About Our Coffee
At the Skeff; Bar and Kitchen our coffee is freshly brewed to appeal to Coffee Lovers everywhere. We are proud to use coffee beans from Lavazza, the care and attention they put into their product means we can provide our customers with smooth and rich coffee, the best in Galway city.
The Coffee Bean Path: Was happens from the moment the bean is picked till you take the 1st Sip
The coffee ‘path’ starts between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, where Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephora (known as Robusta) grow at altitudes ranging from about 650 to 6,500 feet (200 to 2,000 m).
The two tropical plant species, from the Rubiaceae family (Coffea genus), produce little green berries that, as they ripen, grow to the size of a cherry that can be bright red or dark yellow.
From here, Lavazza embarks on a fascinating and complex path that, for over 100 years, has focused on just one basic objective. This is to guarantee excellent and constant results to consumers around the world who consider the Lavazza brand the symbol of quality.
Over 100 years ago, Luigi Lavazza created the concept of “blend”. A fundamental part of making a quality beverage, the finest blends come from a mixture of different coffee varieties, up to even five or six.
For example, blends made exclusively with arabica are sweeter and more fragrant, while blends of arabica and robusta have a more full-bodied and intense flavour. With over 100 years of experience, today Lavazza collates all the sensory characteristics in the cup with 100 per cent arabica blends as well as blends with both arabica and robusta.
The various coffees from Brazil and Central America allow Lavazza to create a wide range of blends with different flavours and aromas. For instance, full, chocolaty flavours from Brazilian beans, or fragrant, delicate, mildly acidic and washed arabica beans from Central America are used.
Careful grinding
The degree of grinding alters the coffee’s resistance to the passage of water, affecting the brewing speed and thus the sensory characteristics of the beverage in the cup, regardless of how it is prepared. With whole-bean coffee, the barperson handles the grinding process, while with ground coffee this is done by the company marketing it. This is also a very delicate phase when it comes to making a good cup of coffee and Lavazza has come up with a high-tech procedure that grinds between 4,409 and 6,613 lb of roasted coffee per hour, with the necessary micrometric adjustments based on how the coffee will be brewed.
Storage and packaging
Here again, experience and the quest for excellence have driven us to perfect highly specific techniques. When coffee releases carbon dioxide during storage, it oxidises and turns rancid. In order to prevent this, we have adopted a fluxing system using inert gas (degassing). This guarantees rapid and complete dispersion of the carbon dioxide, thus keeping in all the coffee’s aroma.
Whether we’re talking about ground coffee or beans, the roasted coffee must be packaged to preserve all its sensory qualities. That’s why the choice of packaging materials and techniques is fundamental. Lavazza’s answer in this case is twofold, vacuum packing and the use of high-barrier packaging material.
The latter protects the contents from light, moisture and air. But that’s not all: the 35.2-oz (1 kg) packages of whole-bean coffee are fitted with a one-way valve. With this device, the carbon dioxide produced by the beans can ‘leave’ the package with no air getting in.
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