What your barista wishes you knew...

In the speciality coffee world it can seem that there are a lot of ‘rules’ and certain jargon-y terms that can be a bit overwhelming. But at Garage we love a chat and the opportunity to make what we do more accessible and explain WHY we are doing it. So here we have collated a little list of some FAQ’s that tend to crop up in our shops!

Why we don’t tend to have dark roasts

Think of us as you would a Michelin star chef cooking a filet mignon. We don’t want to roast the flavour, and therefore the life out of them beans! If you think of coffee roasting like cooking a steak then our tendency to stay away from darker roasts should make sense. The more well done it is, the less of those subtle, natural flavours there will be.

Why do we bother to weigh every shot?

You may have seen us being rather meticulous with weighing the ground coffee before we put it into the machine to extract. When we remove the grounds with a teaspoon don’t fret, we’re not being stingy with your coffee! We are getting the ground coffee to the exact weight for our recipe. There are several variables included in our recipe and they determine how tasty the espresso is; including the dose (weight of dry grounds), length of time the extraction takes and the size of the grind (how coarse or how fine). The weighing is crucial to our coffee making so we can get the espresso tasting perfect!

Why ‘small’ cups?
Yes you’re right- our cups are a much humbler size than that of certain high street haunts. But you’re going to thank us for it, honest! By serving in 6oz cups for flat whites and 8oz cups for latte/cappuccino/long black we ensure that our coffee is at its punchiest and most flavourful, after all if we had larger cup sizes the milk/water to coffee ratio would be out of whack and taste would be compromised which is a no go thank you very much!

Why don’t you do syrups?

We can’t deny that some flavours do pair really well with coffee but for us the beans are the stars of the show! Through roasting we are bringing out some of the natural flavour notes in the various coffees. For example, our house blend the Maypole has natural tasting notes of milk chocolate, fig and hazelnut so should satisfy that craving for gorgeous smoothness. On the opposite end of the spectrum we sometimes have a naturally processed coffee on single origin espresso which will be much more of a fruity hit. If you’re usually a syrup fan how about choosing one of our delicious bakes instead to compliment your coffee?

Why we all drink filter coffee throughout our shift

It is fair to say that filter coffee still gets a bit of a bad rap. It is often associated with American diners and sitting in a pot all day long, tasting more and more like the bottom of John Travolta’s shoe by the second. Well, erase that taste from your mind immediately! At Garage we are so passionate about our filter coffee options because they are so gosh darn tasty. Whether you choose to linger a while with a hand brew option or a cup of our batch brew you should be expecting bursts of floral and fruity notes. With our filter options we do recommend drinking them black as you’ll get the most out of their individual subtleties but of course ask for milk if you prefer! It is a firm fave with us baristas on long shifts- bursting with flavour and caffeine to boot and no heaviness from milk. We are unstoppable!