Kurt Stewart, was on the road to recovery from a near fatal motorbike accident. Fuelled with the conviction that he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, Kurt signed himself off benefits and went for a part-time job in a coffee roastery. It was here, outside of business hours, that Kurt would use the idle roaster to experiment with his own beans before serving the perfected roasts from the back of a modified Ape cart in West Norwood on the weekends. The business was called Fullsteam espresso (later becoming Volcano Coffee in 2010) and today is honoured with our flagship espresso coffee of the same name.
Now in its second iteration the Fullsteam is comprised of beans from smallholding farmers in the Risaralda region of West-central Colombia. We believe in living the changes we want to see in the world and through our long term commitment to these beans we’ve been able to participate in creating an alternate model for farmers to sell their coffee. In this model prices are first guaranteed and stable for farmers but also calculated to factor in local costs of production and ensure a sustainable profit.
"This is a medium roast, best suited to espresso but also balanced enough to make a tasty filter brew too. With that in mind I'd suggest trying it as a black coffee which is where I pick up notes of apple and stone fruit. With milk this mellows a little to create a quite light and sweet flat white."
