Did we mention? We’re from Walthamstow. And there’s a little bit (OK, a lot) of our home in everything we do. With that in mind, it makes sense that we’d put a bit of home in our hero coffee. Meet our Forest Blend – named after London’s best borough, Waltham Forest.

To make this signature specialty brew, we seasonally source top grade beans and roast them with a little Walthamstow love, to create a coffee that works any way, with milk or without. Tasting notes, quality and consistency remain the same, meaning a cup of Forest Blend always tastes like a warm welcome home.

Forest Blend

At Perky Blenders, we like to think of ourselves as one big family. That’s because family is in the very foundations of our business: we were family-formed back in 2015 by brothers Tom and Adam Cozens, along with Adam’s wife, Victoria. And even back then, operating as a humble little coffee cart outside St James’ Street station, we had the same aims as we do now: to be responsible, friendly and accessible to all. It’s still us here. Hello. And though we’ve since stretched our latte-fuelled legs beyond that converted three-wheeled Piaggio Ape, we’re the same coffee up-and-comers waxing lyrical about single origin beans to the good people of Waltham Forest. A few years on, we now have four shops within the borough, and we supply our coffee to over 50 stores – including Wholefoods, the award-winning Eat17 Spar shops and big chill. In the last few years, we’ve been featured in the Indy Best’s ‘Best Coffee Subscription Services,’ and have recently won two Time Out Awards as the ‘Best Coffee Place’ within three London Postcodes. And we’ve opened our second roastery, with a state-of-the-art 20kg Petrocini Specialty Roaster that we’re pretty proud of, and plenty more space to swing cats/coffee sacks. When all this is over, we’d love you to drop by for a visit. These are strange times, but one bonus is that we’re meeting lots of friendly new (virtual) faces via the subscription side of our business.

Perky Blenders Coffee Roasters

This producer group is part of the Cooperativa de Caficultores de Alto Occidente de Caldas which was established in 1964. The San Lorenzo indigenous group is based in the Rio Sucio municipality of Caldas where there are 11,500 inhabitants with 1,150 farmers growing and producing coffee within the 21 communities. This region until recently was heavily inhabited by paramilitary groups and guerrillas who looked to control this central corridor in Colombia. This region has not been known for specialty production but as the tensions ease and access has improved it is now possible to demonstrate the quality of the coffees available.

The indigenous inhabitants believe in the Pacha Mama where they see the land as a living being. To them it is their duty to protect the natural environment and have as little impact as possible from their farming of coffee and to leave it as it has always been. Each farmer has approximately 0.5 Ha of land in which they have about 2500 coffee trees.

During the harvest the families will work with their neighbours to select ripe cherry before de-pulping in micro-beneficios where they will then de-pulp and ferment the coffee in water. The coffee is then washed and put out to dry on small drying patios on the roofs of the houses where they will dry it for one to two weeks depending on the weather. They then deliver it to the Cooperative where it is assessed and categorised before being allowed to rest and then milled for shipment.

Single Origin

San Francisco is the name of one district in the ‘Cordillera Central’ also called ‘La Zona de los Santos’ but it is also the name of the farm of Edgar Fallas Solis, his wife Ligia and their son Willian. The family owns 10-12 hectares of coffees intercropped with avocados, citrus and banana trees. Edgar is the second generation working on this 55-year-old farm. Willian, the son, took coffee brewing classes for 4 years and is now competing and won a national championship. He knows a lot about the coffee supply chain and quality and will take over the farm when his dad retires.

Single Origin Filter

About the coffee

This coffee is produced by an association of small producers from El Caracol, a small village in the San Pedro area of the Copan department. The producers contributing to this lot own on average between 3 and 5 hectares of land and they mostly grow Catuai, Parainema, IHCAFE 90 and Lempira varieties. The area has an ideal climate for coffee growing, nestled between mountains the cool night time temperatures prolongs the maturation of the coffee cherries and the soils are still rich with nutrients.The coffee was picked by the producers and their families themselves and processed at a centralised wet-mill before being dried on raised beds. These producers haven't yet produced micro-lots, but this blend was intended to incentivise them to improve picking and processing in order to gain quality premiums.

Water Decaffeination Process

This process was first discovered by a scientist called Kurt Zosel at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in 1967 as he was looking at new ways of separating mixtures of substances. In 1988, a German decaffeination company called CR3 developed this process for decaffeination whereby natural carbon dioxide (which comes from prehistoric underground lakes) is combined with water to create ‘sub-critical’ conditions which creates a highly solvent substance for caffeine in coffee. It is a gentle, natural and organically certified process and the good caffeine selectivity of the carbon dioxide guarantees a high retention level of other coffee components which contribute to taste and aroma.

The process

The green beans enter a ‘pre-treatment’ vessel where they are cleaned and moistened with water before being brought into contact with pressurised liquid carbon dioxide. When the green coffee beans absorb the water, they expand and the pores are opened resulting in the caffeine molecules becoming mobile.

After the water has been added, the beans are then brought into contact with the pressurised liquid carbon dioxide which combines with the water to essentially form sparkling water. The carbon dioxide circulates through the beans and acts like a magnet, drawing out the mobile caffeine molecules.

The sparkling water then enters an evaporator which precipitates the caffeine rich carbon dioxide out of the water. The now caffeine free water is pumped back into the vessel for a new cycle.

This cycle is repeated until the required residual caffeine level is reached. Once this has happened, the circulation of carbon dioxide is stopped and the green beans are discharged into a drier.

The decaffeinated coffee is then gently dried until it reaches its original moisture content, after which it is ready for roasting! 

Decaf

About the coffee (Colombia)
The Colombian coffee component of this blend was produced by 52 smallholder coffee producers from the region of Inzá, a municipality located in the corner of the Department of Cauca and looking out to the west over the Pacific Ocean. The farmers are members of an organisation called ASORCAFE (Asociación de Productores de Café del Oriente Caucano) that represents some 450 producers from across the Department. This specific lot, however, has been selected only from growers hailing from the neighbouring sub-municipalities of Pedregal and San Antonio for it's very high cup quality. 

About the coffee (Costa Rica)
San Francisco is the name of one district in the ‘Cordillera Central’ also called ‘La Zona de los Santos’ but it is also the name of the farm of Edgar Fallas Solis, his wife Ligia and their son Willian. The family owns 10-12 hectares of coffees intercropped with avocados, citrus and banana trees. Edgar is the second generation working on this 55-year-old farm. Willian, the son, took coffee brewing classes for 4 years and is now competing and won a national championship. He knows a lot about the coffee supply chain and quality and will take over the farm when his dad retires.

4.3

Perky Blenders Coffee Roasters

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

Coffee items

Blend of the Month

Decaf

Forest Blend

Single Origin

Single Origin Filter