Colombia Supremo – raw coffee beans for home roasting

Colombia Supremo – green coffee beans for your own roasting

If you want to work with roasting yourself from raw coffee bean to finished coffee, Colombia Supremo is an exciting and versatile raw coffee to experiment with.

These are green, unroasted coffee beans that you must roast yourself before they can be ground and used for regular coffee brewing.

At Brændeholm Risteri, we work with this exact Colombia Supremo in our own roastery. We roast it in light, medium, and dark profiles, and our experience with this raw coffee is that it can develop quite differently depending on how far you choose to take the roast.

The tasting notes are dark chocolate, tart fruit, and caramel. For a raw coffee, the tasting notes should be understood as a description of the coffee's flavor potential – the final experience depends to a large extent on both your roasting and the subsequent brewing.

If you are new to home roasting or want to compare with other origins, you can see our entire selection of raw and green coffee beans for home roasting.

Our experience roasting Colombia Supremo

One of the advantages of this raw coffee is that you can work with it in different directions.

We roast Colombia Supremo in three different profiles and experience the difference like this:

Light roast – more freshness and origin character

When we roast Colombia Supremo light, we experience it as more fresh and fruity, and the coffee's origin character stands out more clearly.

This is the direction we choose ourselves when we want to give the raw coffee as much room as possible and keep the roast character in the background.

If you want to taste our interpretation of this profile, you can see Colombia Supremo – light roast.

Medium roast – balance and versatility

With a medium roast, we experience Colombia Supremo as more round and balanced. It lies between the freshness of the light roast and the stronger character of the dark.

This is the profile we consider the most versatile all-round version of Colombia Supremo.

See our pre-roasted Colombia Supremo – medium roast if you want to compare with our result.

Dark roast – more strength and body

When we take the roast of the Colombia Supremo further, the expression becomes stronger and fuller, while the fruity acidity becomes more subdued.

This is the profile we prefer when the coffee is specifically intended for espresso and milk-based drinks, where a clearer and stronger coffee character works well with the milk.

You can compare with our Colombia Supremo – dark roast.

Which roast degree should you choose?

There is no single correct roast profile for Colombia Supremo.

It depends on which flavor experience you desire, which coffee roaster you use, and how the finished coffee will subsequently be brewed.

As a general starting point, you can think of it like this:

• Lighter roast: More focus on freshness, fruitiness, and the raw coffee's origin character
• Medium roast: More balance between origin character, sweetness, and body
• Darker roast: More roast character, strength, and body

If you want to read more about the general differences, you can see our page about light, medium, and dark roast profiles.

Your own coffee roaster, batch size, and other roasting parameters have a major impact on the result. Therefore, always follow the manufacturer's instructions for your roasting equipment and feel free to use smaller sample batches while you get to know the individual raw coffee.

What does Colombia Supremo mean?

Supremo here denotes coffee beans that have been sorted to Screen 17/18.

Screen size describes the size of the green coffee beans and in this case means that the beans are sorted within the size interval Screen 17–18.

This specific raw coffee is grown at an altitude of 1,300–1,650 meters, and the supplier's product data indicates the varieties:

• Caturra
• Castillo Colombia
• Typica

The harvest period is indicated as October–February.

Raw coffee profile

• Origin: Colombia
• Product: Green / raw coffee beans
• Growing altitude: 1,300–1,650 m.a.s.l.
• Bean sorting: Screen 17/18
• Varieties: Caturra, Castillo Colombia and Typica
• Harvest period: October–February
• Tasting notes: Dark chocolate, tart fruit and caramel
• Use: Home roasting / your own coffee roasting
• Roast degree: Decided by you

The tasting notes depend on your roast

The tasting notes dark chocolate, tart fruit, and caramel describe the coffee's character, but you should not expect all three notes to be experienced in the same way regardless of the roast profile.

The roast has a major impact on the balance between, among other things, freshness, sweetness, body, and roast character.

This is precisely part of the interest in buying raw coffee beans: you can roast the same coffee multiple times with different profiles and experience for yourself how the result changes.

If you want to experiment systematically, it can be a good idea to start with smaller batches and note, among other things, batch size, the progression of the roast, and your subsequent tasting experience. When you change fewer things at a time, it becomes easier to understand what affects the result.

1, 2, 5 or 10 kg of raw coffee beans

Colombia Supremo can be ordered in:

• 1 kg
• 2 kg
• 5 kg
• 10 kg in burlap sack

A smaller quantity is obvious if you want to get to know the raw coffee or make several smaller sample batches.

The larger quantities are relevant if you already know the coffee, roast regularly, or wish for the opportunity to work more systematically with different roast profiles of the same raw coffee.

From the same raw coffee to three different cups

One of the most educational aspects of home roasting is experiencing how much difference the roast can make to the same coffee bean.

Colombia Supremo is a good example. We use the same raw coffee ourselves for both our light, medium, and dark Colombia Supremo, but the three finished coffees are experienced as clearly different.

This is also why we do not believe that there is one "right" roast for this coffee.

If you want to explore the process from raw bean to finished coffee yourself, you can find more origins in our selection of raw coffee beans.

Raw coffee beans from a coffee roastery on Funen

At Brændeholm Risteri, we work with roasting coffee ourselves at our roastery on Funen.

When you buy raw Colombia Supremo from us, it is therefore not just a green coffee bean that we are reselling. It is a raw coffee that we also work with ourselves and roast in different profiles.

This gives us practical experience with how this particular coffee can develop from the green bean to the finished cup.