Saturday morning at Marché de l'Abattoir, by the exit of the Manufakture car park in Anderlecht, the same sack goes into the drum twice. Coffee roasted for filter leaves Golden about forty seconds before the batch meant for espresso. Same origin, two decisions, two customers walking home with different cups.
Laurent writes the difference in pencil, on the card sitting next to the drum. You taste it on Tuesday morning.
Why coffee roasted for filter needs a different stopping point
Filter works slowly. In a V60 or a Chemex, water moves through the coffee bed for three minutes, at atmospheric pressure, with nothing forcing the extraction. What you want there is clarity: bright acidity, fruit notes, a clean finish.
To get it, the batch stays longer in the development phase after first crack, on a lower flame, and comes out early, at a light colour. The sugars settle, the bean structure stays dense, the origin aromas stay in front. Our Meteo Discovery Box is built around exactly this kind of comparison.
Espresso needs a different curve than coffee roasted for filter
Espresso means nine bars and twenty-five seconds. Water goes in hard and pulls out everything it finds, including whatever is harsh. So the bean has to be more brittle and further developed, the sugars pushed a step towards caramel.
Laurent keeps the curve tighter, takes it slightly higher and lets the batch breathe a few dozen seconds longer. The result has body, sweetness and a round finish. Part of the origin's floral character steps into the background, and that is a deliberate choice.
What Laurent changes on coffee roasted for filter when the September wind picks up
This is where the part that belongs only to roasting under open sky begins.
Golden stands under open sky, a few metres from the Manufakture car park. This weekend Saturday reads 21°C with 11 km/h of wind and sun between the clouds. Sunday brings rain, between 5 and 10 mm, with 14 km/h of wind.
Wind pulls heat off the steel. Laurent sees the smoke lying sideways, hears the pitch of the cracks and lifts the flame to hold the rhythm of the curve. On an espresso batch he has margin, since it is heading for longer development anyway. On a filter batch the margin is a handful of seconds, and he keeps a hand on the valve and an eye on the bean.
Sunday, with humid air and rain landing on hot metal, everything moves faster still. Laurent drops the fire earlier and shortens the tail, so the filter batch stays on the right side of the line. The sky is part of the batch's identity. The decision belongs to the man standing next to the drum.
What the card next to coffee roasted for filter tells you
Every batch leaves the market with a handwritten card. Three lines on it say more than any printed label.
The day and the sky. Saturday with wind or Sunday in the rain, Laurent writes down what he had over his head. The same Ethiopia, roasted on two different weekends, reaches the cup by two routes, because the man cut the fire at two different moments.
Where the fire fell. A colour and a minute, in pencil. On a batch built for filter, that number sits about forty seconds below its espresso brother.
What the batch was built for. V60, Chemex or espresso. If Tuesday's cup comes out different from last month's, the card tells you why. The whole way of working is written up in the Meteo Koffie experience.
Keep the card until the bag is empty. It is the only place this weekend stays written down.
Where to find coffee roasted for filter, Saturday and Sunday
We roast Saturday and Sunday at Marché de l'Abattoir, by the exit of the Manufakture car park, Anderlecht. The card next to Golden says what each batch was built for. Ask, it is the shortest route to the coffee that suits you.
Stock and available batches are online, and they go quickly.
Brut. Sauvage. Imprévisible.
(≈710 words)
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