What is a cortado coffee, or a café cortado? What is a cortado? How is it different from a macchiato? And why are people everywhere  asking for it in coffee shops these days? There's a definite trend in coffee consumption towards stronger drinks with more coffee and less milk. As coffee gets better generally, our tastes is for more  flavour in our cup and less dilution, thus, the latte is giving way to the flat white, the cafe au lait Read More [...]

Coffee Supply: Global Logistics Problems. Coffee bean shortage. Update: 28 February 2022. The Tanzanian has arrived. Following further delays caused by storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin coming in quick succession, the coffee eventially got shipped and it arrived this morning. We'll be roasting today and Torero will be sent out tomorrow. Update: 10 February 2022. We've just had a call to say that our coffee has docked in Rotterdam and will be on its way to us today. So it Read More [...]

The first coffee drinkers. Kaldi the Abyssinian goatherd Legend has it that sometime around 850 AD, an Abyssinian (Ethiopian) goat herder named Kaldi was the first to recognize the potential of the beans that grew in the ancient coffee forests high on the Ethiopian plateau. According to legend, Kaldi discovered coffee after observing that his previously “irreproachable” goats became so lively after eating the berries from a certain tree that they could not get to sleep at night. Kaldi Read More [...]

Coffee Leaf Rust: An Existential Threat? In 2012 the Royal Botanic Kew Gardens in London released a ground-breaking study that used computer modelling to predict how climate change would impact the future of wild Arabica coffee plants. The bleak findings shared that if trends continue Arabica coffee could be extinct in 70 years. Headlines proclaiming coffee’s possible extinction in 2050 appeared in multiple media channels throughout the world and continues to pick up interest today. Coffee was on the endangered Read More [...]

Pat McArdle Dreambeans Coffee LMFM When our TORERO blend won THREE STARS at the Great Taste Awards and became the first Irish coffee blend ever to be nominated for a Golden Fork Award, our local radio station, LMFM came to the roast house one Friday morning in October to talk to us about the award and about what makes Greenbean / Dreambeans Coffee so special. We're going to post all four audio clips of the Greenbean / Dreambeans crew over the next while. This Read More [...]

The Greenbean / Dreambeans Roast House LMFM When our TORERO blend won THREE STARS at the Great Taste Awards and became the first Irish coffee blend ever to be nominated for a Golden Fork Award, our local radio station, LMFM came to the roast house one Friday morning in October to talk to us about the award and about what makes Greenbean / Dreambeans Coffee so special. We're going to post all four audio clips of the Greenbean / Dreambeans crew over the next Read More [...]

TORERO 3 Star Great Taste Award on LMFM When our TORERO blend won THREE STARS at the Great Taste Awards and became the first Irish coffee blend ever to be nominated for a Golden Fork Award, our local radio station, LMFM came to the roast house one Friday morning in October to talk to us about the award and about what makes Greenbean / Dreambeans Coffee so special. We're going to post all four audio clips of the Greenbean / Dreambeans crew over the Read More [...]

TORERO 3 Star Great Taste Award on LMFM When our TORERO coffee blend won THREE STARS at the Great Taste Awards and became the first Irish coffee blend ever to be nominated for a Golden Fork Award, our local radio station, LMFM came to the roast house one Friday morning in October to talk to us about the award and about what makes Greenbean / Dreambeans Coffee so special. It can seem little confusing at times because there's Pat O'Shaughnessy from LMFM, Pat Grant Read More [...]

Wow! Our Torero blend has just won THREE STARS at the 2021 Great Taste Awards! What a result! The judges LOVED it and gave it the highest award possible, three gold stars! This is what they said about it: Torero. “Balanced. Fruity with cherries and a basketful of red fruits that fill the mouth in a glorious fashion. Clever roasting – all separately, all the same level of roast. This delivers perfect balance and a long, long Read More [...]

Coffee prices are rising around the world A combination of drought, frost and freight prices has brought coffee prices to a level that hasn't been seen for nearly a decade. Rising freight costs, reduced shipping capacity and increase consumption of coffee have come together to drive the price ever upwards. It is with great reluctance that we will have to increase the price of all our coffee blends from the beginning of September 2021. This is Dreambeans' first ever price increase. We have absorbed Read More [...]