New Coffees are In-Store Now!

We’ve got some exciting new additions to our coffee line-up – and many more to come over the next month!

Colombian Dark:

Colombian coffee from ASOANEI in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of Northern Colombia is back, this season as a dark roast! This coffee is primarily Typica variety and is produced by approximately 600 Arhuacan small-scale farmers in the Cesar department. The dark roast on this coffee yields a bittersweet taste and a heavy, creamy texture with aromas of toasted graham cracker, baker’s chocolate and smoke.

Mexican Dark:

This dark roast comes from the Triunfo Verde coop in Chiapas, Mexico. Their approximately 350 members grow some of the best coffee in Mexico due in part to the high altitudes of the Triunfo Bioreserve mountains. The coffee has a savoury, bittersweet taste with aromas of chocolate malt and toasted spices.

Decaf Peruvian Medium:

COOPVAMA is located in Jaén, Cajamarca, which is less than 100km south of CENFROCAFE where our North Peruvian Cloudforest coffee is grown. COOPVAMA is a large group with a membership of 1,400 members growing cashew and coffee. This decaf will be available through the end of August.

Celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight With Us!

Fair Trade Fortnight is a campaign run by Fairtrade Canada to promote awareness and encourage participation in the Fair Trade movement. The campaign runs from May 1st to 15th so read on to learn a little more as to why we have committed to serving fairly traded coffee, tea and chocolate. Along with these three products, Fair Trade Canada also recognizes and certifies the following categories of products: cotton, flowers, fruit, gold, grains, nuts and oils, spices and herbs, sports balls, sugar, tea, and wine.

Fair Trade is an alternative trading practice with a humane purpose: to help family farmers in developing countries gain direct access to international markets, as well as to develop the business capacity necessary to compete in the global marketplace. Fair Trade provides a minimum price to farmers to cover the costs of sustainable production. Farmers are also guaranteed a Fair Trade premium that they can invest in their community (e.g. healthcare, education, processing facilities). Coffee producers within the fair-trade system are organized into democratic co-operatives (or associations) which they own and govern. A democratic governing body is elected and they decide how best to invest the premium.

Coffee shrubs take three to five years to yield fruit which makes coffee farmers particularity vulnerable to the volatile international market. Fair Trade is an alternative to the conventional coffee markets. Since opening our Roastery last June, we have bought from 19 different coffee co-ops, 17 of which were brand new relationships for us. We roast about 6,000 lbs a week, that’s about the annual production of one to two small coffee farms and about 200,000 cups of coffee!

Around 90% of the Western tea market is dominated by seven transnational corporations. These corporations control every step of tea’s supply chain – from harvest to distribution. For the past decade, Fair Trade has been providing another option for tea growers. Bridgehead buys tea from growers in India, China, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Sudan and various gardens in South Africa.

Since 1981, Bridgehead has followed international Fair Trade principles and has selected partners that are committed to them.

A Look Through our Roastery Plus Our New Bolivian Coffee

Here’s a look at the the Bridgehead Roastery and the process that our green beans go through to get to your cup of freshly roasted brewed coffee. Keep watching for a discussion around a cup of our new Bolivian coffee with our Roastery team.  Stay tuned for further updates from Guatemala and Mexico over the next two weeks!

Canadian Brewers Cup & Canadian Cup Tasters Events on April 20-21

We are happy to announce that we will be hosting this year’s Canadian Brewers Cup and Canadian Cup Tasters Events on April 20 – 21st at our Roastery. Check out the website for more information: http://brewersandtasters.com/

These are two national competitions and so we look forward to bringing the national specialty coffee community together for a bit of friendly competition and some fun! The winner of the Brewer’s Cup will to go Melbourne, Australia to compete in the international competition, travel and accommodations will be covered! The winner of the Cup Taster’s will go to Nice, France to compete in the international competition, travel and accommodations will be covered.

For our staff, if you would like to compete for Bridgehead, we will be hosting an in-house competition at the end of March to determine the top 2 competitors for each competition. If you are interested in competing, or if you have any questions, please let Laura Perry know via email laura.perry@bridgehead.ca

If you would like to volunteer, please head straight to the website and register using the form. This is an excellent opportunity to mingle with those across the country who are as excited about coffee as we are.

More Great Coffee Updates for February

Our coffees continue to change over to our Southern Harvest line-up over the next month. This week we welcome two new coffees and say goodbye to two old favourites.

• Congolese

Producer: Sopacdi, Kivu in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Roast Profile:  Full Medium, 390 degrees Fahrenheit.
Detailed Flavour Profile: Quite a lot of dried fruit aromas, namely dates and raisins. This is an extremely rare and special coffee that we’re quite pleased to offer. The focus is on balancing nutty roast development with the coffee’s dried fruit and caramel aromas.

• Brazilian

Producer: COOPFAM, Poco Fundo, Minas Girais

Roast Profile: Very Dark
Detailed Roast Profile: The coffee has a strong nutty and peaty aroma owing to the natural process, along with some heavily roasted nuts and smokiness due to the very dark roast profile. It has a very ample body with relatively low bitterness, making it a tasty and very approachable dark roast.

Our Mexican Medium and Mexican Dark roasts will be ending this week, so get them while you can. Enjoy!

Exciting Coffee Updates!

It’s time to welcome some great new coffees to our line-up as well as say goodbye to some old favourites until they are back in season!

We now offer a North Peruvian Cloudforest coffee as well as a South Peruvian Plateau coffee.

• North Peruvian Cloudforest

  Producer:  CENFROCAFE, San Ignacio, Peru.

  Roast Profile:  Full Medium, 391 degrees FahrenheitDetailed Flavour Profile:  Moderate sweetness with slight malic (apple) acidity and medium body.  Aromas are primarily in the roasted nut/roasted malt category with some raisin and honey.  This is quite versatile as it is excellent with dairy and quite tasty black.

The area where the North Peruvian Cloudforest coffee is grown.

• South Peruvian Plateau

  Producer:  Tupac Amaro (under the CECOVASA umbrella cooperative), Puno, Peru

  Roast Profile:  Medium, 386 degrees FahrenheitDetailed Flavour Profile:  Medium sweetness with medium, complex acidity and medium body.  The aroma profile is predominantly roasted nut but with quite apparent tropical fruit (blood  orange, mango) and floral elements.  Still dairy friendly while also much more complex for drinking black.

A grower from CECOVASA in Puno, Peru.

• Papua New Guinea:

  Producer: Purosa, Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

  Detailed Flavour Profile: “Dark” roast with maximum flavour complexity and controlled bitters. It has a bittersweet taste with a great molasses, charred oak, orange peel and smoky aroma with balanced bitters and quite a long aftertaste of charred oak and bitters.

We willl no longer carry the Honduran or the Colombian as they are out of season now. Don’t worry though, they will be back next July once they are in season again!

Coffee Workshops at the Roastery!

We now offer workshops at our Roastery at 130 Anderson St. (at Preston)! The price is $75 per person and space is limited to 24 people per class. We are currently offering two workshops – Be a Barista and Sensual Coffee Tasting.

Sensual Coffee Tasting

In this workshop you’ll get to know coffee sensually through sight, smell, taste and texture. We’ll use the flavour wheel and sniffing jars to explore naturally occurring aromas in coffee. In our tour of origins we’ll talk about the influence that terroir and coffee processing have on the aromas and tastes in your cup.

Sunday, February 24th from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Be a Barista

In this workshop you’ll learn how to pull a shot of excellent espresso, texture milk and have fun with latte art. We’ll also touch on grinder calibration and explore common pitfalls in home espresso making.

Sunday, February 10th from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

To book yourself into a workshop or buy one as a gift, please call
1-800-565-8563 or email sage.mosurinjohn@bridgehead.ca.

The lovely O’Connor staff made this chalkboard!

Sumatran Coffee Made it Back to Permata Gayo

The Sumatran coffee that was roasted in our Roastery made the long trek home – all the way back to where it was grown! The following photos were taken at the Permato Gayo coop where our Sumatran coffee is grown and harvested. 

Armia, the Coffee Manager

 

Armia and the QC Team of Permato Gayo