Skybury's bean wins gold
Bush blends: it's official - Skybury Coffee near Mareeba grows some of the best coffee in the country.
The taste of Skybury coffee beans has won a gold medal in Best Australian Coffee for Jasper Coffee at the 2008 Golden Bean awards held over the weekend.
Jasper, a Melbourne based roaster, blender and retailer, has been marketing Skybury coffee for over 15 years and owner Wells Trenfield is brimming with excitement over the future of the winning Skybury blend.
"This is an excellent example of a joint effort," says Trenfield.
"We accept into our repertoire only those beans whose distinctions of flavour, body and aroma excite our palate.
"Ian MacLaughlin and his team have coaxed the best flavoured bean from the tropical soils, and my team have roasted to extract the nuance and profile of the coffee to reveal the wonderful flavours within."
Trenfield began using Skybury coffee in 1993 and says his gold medal winning blend features the brand’s 66% peaberry and 33 % fancy blend coffee beans.
"I have always roasted Skybury because I recognize the pronounced identity of distinct sweet earthy caramel flavours with honeysuckle aromas that are unique to this coffee and the processing of this fruit.
"Without being xenophobic, we have always recognized that Australia produces the very best in agricultural products and has very clean good water to make the best conditions for great coffee in the cup.
"We want to support good quality Australian products and deny the cultural cringe that too often prevails," says Trenfield.
Skybury Coffee managing director Ian MacLaughlin said the win highlights how important it is for the roaster and the grower to work together to achieve great results.
"This should be called ‘relationship coffee’.
"Wells Trenfield ordered us to grow the coffee in a customised style he remembered we had over 5 years ago.
"That recall of a specific profile set us on the track to produce the award winning beans," explained Ian.
Both men say the win will assist with export sales of Australian coffee, giving overseas distributors the impetus to market with confidence, plus it will boost the demand for home grown product.
"We are currently rebranding and creating new labels which we will feature the Golden Bean award on in the same way of wine labels.
"We can now approach a range of 5 star restaurants with this very specially accredited coffee, for them to start taking their coffee as seriously as their food and wine," says Trenfield.
With 500 blends from 120 roasters, the Golden Bean is the most competitive contest for roasters.
It is a comprehensive test of both the roasting and the blending of coffee beans and Skybury's win proves that the North has plenty to brag about.
Would you like to know more about Skybury, or other tourist attractions in the area? Follow the links below to find out:
>> Atherton Tablelands Tourist Information
>> Read what one of our readers had to say about Skybury Coffee
>> Cairns and Tablelands Dining
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