Winter’s Blend – medium plus roast 350g (the 2025 edition)

It changes yearly, but I always use Uganda Bugisu as the base: it has great body, and lovely chocolate-carob notes. This year the two ‘highlights’ in the blend are from Colombia and Burundi. A beautiful Colombia from the Caldas region adds body, rich malic acidity (think red apples) and lovely layers of cocoa with murmurs of a sherry-cask finish (?!!).

And lastly, the find of this season is a gorgeous Burundi Ngozi. I usually use this coffee in Summer’s Blend for its honey-pineapple-sugar-cane character, but the latest harvest is a totally different beast! It is chocolaty, with lovely accents of demerara sugar, and spiced cookies. It also brings a juicy acidity to the blend, counterbalancing the denser richer Bugisu and Caldas. There’s also a touch of that typical Burundi sweetness that adds some richness, roundness and mouthfeel. 

It is roasted 208 (medium plus) with a low, slow development in the roaster, making this year’s Winter’s Blend a full-bodied, chocolaty, nourishing, nurturing counterpart to those wintry mauves and greys, and is guaranteed to make every mountainous molehill feel like a mere storm in a coffee cup… ☺️👌“