Blas na hEireann is often described as the Oscars for the Irish Food Industry and included over 3000 submissions from a wide range of artisanal and specialist food producers.

Of the two categories for coffee (multi-origin and single origin categories), our Green Ocean Carrickwee won the Gold with a 1^st place win for the multi origin coffee. The Green Ocean Dorinish, which is a single origin from the Mutwiri coffee plantation in Kenya, won the silver medal with a second place win, and our Woodland Tibradden, which is also a single origin from Kenya came in with a 3^rd place win.

Speaking about the result, David Lawlor of Watermark Coffee said “We are really delighted that these wonderful coffees have performed so well.  In a very competitive market, with a lot of contenders in the competition, winning 3 out of 6 possible coffee awards is a fantastic result.”

The Green Ocean Carrickwee blend is a medium roast of speciality grade arabica beans sourced from Central America, Brazil and Kenya.  We designed this coffee recipe to reflect the increasing sophistication of Irish consumers but also to ensure it has maximum appeal.  It is not a huge surprise that it received the coveted first place win.

The Dorinish single origin from the coffee estate of Charles Mutwiri is a medium light roast but the earthiness of the Kenyan coffee gives more body with a nuanced sophisticated citrus and herbal flavour.

The Woodland Tibradden single origin coffee from Mt Kenya is roasted to medium light.  This speciality grade coffee has been a huge success since it was launched in 2022.

Producing fantastic coffee with a meaningful environmental purpose is the essence of what Green Ocean Coffee and Woodland Coffee stand for.

If you would like to find out more about these excellent coffees, or to arrange a coffee tasting for your business or office, then please let us know by calling 01 4666 000or dropping us an email on info@watermark.ie

The Robusta varietals of coffee beans, as the name suggests have a more robust flavour, and are grown at a lower altitude and typically have a higher caffeine content when compared to arabica coffee beans. Vietnam is the worlds largest producer of Robusta coffee and a lot of this makes its way into instant coffee.

Arabica coffee varietals on the other hand originated in Ethiopia and have spread across the coffee growing world, which is between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

Arabica is typically grown at higher altitudes of above 1800 masl (meters above sea level) is generally considered to be of higher quality than Robusta. Arabica coffee has more sweetness and smoothness with a combination of flavour notes such as chocolate, citrus, soft spice. etc (there is a taste wheel to pinpoint these flavours.) Brazil is the largest producer of Arabica coffee.

Many Italian coffees tend to use a combination of Robusta and Arabica in the same blend to give a unique Italian coffee flavour.

Green Ocean Coffee uses only arabica coffee that is certified by the SCA (Speciality Coffee Association) as of ‘Speciality Grade’. Speciality Grade is the status given to the best of the best Arabica. If the coffee scores 80 or higher on the Speciality Grade Scale then it qualifies as speciality grade and this grading is carried out with reference to size, colour, taste and a comprehensive measure of defects which are classified as either primary or secondary.

Why is this important?

Put simply the better the coffee, the better the taste. But since taste is very individual, this also translates into improved consistency of flavour as uniform quality allows for improved roasting and brewing. For example, a coffee that is roasted to medium / light and brewed at 92 degrees centigrade will be much more consistent if the green bean coffee is of a particular quality and size at the start of the process.

The demand for speciality coffee grade is by far the fastest growing area in the spectrum of coffee consumption as consumer tastes have become increasingly more sophisticated and discerning. Our Green Ocean Dorinish Coffee is a single origin speciality coffee from Kenya and and our Green Ocean Inisheeny coffee is a speciality coffee from Brazil with some Kenyan added for extra brightness.