We are a little, family run roastery setup in the Westfield area of Woking, Surrey. The roastery was setup by Chris after deciding he wanted to do something different from engineering and playing with roller coasters, so he followed his passion for coffee, built a massive shed, cleared the garage and turned it into the Bell’s Beans Roastery.
 
Chris has been playing with home roasting for many years on his little Gene Cafe coffee roaster. He loves the science behind roasting along with the unpredictability of every bean being different, having to pay attention to so many variables in the quest to do the bean justice in the long process from the coffee farms to a cup of delicious coffee.
 
How is it scored?
Green coffee is graded on the basis of visual inspection and cupping after being roasted. Visual inspection involves taking a 350g sample of green coffee beans and counting defective beans; defects can be Primary (e.g. black beans, sour beans) or Secondary (e.g. broken beans). Coffee qualifies as ‘speciality’ when it has zero Primary defects and less than five Secondary defects. Cupping is a process that involves roasting the coffee and simply brewing it by adding hot water to the ground beans; specific scores for each of the attributes such as the coffee’s sweetness, lack of defects, acidity, balance, mouthfeel, and flavour are assigned by certified Q graders.
 
Scoring is out of 100
65-79 – Commodity coffee that will usually be sold in supermarkets and as instant coffee.
80+ – Speciality coffee that is deemed to be ‘Very Good’ & ‘Excellent’. These coffees have a more balanced flavour through the cup.
90+ – Speciality coffee that is deemed ‘Outstanding’. Coffee this good is exceptionally rare and commands a high price. Less than 1% of coffee produced in the world falls within this range.
 
Masenga Hill great creamy arabica coffee from Burundi farmed by Daniel Ntunzwenimana in the mountains overlooking Lake Tanganyika. With flavours of Marmalade, Blueberry this creamy coffee is a light/medium roast.
 
Cupping score of 85+