This is, without a doubt, the worst-tasting coffee we'll ever sell at Skylark. So why is it interesting, and why are we releasing it?
We’ve made a big deal about our new optical colour sorter that allows us to sort out less desirable beans. It's particularly good at removing underripe ‘quakers’, which are fairly common and can have a popcorn-like taste that most specialty coffee people don't prefer. Sorting out quakers has significantly improved the quality of our coffees, even adding .5 to 2 points cup score depending on the lot. It's a huge benefit, and we hope you've tasted the difference!
Unfortunately, this has created the new problem of additional waste. We don't want to just throw away the quakers – they can still provide a solid, caffeinated cup of joe. And it'd be dishonest for us to sneak them back into our blended coffees, despite this being a common habit among some other roasters.
So we're giving you, our customers, a chance to help out! We're re-sorting the quakers, roasting them a bit darker, adding back some decent beans that the colour sorter decided are borderline, and selling them as their own special entity. Each box or bag will contain a mix of quakers from a variety of origins, processes, and quality levels. It'll be a bit of a grab-bag depending on the day, with each dose ranging somewhere from 'wholesome batch brew/house coffee' vibes to 'whoa, putting hair on a sailor's chest' energy, which we reckon is part of the fun.
You'll be rewarded for this experience by the knowledge that you're contributing to a lot less waste, funding our social and environmental projects, and rescuing cute, helpless beans that would be otherwise destined for the compost. Perfect for people who like coffee to taste like coffee, Robusta lovers, or even that instant coffee drinker in your life (you know the one).
We've tried to price these in such a way that we just cover costs of utilities, labour, packaging, our donations to charity, and a teensy bit of overhead ... In other words, after these costs, the coffee itself is essentially free, to take into account that it's basically a waste product that we don't think should be wasted!
And a special tip to those who have just bought a new coffee grinder: grinders will work more consistently if you grind 5-10 kgs of coffee through them first to give the new burrs a good run-in, and these quakers are the perfect low-cost way to achieve that.
Elevation: Mixed
Varietal: Mixed
Cup score: 73-81
Price paid per kg: £5-60
Process: Mixed
