Father Christmas made a stop at HQ, delivering a festive stash of caffeinated delights from UK coffee and tea specialists, Yawn Brew. The real test? Whether a freshly poured Yawn espresso can keep the Gravel Union crew energised, alert and firing on all cylinders through the festive run-up. We’ve put it to work. Read on to see how it performed…
We’ve been waiting ages to shoehorn the words “a cornucopia of caffeinated comestibles” into a Gravel Union article, so it’s a good job that Yawn Brew were there to help us out! Although Yawn don’t produce a speciality gravel coffee, they’re based right on the edge of the UK’s Peak District, the UK’s heartland for adventurous gravel riding, so surely some of this gravelly heritage must have rubbed off into their coffee?
Yawn sent us some fantastic pre-Christmas goodies, including one of their pioneering coffee advent calendars. Yawn were the first company to produce an advent calendar filled to the brim with freshly roasted coffee beans and they’ve gone on to sell more than 40,000 of them! Yawn offer the advent calendar in a variety of formats so that whether you prefer whole beans, cafetière grind, filter/V60/drip grind, aeropress/moka grind or espresso grind, they will have something for you. Seeing as the Gravel Union HQ is equipped with a grinder, we opted for whole beans. Each of the windows contains a small recyclable sachet containing 18g of freshly roasted beans – just enough for a double shot (or two singles depending on your preference). We went for the “Ultimate” lineup, which gave us 24 pouches of different beans, roasted and packed in mid-November for maximum freshness.
Anyone who has ever ground their own beans at home will know that getting that grind ‘dialled in’ just right can be a bit of a lottery, so you might wonder about the sense of offering 18g servings? The answer is that freshly ground beans always offer the best possible flavour (compared to pre-ground coffee), so it’s generally worth the gamble that your grind might not be quite right. If nothing else, having 24 different beans to try will be a good way to help you improve your barista skills….
Although we were a few days late to the advent calendar party, we figured there’s nothing wrong with drinking more than one cup of delicious coffee each day, so we’ll soon catch up. Our first brew was Jamaican Blue Mountain Grade 1 beans – described by Yawn Brew as “a true rarity in the world of coffee.” The beans are the Typica variant of Arabica and have been grown in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica since 1728. Yawn’s tasting notes (which they offer for each of the beans) say “Citrus, chocolate, nuts, floral.”
The Gravel Union tasting notes would say “Delicious. Perfect for a mid-morning espresso macchiato.” As well as tasting notes, Yawn’s packaging offers a simple brewing guide for each of the different types of grind that they offer, so you have no excuse for not creating the perfect coffee.
If a selection of 24 varieties of beans wasn’t enough to keep us caffeinated for the foreseeable future, Yawn also sent us three 250g bags of beans from different coffee growing regions across the world, a Brazilian Daterra Bourbon, a Rwandan Anaerobic MicroLot and finally a Brazilian Fazenda Sun Dried. That should keep the Gravel Union team (and future visitors) very happy!
You can find the details on all of Yawn Brew’s coffees (including a Costa Rican Swiss Water DeCaf for anyone trying to reduce their caffeine intake), over on their website. Coffee prices are from £7.50 for 250g. Yawn still have some coffee advent calendars (with imperfect boxes) available, with prices from £32. They offer European and Worldwide delivery, including a ‘duty paid’ option to make international orders less of a hassle.