A passion for coffee, an aim to demystify it and a desire to make fresh specialty coffee more accessible to the public – these mark the motivation behind Triumvirate Coffee Roasters (“TCR”).
Founded by a husband-and-wife team of Dizzy Ling and Shaan Sya, the micro-roastery was set up with the objective of making fresh coffee available, coffee that defies the typical ‘dark, roasty’ description. “Most of the coffees in the market are roasted very dark, exhibiting flavours imparted by the roasting process,” said Ling, “however top tier coffees have unique flavours that reflect their origin, cultivar, and processing method. We roast in a way that brings a balance between the inherent flavour and roast flavour.”
The roastery roasts in small batches to order, facilitating custom roast levels as well as custom blending, all the while ensuring freshness. To this end, the roastery does not maintain any inventory of roasted coffee.
“Coffee is a fresh food, much like bread” explained Ling. “Therefore, it has a finite shelf life and should ideally be consumed within 3-4 weeks from roasting” he added. This is an aspect close to the couple’s hearts, having personally experienced the difference in the quality of freshly roasted coffee. They also advocate freshly grinding the coffee just before brewing to preserve the aromatic compounds in the coffee.
Ling has had an interest in coffee for a long time and realized the world of coffee contained a lot of jargon, standards and equipment that may appear daunting to the layman. And hence, one of the aims of the roastery is to make coffee and the appreciation of it simple and relaxing. “The jargon in coffee can be intimidating,” said Ling, “so we want to communicate in the simplest way possible to help people understand. “ He added “Similarly, making good coffee does not necessarily involve fancy gear or expensive equipment, simply an understanding of some basic principles regarding coffee brewing.”
TCR aims to make specialty grade coffee available to those who do not have ready access to them. Providing a mail order service allows fresh coffee to be delivered to the doorstep, a boon for those who may have been sourcing their coffee from the cities or overseas.
What started as home-roasting has now grown into a business which the couple hopes will be able to serve many a coffee drinker. The couple also plans to offer a subscription coffee service in due course. This will allow people to sign up to receive a rotation of different coffees each month, over a period of 3, 6, or 12 months. This will remove the headache of ever forgetting to order your coffee before you run out and also adds an element of surprise as they plan to include custom blends and limited edition single origins for each subscriber.