“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." - Maya Angelou
mycuppa May 2021 Newsletter
May marks the beginning of a period where many of our coffees are changing faster than at other times of the year, and this level of change will continue up until the end of June and into July - perhaps even later as global shipping remains challenging.
New coffees are like any farmed ingredient subjected to the prevailing growing conditions, so they will inherently have particular and specific changes from crop to crop. This creates variety and combats boredom by mixing up tastes.
Inside Secret Label
This month, we explore the creation process behind each Secret Label offering's design.
On that note, we are also excited with May's coffee as it pushes the dark chocolate limits to the absolute max. Bold, powerful and nuanced with fruit-driven complexity.
Smart Pellets - a great Australian invention that's 100% Natural
Smart Pellets are a unique and innovative 100% natural product in our store as a fuel source created from up-cycling coffee chaff as a by-product of the coffee roasting process.
We are pleased to offer you the world's first 100% coffee chaff pellet, ideal for smoking foods or as a biofuel alternative to wood.
With a higher calorific content than hardwood (burns hotter), lower emissions and less ash, Smart Pellets are an exciting breakthrough with impressive environmental credentials.
Closed Friday 21st May
Please be aware our facility requires maintenance works scheduled for Friday, 21st May, that will disrupt our regular roasting, packing and shipping of customer orders.
The mycuppa store will remain open for accepting orders; however, there will be no parcel dispatch on Friday, 21st May 2021. Orders placed after freight collection in the evening of Thursday, 20th May, will be sent on the next available dispatch on Monday, 24th.
May 2021 Secret Label
We have posted a blog for those interested to learn more about how we approach the design of each month's Secret Label coffee offering.
So, let's talk about May's Secret Label.
There's always a hero coffee that has to be at the centre of each month's Secret Label, and for May, it was a fantastic micro-lot that tasted unlike any other coffee from that region.
A silky body with bold fruit notes offers delicious sweetness from the first sip, moving to a rich, lush dark chocolate standing in the cup.
As the fruit note contained apricot and plum, we wanted to fill out this fruit with some contrast by adding a hint of red cherry and yellow raisin.
It's a complex coffee with a striking presence from the first sip and develops a rich compote of fruits and dark chocolate with a long, sweet finish.
We hope you enjoy this month's Secret Label as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Smart Pellets
While roasting raw coffee beans, some of the outer layers of the green coffee are shed as chaff and transported via the hot air stream, exhausted with odours and smoke from thermal reactions.
The chaff exists with the hot air from roasting and is separated by a cyclone for more straightforward removal in bulk, whilst high-temperature thermal oxidisers then treat the odour and smoke.
Coffee chaff generally finds its way into landfills or, to a lesser extent, into gardens and compost piles. Coffee chaff is an excellent solution for improving PH balance with its nitrogen-rich nutrients, but it's challenging to handle as it's light and fluffy and easily blown around by the wind.
For the last ten months, all of our coffee trash has been diverted from landfills and supplied to a dear friend and close colleague who has invented a new and exciting Coffee Pellet solution.
We convert our repurposed coffee chaff into highly efficient smoker pellets.
This fuel source uses actual waste instead of cutting down trees for wood pellets.
We always look for ways to improve our environmental impact and reduce waste. Throwing trash into the dumpster every day was a problem we wanted to eliminate, so it's now being used for upcycling the chaff into a pellet biofuel.
100% NATURAL, smart pellets are food grade (although not meant to be eaten) and consist of just coffee chaff and a small amount of water used in the compression stage to reduce heat - no chemicals, pesticides, artificial binders or glues.
Benefits of Smart Pellets
- Reduces landfill - Diverts tonnes of coffee waste from landfill
- Environmentally friendly - a carbon-neutral technology, no trees are cut down, preserving vital oxygen levels.
- High burn temperatures - calorific Value (19.8Mj/kg), higher than hardwood
- Low emissions - 60g/GJ, pellet combustion emits few particulates compared with fireplaces at up to -840g/GJ, wood stoves at 760g/GJ and mass Heaters at 95gGJ
- Low ash wt% = 11.61 - very low by weight
Smart Pellets are a high-quality product with superior performance compared to wood pellets and are a truly sustainable, carbon neutral, environmentally friendly solution.
Our Smart Pellets come in fully recyclable zip-lock bags of 750g or 1.5kg, so there is no waste.
Smart Pellets are specialty smoker pellets - ideal for BBQs, Grills and smokers, allowing you to impart delicious, modern, exotic flavours to all meats, seafood, poultry, game, cheese and many other foods.
Smart Pellets are also an excellent bio-fuel source for Pellet BBQs, Pellet Grills, Pellet Smokers and Pellet Heaters.
We are not currently stocking any smart pellets, unfortunately.
