Team Visit to Heartland
As you may have noticed, we weren’t in the shop on Monday 20/02. First of all, I hope you can accept our humblest apologies for depriving you of your Monday morning caffeine hit! However, rest assured that the reason for our absence in Prov that day was for the betterment of the team, our cafe and, ultimately, the quality of YOUR experience.
So, where were we? Well, the lovely team at Heartland Coffee Roaasters kindly invited us over for some intensive, in depth and very interesting training. Nathan, Managing Director of Heartland, led us around the roastery giving a guided tour of all the equipment and getting acquianted with the roasting process; from green coffee beans to freshly roasted coffee, ready to grind!
We were given an in-depth look at the story of their coffee, from farm to mug, telling us about the personal relationships built up with the farmers of Murambi Hill in Burundi (where Nathan was lucky enough to visit in 2022!) and many more who they’ve met and had the privilege of working with over their 20 years of business. What was most striking to us, and a real indication of Heartland’s ethos and values, was their intention to funnel some of the sales made from thier Burundi coffee back into the community in Africa, where they can fund local projects and ammenities. Wow!
Numbers, Numbers, Numbers
When the beans come from the farms in South America, Africa and even India, they come in as “green” coffee. These “green beans” then go into the roaster (pictured above) and heated up to 195C! It’s not just a case of turning on the oven and setting a timer however, as the temperature is closely monitored and controlled by the Roaster, Quinn (whom you may remember from working behind the bar here at Prov not so long ago!). Each coffee has a different method, and some coffees will be more lightly roasted than others. Just for reference, Heartland’s best selling blend, Landmark is roasted a little longer than their Single Origin beans to give it its distinctive darker flavour - perfect for serving in most of our coffees here!
Once the beans have been roasted, they are quality checked in a number of ways including weight, density and colour (using UV light). However, what it all really boild down to in the end is the ultimate test: how does it taste?
Time for a brew…
Every morning, Nathan and Quinn will “cup” all their coffees, tasting each one to ensure that their process is working and that their coffees are always up to a high standard! Every Friday, the whole team gets involved and it’s a bit more of a social affair. Most of the time, the team nod to each other in acknowledgment that “yes, all is good”, though now and again they may notice slight differences in flavour which means they might need to change some slight variable in the process to ensure the coffee is as delicious as we have come to expect. Nathan is not afraid of trial and error, sometimes going through entire bags of coffee to ensure the final, roasted product is up to scratch!
““We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee.””
All the minutiae, variables and intense coffee-ness could definitely lead us to believe that Heartland, or even Prov, might want to push our guests into trying the wildest, strangest and punchiest coffees out there; that there is an elitism in the coffee world similar to old school wine tasting. However, Nathan (and Prov for that matter!) are super clear about this: what matters most is YOU! What matters is YOUR experience of coffee and how you like to drink it. If you love Espressos, great! Which coffee would you like to try today? If you love vanilla iced lattes, awesome! How much vanilla would you like?
Coffee is about bringing people together and the experiences we make along the way. Hopefully, by taking our team to Heartland for the day, we’re able to better host those experiences for you by introducing a little caffeine and a whole lotta flavour!