Motion Lab
Terraced coffee plantations running down a green hillside.

Tidepool Roasters / Falmouth

Coffee from the edge of the map.

We buy from five farms, roast on a 12 kg drum on Tuesdays, and put the roast date on the bag instead of a best-before. Everything else is detail.

Horizontal scroll and parallax

From a farm to your Tuesday

  1. 01 — Origin

    Five farms, named

    Huila, Nyeri, Yirgacheffe, Antigua and one small lot from Sumatra we buy when it is good and skip when it is not. Every bag says which farm, which lot, and what we paid for it. The last part is unusual and it should not be.

    A woven basket heaped with freshly picked red coffee cherries.

  2. 02 — Altitude

    Between 1,400 and 2,100 metres

    Higher grows slower, and slower grows denser. A dense bean takes heat differently, holds acidity, and forgives a roaster less. We buy high and then have to earn it on the drum.

    A hillside coffee plantation above a valley, drying structures in the foreground.

  3. 03 — Process

    Washed, mostly

    Washed for clarity, natural when the farm does it properly and the fruit is worth showing. We do not buy experimental ferments. They are interesting once and then you have to drink the rest of the bag.

    Coffee cherries spread across raised drying beds in full sun.

  4. 04 — Roast

    Twelve kilos at a time

    First crack at around nine minutes, drop between eleven and twelve depending on the lot. We log every batch and publish the curve. If a roast goes long we sell it as what it is rather than renaming it.

    Roasted beans turning in the cooling tray of a drum roaster.

  5. 05 — Cup

    Ten days after the date on the bag

    Rest it. Grind it coarse for filter, finer than you think for espresso, and use more coffee than the packet says. If it tastes thin, that is almost always the answer.

    A cup of coffee seen from above, latte art in a white ceramic cup.

Video, frame by frame

Eleven minutes, at your pace

This is the drum on a Tuesday, filmed at 100 frames a second and cut to sixty. Scroll it forwards and back — the beans move when you move, because the whole clip is sitting in memory as frames rather than playing as video.

Roasted coffee beans turning inside the drum of a roasting machine.

  1. 01

    Charge. The drum is at 190°C and the beans drop the temperature by a hundred degrees in ninety seconds.

  2. 02

    Yellowing, around six minutes. The grassy smell goes and the beans start to smell like bread.

  3. 03

    First crack at 9:04. From here we have about two and a half minutes to decide what this coffee is.

Roast

The roast curve, published

Bean temperature against time for our Huila washed, batch 219. First crack at 9:04, dropped at 11:40. Every batch we sell has one of these and we will send you the file if you ask.

Roast curve, Huila washed, batch 219Bean temperature against time over eleven minutes and forty seconds. Charge at 0:00, 190°C. Turnaround at 1:40, 92°C. Yellowing at 6:20, 150°C. First crack at 9:04, 196°C. Drop at 11:40, 209°C. The same figures are in the table below this chart.801201602000:003:006:009:0012:00TurnaroundFirst crackDrop
Roast log for Huila washed, batch 219
TimeBean tempEvent
0:00190°CCharge
1:4092°CTurnaround
6:20150°CYellowing
9:04196°CFirst crack
11:40209°CDrop

Coffee

The range

Six coffees. Four are always on, two rotate.

Showing 6 of 6 coffees

  • Filter

    Huila

    Colombia

    Red apple, cane sugar, cocoa

    £11.50

  • Filter

    Nyeri

    Kenya

    Blackcurrant, tomato leaf, grapefruit

    £13.00

  • Filter

    Yirgacheffe

    Ethiopia

    Bergamot, peach, jasmine

    £12.50

  • Espresso

    Antigua

    Guatemala

    Dark chocolate, orange peel, almond

    £11.00

  • Espresso

    Harbour

    Blend

    Hazelnut, toffee, dried fig

    £10.50

  • Decaf

    Nightshift

    Colombia

    Sugarcane EA. Plum, cocoa, brown sugar

    £12.00

Cupping

The same six coffees, measured

Every roaster scores a lot on these axes before deciding what to write on the bag. Point at a coffee and the shape changes — the wheel is the score sheet, the sentence underneath is what we made of it.

AcidityBodySweetnessFruitCocoaFinish

Huila — Red apple, cane sugar, cocoa

Cupping scores out of ten for every coffee in the range
CoffeeAcidBodySweeFruiCocoFini
768676
956938
847827
586397
497286
578585

The roastery

Then it is yours

Rest it ten days, grind coarse, and use more coffee than the packet says. Brew time is the one variable we cannot set for you.

Brewed coffee dripping into a glass carafe on a scale.

Subscription

Subscription

Roasted Tuesday, posted Tuesday, with you Thursday. Pause it whenever, from the email, without talking to anyone.

  • One bag

    £11

    every two weeks

    • 250 g, your choice of roast
    • Roast date on the bag
    • Pause or cancel from any email

  • Two bags

    £21

    every two weeks

    • 500 g across two coffees
    • One rotating lot each time
    • Free postage
    • Pause or cancel from any email

  • The lot

    £38

    monthly

    • 1 kg, roasted to order
    • Batch curve included
    • Free postage
    • First refusal on micro-lots

Tidepool Roasters

A railway arch in Falmouth, a 12 kg drum, and a van that mostly starts.

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