In April of this year a good friend of ours, Ashley Charlwood, set out to run the Marathon des Sable (MdS), the toughest foot race in the world. Apart from wanting to complete the race and return in one piece to the UK, Ash wanted to raise money for the Myfanwy Townsend Melanoma Research Fund,…
Author: Gareth Kemble
Owner and co-founder of Carvetii Coffee Limited
Taste Cumbria Food Festival Ulverston
On the 24th and 25th May we’ll be taking the Carvetii Espresso Bar on the road once again, this time to take part in the Taste Cumbria Food Festival in Ulverston. For all you coffee buffs out there we’ve got some delicious and varied coffees to sample (and our samples are full cups of coffees!). We’ll…
Espresso is not a flavour descriptor
When I talk to people in Cumbria about espresso it becomes obvious they have a predetermined notion about the drink (this may be true in other regions but I can only comment on my own personal experiences). They associate espresso with a particular taste; they are using the term ‘espresso’ to describe a flavour. When…
Kendal Festival of Food & UK Coffee Week
UK Coffee Week takes place this year between the 7th and 13th April 2014. I suppose the event has two main purposes. Firstly it’s a bit of a celebration of all things coffee, and is another excuse (if we ever needed one) to sit down and enjoy a coffee with friends. Secondly, the event aims…
Blackburn Estate Pick of Harvest
This is our first coffee from Tanzania, delivering flavours of plum, caramel and hints of spice (possbiby a little caraway), combined with a syrupy mouthfeel and lingering notes of cocoa. Blackburn Estate lies on the southern edge of the Ngorongoro Crater, which is a haven for wildlife. As the threat of damage by elephants is…
UK Barista Championships 2014
On Sunday 9th February we’ll be heading down to Birmingham where Gareth will take part in this year’s UK Barista Championships. The format of the competition requires the barista to produce 4 espressos, 4 cappuccinos and 4 of their chosen signature drinks to a panel of judges; throughout the competition another group of judges will…
BUF Remera
We’re delighted to be able to offer BUF Remera again this year. A popular choice last season, it’s now back online and will be served by some of our customers in the coming weeks. We’re huge fans of coffee from Rwanda and as well as being a pleasure to drink, there’s an inspiring story behind…
La Esperanza
This is the first coffee we’ve used from Nicaragua, and although it’s late in the season, it’s holding up very well on the cupping table. Until recently farmers from Nicaragua have not been able to export their coffee individually as single estates. In the past coffees were branded by big export mills and farms lost…
Looking back and pondering the future
As we enter the last few hours of 2013 it seems an appropriate time to look back over the past 12 months and to consider how far we’ve travelled as a business. It’s also a nice time to think a little about what the future might hold. We began 2013 with a determination to improve…
Stages in Roasting
We though it might be a nice idea to outline the coffee roasting process, giving you an idea of how the bean changes throughout the roast. We begin by charging the roasting drum – in other words we heat it to our desired starting temperature. We have a digital probe inside our roasting drum and…
Enjoying our coffee at its best
The approach we take to dating our coffee is a little different than you might find on, say, a bag of coffee purchased from the supermarket. Our philosophy behind this is to provide the consumer with enough information to enable them to enjoy our coffee at its best. To do this we include both a…
Sourcing coffee
We often get asked how we source our coffee, whether or not we source directly from farms or whether our coffee is Fairtrade. The following post aims to outline the process we go through when selecting coffees. We can probably condense the decision making process down to four key questions: 1. Is the coffee in…