Charmaine's reviews


May 2019



We were introduced to coffees from various origins (Ethiopia, Myanmar, other bits of Africa etc.), which we got to smell and taste. D the teacher was approachable and happy to answer any questions.
Materials provided for the cupping session included ground coffee from different beans (and Roastville's house blend), beans roasted differently (natural/honey process), bean skins and even a sprig with coffee cherries from their own coffee plant. Nice touch as people normally see their coffee at the very end of its production but rarely would recognise a coffee bean plant, or what the beans look like at intermediate stages of the process.
We ended up not really touching on the other factors by which to evaluate a coffee (flavour, aroma, aftertaste, body, uniformity, balance) except acidity and sweetness, but that's ok. All in a great experience. Really nice of the Roastville guys to run this workshop.

Apr 2019



Our trainer Andy was definitely trying to engage us from the beginning. The class ran for the full 3.5 hours. Andy focused a lot on explaining his technique but the trade off was not getting much/any practice. There were 9 students & one machine with two steam wands so two people could practice at a time. That may sound like a fair ratio but I was surprised. In the entire duration, some people got to do up to 3 pours, others 2 and in my case 1. Baffling as it already was, I didn’t believe it was very fair as what determined the number of pours each person got to do was literally how students judged your art in a “smashout” between pairs. I agree that getting into the mindset of a being in a latte art competition (and focusing on theoretical technique) is useful, but not if we are unable to even try out the technique even once (i was given one go at the heart but not at the rosetta, free pour or even tulip after they were each explained). How different is this to watching video tutorials? Also it was established at the start that just about everyone in the class was doing this out of interest/ non professional reasons, so i really felt like there were no grounds for the lack of attempts/practice given.

Some food was provided which was a nice touch.

I came into class early and was all set up to give this class a splendid review, but the bottom line is: for 3.5 hours I only got one pour (doing a basic heart) and that’s definitely not what I paid/signed up for. And yes, I might have felt inclined not to leave such a review if everyone got the same number of tries, even if it was only 3 pours each.
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