THE N^TH DEGREE CLUB MEMBER | AMIR GEHL DIFFERENCE COFFEE

28 September 2018

The World’s Best Coffee at the Touch of a Button

Difference Coffee Company has a singular vision – provide the world’s best coffees to the world’s most discerning coffee lovers.

Founder Amir Gehl, who hails from a long line of tobacco manufacturers, compares his passion for coffee to his appreciation of fine wines and cigars. Each depends on particular soil and weather conditions to deliver products of exceptional flavour. His aim to create the ultimate terroir-led coffee collection has resulted in an acclaimed and exclusive line up of the best tasting coffee beans on the planet, including Jamaican Blue Mountain, Hawaiian Kona, Panamanian Geisha, and Indonesian Kopi Luwak.

The Difference Coffee Company begins its process by sourcing only the highest rated specialty grade Arabica beans. Like wine, coffee is graded using a 100 point system, created by the Specialty Coffee Association, which designates the grade “Specialty” only to beans with a score of 80 points and above.

Specialty coffee accounts for 1% of global coffee production. Difference sources its beans from the highest rated 1% of that, buying direct from only those specialty coffee producers who achieve the absolute highest scores in prestigious competitions such as Cup of Excellence, Best of Panama, and the Kona Cupping Competition.

To illustrate the level of scrutiny that goes into selecting these coffees, consider the rigors involved in scoring at Cup of Excellence. This annual “Oscars of the coffee world” sees 300 entries submitted to six rounds of evaluation by both national and international juries. In all, a total of 9,020 cups are analysed before the top 10 winners are announced. Thus, the 10 finalists are cupped at least 280 times each by some of the coffee industry’s leading experts before they are singled out as being the best of the best of specialty coffee.

Having a place at the Cup of Excellence buyers’ table means Difference is able to purchase the highest graded beans on the market and trace these extremely rare small batch beans to the exact micro-lot and farm where they were grown.

Once the beans have been secured, Difference relies on the skill and experience of its esteemed roaster to bring out the fullest expression of the beans’ flavour. As in every step of the process, Difference takes care to enlist only the best, with its beans roasted by Master Roaster Jonny England.

Authorised to train up-and-coming roasters for the Specialty Coffee Association, Jonny is Head Judge for both World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup and is one of only five licensed quality graders in all of Europe. Jonny’s immense knowledge of roasting and his determined dedication to his craft guarantee that Difference Coffee Company’s beans are roasted to perfection.

After roasting, beans are ground to a uniformly even grind and packaged into capsules compatible with the Nespresso®* system. In doing so, the beans stay as fresh as possible for as long as possible to avoid any loss of flavour and provide customers with a perfectly balanced extraction at the touch of a button.

Difference Coffee Company supplies capsules as well as roasted whole beans to a choice of London’s most exclusive hotels, restaurants and private members clubs. Customers include three Michelin star chef Anne-Sophie Pic, The Four Seasons Hotel at Ten Trinity Square, Harry’s Bar, Annabel’s, and The Palace Hotel in Gstaad.

To learn more and receive monthly coffee allocation offers visit the Difference Coffee Company website at differencecoffee.com.