Good Luck GBEA Finalists

OMG – How is it less than two weeks to one of the most exciting event of my life!

The Great British Entrepreneur Awards in London at the Grosvenor Hotel!?

I still can’t start to explain the utter incredible honour I personally felt when I got the email saying me & my business was up for the running! Like what! WOW! Just wow

Tea

Being a finalist has sparked off so many exciting new changes for the business and for me as a person. It has spurred me on to finally develop a 100% Ash tree tea blend. Using bamboo and recycled tree tea bags with no chlorine and or plastic. With the final stage trying to source a compostable retail tea bag! Turning out the be quite the challenge but hey

Starting a business trying to save the ash tree by talking about edible trees and how we can use them for more than air, pretty things and heating up houses has definitely been a challenge in its own right, so I know this will come exactly when it is meant to! 😊

The nomination has also given me an extra boost to change habits and re-focus to get even more trees planted. Reaching out to the Woodland trust to get help and getting a positive reply! Power of being recognised by trusted awards goes a long way. Just an utter honour to be nominated.

That’s the Spirit

I wanted to do a quick blog post before the Xmas madness kicks in at HQ, to say good luck to all the other contestants. Especially the ones in our category. I have a sneaky feeling we of course all want to win but the fact we have come this far, it has lit our spirits even more than we can explain so no matter what the outcome.

We are all winners. (Please don’t judge me on the cheese board of emotion here! haha) But to Cookies Free From, D3A Defence, Not Just TravelX, Paradigm Human Performance, SEIKK – Good luck and I mean it when I say I can’t wait to meet you personally and the biggest thanks goes to @GBEA and all our customers, friends and family that have supported, listened, encouraged, pushed, bought and helped in all areas of finding and growing the spirit that you so need to start a business but to also to expand it.

AshTree.Coffee.Chocolate.Beetroot

Flavour & taste, smells, sounds, touch & sight  – all the senses are so incredibly subjective. Hence when it comes to food & drink you have to go into it thick skinned enough to know it just isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea! Or coffee! Ha! But also take on board feedback, adjust it as per comments – but mostly trust your intuition and your own flavour buds that honour the Icelandic and Nordic taste buds!

That is how we then bring you Öskuhús coffee. Dark, nutty but full of earthy anti-inflammatory and antioxidant goodness. All in one beautiful dark cup!

Hence, when you see an award-winning restaurant Terroir Tapas using your produce in a dessert – a  Chocolate Coffee Beetroot plate of beauty (and WOW the method is insane! So creative and incredible! – See at the bottom) – honestly your heart leaps with joy!

When the chef sends you a message and lets you know as you randomly liked a picture of what he had made and what is to follow is a conversation about your produce, why you do it, how it came about and bam! You without realising it, feel proud again. You feel like dancing on the kitchen floor (I might have) and singing to whatever tunes Alexa decided to throw out at a random playlist.

How we do it!

Our Coffee is very subjective. It is a dark roast we work with Bad Hand on and then we infuse it. People often ask us why we work with other producers and then infuse the ash. It isn’t always the case but as a small start up business I got to a point where I was making everything, and I wasn’t managing to do enough.

I looked into private outsourcing under a white label – but then I thought that goes against the values I wanted for Öskuhús. I therefore went to the makers and shakers I respect, and I know are honest and ethical. Giving me scope to shout about the ash tree, conjure up new recipes, link with more businesses. With our tea in making atm that is all us and no collaborations, our alcohol brewing – that is all us but when it comes to something so magical like coffee – you work with the masters! Just saying 😊

Anyway, back to Terroir Tapas – Takk Takk! Again Takk – When running a business, you can get so bogged down in the paperwork and what has to happen that you sometimes forget to celebrate your own product! We will plant a tree for Terroir Tapas now and call it the TTTree! – Watch this little wonder of green grow

We can’t wait to come in and taste, probably the whole menu! If you do go and try it please do take photos and send us

From Terroir Tapas Chef: How he makes the Chocolate. Coffee. Beetroot dish:How they do it!

How they do it!

“Basically, the dessert uses a very rare chocolate. We make a ganache with this using water glucose and sea salt so it’s really silky. Then we take pickled beetroot. Dry in the oven all day. It becomes chewy like a wine gum. Sweet and acidic. Then we take your coffee. Infuse with a spent vanilla from a local brewery. Cacao nib infused rum and conker cold brew liqueur. Then we add cream and sugar. Charge in a canister with nitrous oxide to aerate and set. Then cocoa meringue on top”

❤️ Jesse Wells – Chef at Terroir Tapas