About 18 months ago, we started to explore the capsule format with our coffees and from other roasters. The very first time our capsule coffees were brewed, the results were far from satisfactory. It was not as simple as getting a bag of beans from the shelves and placing them into capsules. Almost two years later, we think that we’ve finally understood what goes on underneath the hood of a capsule and released Snack, our Nespresso® compatible capsules. We’re still striving to perfect the format but it’s definitely an exciting period for Specialty Coffee.

Here’s why we think you’ll enjoy Snack.

Freshness - whole bean coffee is great for being able to extract espresso-style or filter coffees. These are the most delicious within 30 days from roast and from our experience, only high volume cafes and eager home brewers get to brew whole bean coffees in the right time frame to maximize their flavor potential. With Snack, the coffees were roasted 10 days prior to being ground and packed into capsules, all happening in an oxygen free environment. Further, nitrogen is flushed into each capsule, freeing it from oxygen, and thus extending the shelf life to 18-24 months. The way we think about this is like placing freshly roasted and ground coffee in a time capsule, ready for you to enjoy at your convenience. You can finally hoard and leave a stash of capsules in your home cupboard, without sacrificing the quality of the coffee you drink at home.

Barista-style Brewing - brewing high quality coffee is not as simple as you think, until Snack happened. Behind the espresso counter in the shop, we purge and weigh ground coffee, we measure the ins and the outs, we pay attention to time, the list goes on.. It’s almost like a high school science lab setup. The truth is, not many coffee drinkers have the same set of tools at home to ensure they get to replicate what they drank in the cafe. We teach workshops and sell equipment to aid in the coffee-making process but we don’t expect everyone to be like Kenji at home. The capsule format allows us to control everything for the coffee drinker until the point of brewing, therefore letting you enjoy the coffee the way we intended you to do so. With Snack, just give the capsule a shake, pop-it in the brewing device, and brew to a 25gram shot weight. You can learn how to program your machine by watching this for now before we launch our own Snack brew guides.

Choice - switching from one coffee to another with traditional or automatic espresso machines is not as practical as you think it is. Coffee needs to be ‘dialed in’ to achieve deliciousness. With Snack, changing from one coffee to another is so convenient and fuss-free. Just insert any Snack into the brewing device, press the brew button and you’re good to go. Your mom prefers a different capsule? Pop in her preferred Snack and just press the brew button again. We understand that coffee preference is very personal and we should not subject everyone to be drinking only one kind of coffee. Choice and convenience are what makes the capsule format ideal for coffee lovers.

What about the environment? That deserves a blog post on its own. We’ve been working with a local company to recycle and re-use our capsules. It’s currently in its R&D phase and we should be rolling it out soon for our Snack customers. Stay tuned.

Click here for shop for Snack.