Coffee Business

I stopped by The Coffee Works in Sacramento this afternoon to pick up a couple of pounds of fresh roasted coffee to bring back to Davao.

The owner happened to be in and joined in the conversation I was having trying to decide which beans and roast to get. He said something about his roaster, about which I asked some further quesitons so he took me back to show me the thing.

The green coffee was stacked up against the wall in the standard 70 kilogram burlap bags. I found out that roasters are sized by how much of a bag they can roast at one time. His was a 1/2 bag roaster - that's about 75 pounds; sounds like a lot to me.

He told me the name of the guy who patented this baby and where it was manufactured - but I forgot the details. And, most important, I forgot to ask my guide his name. Gee.

In these large roasters, the hot air flow keeps the beans completely suspended to prevent burning and the process has the side benefit of blowing away the junk (my word, not his, for husks and dirt) so it too doesn't scorch and give a bad flavor to the bean - something smaller and home roasters are only partiallly able to do.

He said the secret in this business is to maintain a good volume so that you can continually have freash product. He said he does a lot of wholesale bulk business - not because he likes doing it, but it enables him to keep his volume up and product fresh.