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 from Greenbean Coffee Roasters and Pat McArdle from Dreambeans Coffee, so there’s a lot of Pats, and Paul back in the studio.
Pat O’Shaughnessy arrived with the LMFM outside broadcast unit and we set up at the roast house, inviting friends and neighbours around for a (socially distanced) cup of coffee and a pastry.
We’re going to post all four audio clips of the Greenbean / Dreambeans crew over the next while. The first clip is a chat with Greenbean Coffee’s MD and Master Roaster, Pat Grant.
You can listen here. (More clips to follow.)
Pat Grant, Greenbean. LMFM
Click play above to listen.
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Transcript:
Pat O’Shaughnessy LMFM
Yes, Paul, you’re very welcome along to Greenbean coffee roasters on the Coes Road in Dundalk. And I’m delighted to be here because they know this business, a small artisan business, which has grown from humble beginnings to a company that can win a competition with 14,000 entries, the Guild of Fine Food in the UK. I’m delighted here to be talking to Pat Grant. He’s the Managing Director and the Master Roaster. I have to say, Pat, from humble beginnings to win in a competition of that magnitude, right here in the heart of Dundalk is an incredible achievement.
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Thank you very much Pat. Yes, we’re very pleased, we’ve been entering the Great Taste Awards, you know, for several years. And we’ve always won something. One star, two star, but this is the first time we’ve won the three star award. But not only that, I think there were maybe three or four coffee roasters in the island of Ireland, that one three stars this time. However, we were the only one that went further than that to the next level, which is a nomination for the Golden Fork award. And we were the only coffee company in the island of Ireland who are nominated for that.
Pat O’Shaughnessy LMFM
It’s an extraordinary achievement, from, you know, the humble beginnings to go to win an award of such an international acclaim. What does it mean for your business to win that? And secondly, how difficult was it to do that?
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Well, first of all, I’ll tell you what they said, What the testers and the judges said,
Pat O’Shaughnessy LMFM
Because it’s blind tested. You have 355 people who do that, who don’t know what they’re testing, and it’s complete blind test.
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Yes, when we send the sample over to England, it goes in a plain bag, we can’t even send our own Greenbean box. So no one knows exactly what it is that has a code number on it, so that maybe one person or whatever, and they test it, they pull it apart. And there’s, as you said, there are quite a few judges. But this is what they said about our TORERO blend that won the three stars. And I quote: “balanced fruity with cherries and a basket full of red fruit that fills the mouth in a glorious fashion. Clever roasting, all separately, all the same level of roast. This delivers perfect balance and a long, long finish. And when milk was added, we found ourselves transported to coffee heaven. Such skilled blending into a coffee that will always please.”
Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
That is some accolade!
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
They’re not related to me!(Laughs)
Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
I was going to say! It’s an extraordinary achievement, you know, and I can’t emphasize this enough. With 14,000 entries and you come out with an accolade like that, you really must have had your chest puffed out.
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Yeah, we were very pleased and we are pleased. I mean, all our coffees are speciality roasted, single origins. And then blended, you know. And I keep hammering that home to anybody who will listen. You see a lot of people out there, a lot of roasters who will offer a single origin as a final offering. And that will give maybe good acidity or another one will give a good aroma. Another one will give a good aftertaste.But that’s not enough, you need all those attributes.
Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
You need to combine them all. And you’re going to give me a little walk through the premises later on. And we might get a little insight without giving away too many trade secrets. But we might get a little insight to how Greenbean arrived with this final taste that has all of those attributes.
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Well, there, there is no secret. We pay attention to quality. And when we’re buying and when I’m tasting coffees that are offered to me, raw coffees. You know, I don’t ask the price. And when I get a coffee that I like, then I’ll fight tooth and nail to get a cheap price for that particular coffee. But price is secondary, you know, it’s not unimportant. Of course, it’s important. But number one, and from the first time we started in this business over 30 years ago, (I hate to say), that that has been our mantra, and that is quality first.
Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
Just before we go back to the studio, and we’ll be back with more members of your team here. Those beans come from as far away as Tanzania and Ethiopia?
Pat Grant, Greenbean Coffee Roasters
Generally you look at a line around the world along the equator that has the right altitude. So you’re talking about maybe 20 – 25 countries that sell commercial quantities of this coffee, of these coffees, of Arabica coffee. And really what we’re doing is we’re tasting from all of these places on an ongoing basis. What generally happens is if I get a coffee from Tanzania that is really delicious. I will go again next year, looking from the same place to see if I can get the same quality and invariably I don’t because all the ducks have to be in a row in the producing countries to get this, but I will get it from someplace close to it. And this is why blending is so important.
Pat O’Shaughnessy LMFM
Well look, we’ll talk to some of your staff. I know we’re talking to Pat McArdle, and we’ll be talking to Alex Goodman and a barista Barry Gibbs, who’ll tell us all of the fineries about serving coffee and how it should be done. But for now we’ll go back to Studio to you, Paul. I’m going to.. the smell I have to say Paul, here is absolutely exquisite. All of the different blends that they have. It’s amazing. We’ll be back with more of the same in a little while here from Greenbean. They’ve won that super award and we’ll be here to fill you in more information on how it all happens.
Talk to you then.