Coffee to RAVE about

RAVE Coffee has reached nearly every quadrant of the world.

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The roastery started first when Rob and Vikki Hodge left the corporate world and moved to Australia from the United Kingdom. Days before heading down under, the couple decided that they would start a mobile coffee van, and from a whim, RAVE Coffee Australia was created. In 2011, the Hodges returned to the United Kingdom where they would continue roasting coffee under the RAVE name.

The RAVE beans featured in CoffeeCollective’s February packages however, were not shipped from Europe. Instead, just last summer, Rob and Vicki’s nephew, Dean Smolicz, introduced RAVE to Canmore, Alberta.

After a dinner conversation, a few years of planning and multiple trips to the UK, Dean saw how special and unique RAVE Coffee was. Even more, as an engineer, he was especially impressed with the detail and skill required to perfect and replicate roasts time and time again. It was then that his passion for specialty coffee set in.

“We believe skill set can be taught, but not passion,” Dean says. “Everyone at RAVE is employed for their passion for coffee and at RAVE that is all that we are about.”

Today, RAVE is far from the Australian coast, however, the pride of Australian influence still remains. The roastery enjoys creating Antipodean styled coffee, which is based on Indonesian beans rather than Central and South American.

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February’s coffee features are both medium styled roasts, as RAVE does not necessarily create dark roasts.

Dean explains: “Not many people are aware how complex coffee can be in its flavour characteristics and that it’s grown within a cherry. The sugars and acidities contained within coffee are lost once coffee is roasted past a certain point, but we want to play with those flavours and enhance them to produce something truly unique.”

Dean says that RAVE extensively researches the coffees that they bring in from various brokers. This way, roasters can experiment with the high-grade beans and roast them into an appropriate individual profile. At times, creating a dark roast can remove the natural coffee characteristics and instead, the roast is all that you taste.

The Italian Blend

From the roaster, Dean: “The Italian Job blend is a bolder, stronger coffee designed for use in espresso based drinks involving milk. We have found this is also a popular choice for those who like a bolder filter coffee.”

Papa New Guinea Sigri

From the roaster: “The PNG is from a single estate farm called Sigri which is regarded as one of -if not the best – estate farm within Papa New Guinea. It’s great as both a filter and espresso coffee and has a very smooth body with chocolate notes.”

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Both RAVE Coffee U.K. and RAVE Canmore replicate the same styles of coffees. Striving to produce a better product day after day, Dean says he hopes the RAVE quality and passion are transparent in the cup.

You can visit Dean and RAVE Coffee Canmore and even watch him roast! The relaxed café and roastery, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains, is separated by wall-to-wall glass so while sipping, you can watch him work!

For more RAVE Coffee, you can order directly from their site, or visit CoffeeCollective.ca for the featured roasts!