Three medals at the Golden Bean, and what we changed after

The Golden Bean is the largest coffee roasting competition in the world. In 2024 we came away with one Silver and two Bronze.

We are proud of it. We are also aware that a medal is a photograph of one roast on one day, judged by people who tasted several hundred coffees that week, and that nobody has ever had a better morning because of somebody else's award.

What the scoresheets were for

The medals go on the wall. The scoresheets went on the roaster.

Competition feedback is the only structured, blind, external opinion most roasters ever get. Your regulars are kind. Your staff work for you. A judge who does not know your name and has already tasted two hundred coffees before yours is the one honest palate in the building.

The one change worth naming

The clearest note across our sheets was about consistency between batches rather than the profile of any single one. So we tightened batch logging — same drop temperature, same development time, recorded every time rather than when someone remembered.

It is a boring change. It is also the reason a bag of Lucky Blend in March tastes like a bag of Lucky Blend in September, which matters far more to somebody buying coffee every fortnight than a medal does.

Lucky Blend is the one that placed

If you want to taste what got judged, Lucky Blend is the one. Black tea, sweet, strawberry jam, milk chocolate. Not too acidic, not overly fruity. It is our most popular blend and it is excellent as espresso.

It is also the bag we hand to people who tell us they do not like specialty coffee, which we think is a better test than any competition.