Butterworth and Son’s head of quality control and sensory Will Greavner shares the secrets of how he has come up with this year’s Winter Coffee blend

Butterworth and Son, award-winning coffee roasters and a favourite among Suffolk residents, has recently introduced its Winter Coffee blend for 2024.

The blend was crafted at its roastery to provide comforting flavour notes that everyone can enjoy during the cold winter months. It's a remarkable coffee for the season with hints of candied oranges, rich preserves and warm spices.

Will Greavner, Butterworth and Son’s head of quality copntrol and sensory, shares the fascinating story behind the creation of this coffee blend:

In 2023 we introduced Winter Coffee, featuring two interesting coffees from Colombia infused with cinnamon and red berries. This year, we wanted to create an evocative seasonal coffee that showcased themed flavours through more traditional processes.

I began by considering flavours and aromas most associated with Christmas and the winter months. However, ideas like Yankee Candles and honey-glazed ham weren't practical for a coffee blend, so I turned to more realistic inspirations.

I drew from baked goods prepared by loved ones, jams found in fancy hampers, dried oranges used for decoration and candied oranges for garnish.

The first step in creating the blend profile was selecting a coffee to serve as the base. This coffee needed to set a seasonal tone with notes of fruits and spices. It acts like an initial sketch underneath a final piece, with the detail coming in later additions, in this case, more coffee.

I wanted something balanced and not too overpowering. Ultimately, I chose a delicious washed Colombian coffee that met all the criteria – fruity, spiced and easy to drink. It was the perfect starting point for this project.

Next, I aimed to amplify the sweetness and introduce stone-fruit notes, echoing the jams and preserves I had referenced. I achieved this with a washed Peruvian coffee that underwent a 72-hour dry fermentation in an oxygen-free (anoxic) environment.

In this process, the coffee cherry is washed away from the seed, leaving behind the sticky ‘mucilage’ to aid in fermentation. The beans are then sealed in bags inside airtight tanks to develop their flavours. This is called ‘dry fermentation’ as the beans sit in their moisture without the addition of water or yeast. Afterwards, the beans are washed thoroughly and left to dry for many days.

Thanks to this lengthy process, the resulting flavours are rich and sweet with great depth. Since the fruit was removed before fermentation, we gently enhanced the flavours without addingfermentation notes. This contrasts with natural anoxic coffees, where the fruit remains on the bean, resulting in very 'funky' fruit nuances. If we had used a natural anoxic bean for this year’s Winter Coffee it would have disrupted the balance and overall versatility of the blend due to its intensity and atypical flavour profile.

After incorporating the Peruvian coffee, I created several test profiles using different bean ratios to determine which blend we liked best.

While we were pleased with the initial results, we wanted to enhance it further. The final piece of the puzzle was selecting another coffee to add depth and bring everything together. I chose a sweet and juicy washed Rwandan coffee featuring notes of apricot, currants and caramel. We then created more tests with varying ratios to find the best profile.

The final blend needed to be absolutely delicious while remaining true to the original brief. The favourite ratio emerged as 3:1:1, with Colombia making up the bulk of the blend and the two additional coffees working together in equal parts to complement and enhance the Colombian base. With that, our Winter Coffee for 2024 was complete.

We found this blend is best enjoyed as espresso, as its richness and heavy mouthfeel capture the essence of winter well. It also performs admirably as filter coffee or using other brewingmethods, provided you increase the coffee dose by one-third to achieve a comparable heavy texture.

We hope you’ll enjoy the Winter Coffee as much as we do at the roastery.

• Find the Winter Coffee on Butterworth and Son’s website: butterworthandson.co.uk. It’s also available at Wright’s café in Bury St Edmunds as guest espresso and retail coffee.