Fresh Cup Magazine | September 2019

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 7

CONTENTS

Departments

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9 | VO L . 2 8 . N O. 9 | F R E S H C U P M AG A Z I N E

14

16

20

24

GOLDEN BEAN

HIGH GARDEN WOODLAND TEA HOUSE & SIPPING APOTHECARY

HOW TO CHOOSE A COFFEE IMPORTER

CUP LIKE AN IMPORTER

Café Crossroads

In House

By Michael Butterworth

By RJ Joseph

The Filter

By Sean Edwards

By Josh Rank

In House

28

32

56

SAM SCHAEFER, MOCKINGBIRD COFFEE

BOON BOONA COFFEE GOES BACK TO THE SOURCE

UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS

Do You Know?

The Whole Bean

By Robin Roenker

By Fionn Pooler

By Barbara Lloyd McMichael

The Last Plastic Straw

Features

36

40

Recent trends in the café industry reflect a sweeping move towards a more sustainable, plant-based future.

Co-roasting spaces open the door for new roasters around the globe.

Better For You the Planet

By Caitlin Peterkin

Fanning the Flame

By Luke Daugherty & Anastasia Prikhodko

48

The Roasters of Southern Ireland Just over a decade ago, few specialty coffee roasters existed in Ireland. Now, more and more roasters are coming onto the scene.

By Kaitlin Throgmorton

EDITOR’S LETTER, PAGE 10 | CONTRIBUTORS, PAGE 12 COUNTER INTELLIGENCE, PAGE 52 | CALENDAR, PAGE 54 | AD INDEX, PAGE 58

On the Cover: Probat roaster in use at the Canadian Roasting Society in Montreal. Photo by Andrew Rizer 8 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 9

EDITOR’S LETTER “Make a difference about something other than yourselves.”

–Toni Morrison

I

was in Peru on a trip to origin when tragedy struck last month in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. A young Peruvian man in the group asked me if I had heard the news, and when I responded with a simple, weary “Yes,” he looked at me with a bemused expression, as if waiting to hear more from me—a rationalization, an outburst of anger, thoughts and prayers. He eventually gave me a gentle smile and changed topics.

Fresh Cup Magazine FRESH CUP PUBLISHING Publisher and President JAN WEIGEL jan@freshcup.com EDITORIAL Editor CAITLIN PETERKIN editor@freshcup.com Associate Editor JORDAN JOHNSON freshed@freshcup.com ART Art Director CYNTHIA MEADORS cynthia@freshcup.com ADVERTISING Sales JAN WEIGEL sales@freshcup.com Ad Coordinator DIANE HOWARD adtraffic@freshcup.com

Later that evening, I processed the interaction. Here, five thousand miles from home, in a remote Peruvian village, I was met with compassion and a connection to what was happening outside of our immediate surroundings. That brief exchange was a small, yet personally powerful, reminder that we do not live in isolation.

What happens in one corner of the globe can reverberate across continents. In this day and age, we are more connected than ever to seek comfort in our sorrow, to revel in our joy, to battle heartbreak together, and to tell our truths.

Our industry is enormously impacted by this connectivity, and the stories in this month’s issue prove the importance of a united world. Entrepreneurs in both North America and Australia influence and enhance their communities by providing collaborative roasting environments (p. 40). An Eritrean café owner in Seattle honors his heritage by connecting customers to the roots of coffee (p. 32). A young coffee professional in Michigan embarks on opening his own space that is dedicated to accessibility and empowerment (p. 28). A thriving tea shop in Nashville puts a holistic lens on connection—with each other, with the present moment, and with the planet (p. 16).

ACCOUNTING Accounting Manager DIANE HOWARD diane@freshcup.com FRESH CUP FOUNDER WARD BARBEE 1938-2006 EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD DAVID GRISWOLD Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers

CHUCK JONES Jones Coffee Roasters

PHILLIP DI BELLA Di Bella Group

BRUCE MILLETTO Bellissimo Coffee Advisors

ANUPA MUELLER Eco-Prima

BRAD PRICE Phillips Syrups & Sauces

BRUCE RICHARDSON Elmwood Inn Fine Teas

MANISH SHAH Maya Tea Co.

LARRY WINKLER Torani

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

Back in Peru, I turned my focus to those who were graciously hosting us. Visiting a cooperative in Quillabamba, the second-generation manager shared with us her goal of teaching the community about specialty coffee. Her contagious spirit lifted my own, and reaffirmed my belief in the importance of forging connections not only within one’s familiar community, but in communities beyond.

Fresh Cup Magazine is distributed worldwide each month by post. Fresh Cup Magazine is available by subscription: price— one year US $48, two years US $68, one year Canada $55, all other countries $85 per year. Single issues—$5-$10 each, plus shipping. (Checks must be drawn on a US-affiliated bank.)

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Copyright ©2019 by Fresh Cup Publishing Company Inc. Contents may not be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. ISSN: 1094-8228 SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS? EMAIL: freshcup@pfsmag.com CALL: 888-881-5861 PO Box 92735, Long Beach, CA 90809-9639 FRESH CUP OFFICES 2627 NE MLK Jr. Blvd., Suite 203, Portland, OR 97212 PHONE: 503/236-2587 | FAX: 503/236-3165 FRESH CUP PROUDLY SPONSORS NONPROFITS

CAITLIN PETERKIN, EDITOR

editor@freshcup.com FRESH C UP.COM

10 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

Contributors

Based in Istanbul, Turkey, coffee educator, consultant, and writer Michael Butterworth is a licensed Q grader and a two-time United States Barista Championship competitor. For this issue, he explores how coffee professionals can choose the best importer (p. 20).

Luke Daugherty is a freelance writer and long-time coffee professional based in St. Louis, Missouri. In his 15 years in coffee, he has worked for several companies, including Quills Coffee and Kaldi’s Coffee, as a roaster, SCA-certified greens buyer, operations manager, content creator, and barista, among other stray roles here and there. Read his collaboration with Anastasia Prikhodko about the rise of co-roasting spaces on p. 40.

12 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

RJ Joseph is a coffee roaster, journalist, and blogger based out of Oakland, California. Her work in all areas of her life focuses on trying to create better systems for all types of people. In this issue, she writes about the best practices for consistent cuppings (p. 24). When she’s not pulling shots, you can find her cooking, listening to records, and enjoying long city-hikes.

Barbara Lloyd McMichael writes about books, culture, entrepreneurship and the environment. She works from a home office with a view of the Salish Sea. This month, she spoke with the founder of Boon Boona Coffee in Seattle about creating a café honoring his culture and community (p. 32).

Fionn Pooler is a freelance writer and former coffee professional originally from Scotland and now based in Southeast Michigan. He writes about coffee, culture, and sustainability for a variety of publications and his own website, The Pourover.

In his Fresh Cup debut, he speaks with Sam Schaefer of new Ann Arbor-based roaster and tasting room, Mockingbird Coffee (p. 32).

Josh Rank is a writer based in Nashville, TN, the home to High Garden Woodland Tea House & Sipping Apothecary, which he profiles on p. 16.

More ramblings can be found at www.joshrank.com.

Lexington, Kentucky-based freelance writer Robin Roenker has extensive experience reporting on business trends, from cybersecurity to real estate, personal finance, and green living. For Fresh Cup, she covers sustainable and ecofriendly trends in cafés and the coffee industry in her regular column, The Last Plastic Straw, on p. 56.

Anastasia Prikhodko is a freelance journalist based in Sydney, Australia. Previously, she spent two years abroad living in Amsterdam and enjoying the coffee scene across Europe, Russia, and Korea. She writes mainly about coffee, the travel trade sector, social issues, gender, and, at times, dabbles in a bit of sports writing. Read her collaboration with Luke Daugherty about the rise of co-roasting spaces on p. 40.

Kaitlin Throgmorton lives in Seattle, Washington, and writes about coffee, travel, and books. For this issue, she shares her travels through Ireland, visiting several roasteries (p. 48).

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 13

The Filter

THE GOLDEN BEAN NORTH AMERICA TOP 30 COFFEE ROASTERS

BY SEAN EDWARDS, Managing Director, Golden Bean

O

ver the years, I have observed many media organizations putting up lists of coffee companies and rating them as leaders in the industry. I often wondered how these lists of the top coffee businesses were created. How were these businesses really rated? Was it the results from public surveys, the number of likes on Instagram, the biggest marketing spends, the best-written submitted business entry, or just a random pick from the journalists writing the story?

This got me thinking: How do we rate a coffee business, and how do ratings help businesses financially?

I believe coffee businesses need to be assessed by a group judgment process, and coffee competitions are the fairest way to see who is leading the pack.

Businesses do well from ratings, but the rating process has to be reputable and consistent in following a set of guidelines. Consumer taste is very important and most of the food and beverage industry rely on this methodology and judgment. Consumer judging has to be the best rating method, taking into consideration coffee is the world’s favorite beverage and consumers are spending more than $200 billion annually on this drink.

The Golden Bean Coffee Roasting Competition was started by myself 12 years ago in Australia to help grow the professional side of coffee roasting and the supply chain. We have grown the event to include North America as part of the Golden Bean Competition, which is now in its fourth year. The competi-

14 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

tion judges more than 3,000 coffees and involves over 800 coffee roasters globally. The event is the world’s largest coffee roasting competition that involves blind judging of coffees by coffee roasters attending the four-day event. The format includes utilizing the world’s coffee elite including judges, baristas, equipment companies, and green bean suppliers. As it grows, the competition is always improving itself year upon year in quality and industry credibility. The importance of winning a medal is not only a triumph for the participating roaster; it also involves a financial gain for the coffee business.

Winning medals convert to sales and helps with industry positioning.

We have always been very careful in rating coffee businesses, as putting a number to one’s achievements can have major effects on that business—both good and bad. We are now more than confident to pick the top 30 businesses that have earned these ratings through a credible system, and we now have sufficient data from the competition results to stand confidently behind the ratings we are sharing. Over the last four years, we have collected the highest scores from the North American competition; these results include the businesses that have won multiple Gold and Silver medals at the Golden Bean during this time.

One of the criteria in entering the Golden Bean Competition stipulates coffee businesses have to roast their coffee in the U.S. or Canada to participate in the awards. The Golden Bean also separates the larger multiple store franchise businesses from the smaller independent coffee roasters. The competition has 11 categories all judged on taste by a panel of more than 100 coffee tasters.

This year’s event will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, September 11–14. For more information, visit the Golden Bean website at www.goldenbean.com FC

TOP 30 GOLDEN BEAN NORTH AMERICAN COFFEE ROASTERS Listed in alphabetical order • Abbotsford Road – Brooklyn, NY • Anchorhead Coffee – Duvall, WA • Bird Rock Coffee Roasters – San Diego, CA • Black Oak Coffee Roasters – Ukiah, CA • BonLife Coffee Roasters – Cleveland, TN • Canterbury Coffee – Vancouver, BC • Chocolate Fish Coffee – Sacramento, CA • Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea – Columbus, OH • Di Bella Coffee – Santa Fe Springs, CA • Dr. Bean’s Coffee Roasters – Memphis, TN • Dragonfly Coffee – Boulder, CO • Folklore Coffee – Conrad, MT • H+S Coffee Roasters – Laramie, WY • K&F Coffee Roasters – Portland, OR • Klatch Coffee – Rancho Cucamonga, CA • Lariat Coffee – Winthrop, WA • Manzanita Roasting Company – San Diego, CA • Oceana Coffee – Tequesta, FL • Old Soul Co. – Sacramento, CA • Oughtred Coffee – Delta, BC • Pacific Bay Coffee Co. – Walnut Creek, CA • Pallet Coffee Roasters – Vancouver, BC • Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters – Calgary, AB • Proud Mary Coffee – Portland, OR • PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. – Topeka, KS • Red Whale Coffee – San Rafael, CA • Reprise Coffee Roasters – Winnetka, IL • Roast House Coffee – Spokane, WA • Temple Coffee Roasters – Sacramento, CA • Theory Collaborative – Redding, CA To register for the 2019 Golden Bean North America competition, visit www.goldenbean.com.

Café Crossroads

High Garden Woodland Tea House & Sipping Apothecary Provides a Place to Connect

BY JOSH RANK

CO-OWNER Joel Larabell

16 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

W

oodland Street juts out of the popular Five Points section of East Nashville toward downtown. Outside of the main congregation of bars and restaurants, the street grows sparse, with an occasional vintage store, skating apparel shop, or urban winery. In the middle of this stretch sits High Garden Woodland Tea House & Sipping Apothecary, the eminent local source for quality tea, herbal blends, and fermented goods.

“I started making teas at our house for friends and family,” says Leah Larabell, co-owner of High Garden along with her husband, Joel. “It was just a way of life for us. It wasn’t a business idea at all.”

Before long, she made a blend for an employee of local vegetarian restaurant Wild Cow, who was so impressed they offered to start carrying her products. From there, the Larabells rented a commercial kitchen to assemble their herbal concoctions.

“We took our little tray of teas to restaurants and coffee shops and asked them to have tea with us and see if they’d consider carrying us, and a few did,” says Leah.

Momentum from these local accounts grew until they began considering opening their own space. “We thought, why not open this space that we wished we could go to?” she says.

They opened their first location in 2012 while Joel was a touring musician and Leah worked full-time as a therapist for children in custody of the state.

“We didn’t even have actual packages of tea,” says Leah. “We bagged them by hand to order at first.”

Despite their modest storefront, they found a market for their services.

“We just worked our jobs and then took turns running the shop, and it worked!” she says. “We couldn’t believe people actually came through the door.”

Eventually they moved to a larger shop within the same complex, before finally nestling into their current location on Woodland.

“What we ultimately wanted wasn’t a store,” says Leah. “We wanted them to come into an experience.”

Joel executed their vision by building each shop from floor to ceiling.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he says with a laugh. “I never built anything before.”

PHOTOS BY JESSE LENDZION

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 17

Café Crossroads

CO-OWNERS Leah and Joel Larabell

The construction and design inside the Woodland location is as consistent as it is intentional, which Joel describes as “classic apothecary, but not fancy.” Visitors are greeted with an amalgamation of scents from the various herbs and teas either sitting on the shelf for purchase or being brewed at the front bar. Dried plants and branches hang from the exposed beams of the ceiling. A doorway near the counter leads to another room lined with tables and booths where guests enjoy their brewed teas, herbs,

18 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

or kombucha, which is served on tap in the Root Cellar in the back.

Andrew and Rachel Kingery run the kombucha program, while High Garden staff member Kim White provides kefir.

Andrew began much like the Larabells, homebrewing kombucha and handing it out to his friends.

“So many customers were coming in with gut health issues and we’d suggest them eating and drinking fermented foods and beverages, but we didn’t have any to offer,” says Joel. “[Andrew] had been using our ingredients for years so

it was a logical choice to ask him to join with us.”

All of the materials for their teas are organic, naturally grown, and local when possible. The shop itself is focused on reducing waste by using compostable tea bags, biodegradable plastic, and recycled paper products. Outside the shop, they support environmental non-profits such as Walden’s Puddle Wildlife Center and Appalachian Voices.

“We try to be Earth-forward and be Earth-first,” says Leah. “I would never

PHOTOS BY JESSE LENDZION

want to invest in something that’s harming the earth.”

One thing a visitor won’t find in High Garden are people working on laptops or staring at their phones, an obvious distinction from coffee shops, which Nashville has seen a boom in over the last few years. Wanting to offer something different from the casual productivity of coffee shop life, the Larabells have eschewed the standard complimentary WiFi. “Coffee culture seems more energetic,” says Joel.

“We kind of went on the other end of things where you unplug and maybe aren’t as productive and allow a different side of yourself to awaken,” adds Leah.

The idea of connectivity goes beyond encouraging their guests to engage one another in the moment. Community classes are offered and taught at their home outside of Nashville, which is a registered Botanical Sanctuary.

“We have woods and meadows and creeks…we have all these different mini-ecosystems that have all the different plants naturally growing in them, so it was an easy choice to teach

on this land because everything was here already,” says Joel. “We just teach what we know.”

Their classes feature topics including mountain medicine, wood carving, mycology, and more.

“Every single class focuses on how to reconnect people so they will also be protectors of the earth,” says Leah.

A few years back, High Garden found themselves being threatened by a larger company, and were told “business is business, keep up or step aside,” says Leah. “[But to focus on business was] never why we’ve done this and it didn’t feel right. We realized we were more of a social enterprise.”

From this, they realized their values were more heavily weighted toward purpose rather than profit. That revelation led them to ask, “What is our purpose?”

“It truly is, part one to preserve wildlife, woodlands, these things that are rapidly disappearing and people don’t realize are so important literally to the existence of humankind,” says Leah.

“But we can’t do it alone, and the way we can create community around that and community awareness is to teach.”

As far as the future, she says, “I can’t imagine anything being better than what it is right now….Growth doesn’t mean success to me. Being able to be at home with my family and being able to talk herbs with people and do what we love…that’s success to me. I have no need to get any bigger.”

“We’re very much on the same page,” adds Joel. “I do see more teaching as we expand our family of teachers and can offer more workshops and classes. I see that community getting bigger and who knows maybe someday we’ll have a yearly gathering.”

Whether it’s an herbal tea or an enlightening class, High Garden leaves their guests feeling better both physically and mentally. FC

High Garden Woodland Tea House & Sipping Apothecary 935 Woodland Street Nashville, TN 37206 615-919-4195 www.highgardentea.com

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 19

In House

THE SOURCE OF THE MATTER: ALL ABOUT IMPORTERS An importer is one of the most important relationships for any coffee business. In this section, we highlight what an importer does, how to find the right one for your business, and the secrets to cupping like an importer.

HOW TO CHOOSE A COFFEE IMPORTER

BY MICHAEL BUTTERWORTH

ROAST LEVELS at Ally Coffee

W

hen coffee professionals talk about the journey coffee makes from seed to cup, they often skip over one of the most important steps in the supply chain: importing. The logistics, financing, and risk involved in transporting green coffee from producing countries to sell in foreign markets is complex, but coffee importers fill that gap.

“Coffee importers offer a really wide range of services—from moving beans from one country into another, all the way to creating market access for producers in emerging coffee origins,” says Tymika Lawrence, of Atlas

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Coffee Importers, a coffee importer in Seattle, Washington. “Atlas mitigates financial risk for producers and roasters during the import process, offers quality control, financing, and manages logistics from origin—all the way to your roastery if you like.”

There’s a plethora of coffee importers to choose from, and selecting the right importers to work with is one of the most critical decisions a coffee roaster can make.

“An importer will be one of the most important partners to your business,” says Matt Brown, of Cafe Imports, a coffee importer based in Minneapolis,

Minnesota. “As a roaster, you’ll want to have a good internal definition of your own company and match that to an importer that shares similar products and values. There is a spectrum of quality, pricing, relationship, and range of service that exists across the industry and it’s all about finding the right match.”

For Cafe Imports, that means focusing entirely on the specialty coffee market and providing a wide range of origins and price points.

“We’re specialty-focused,” says Stuart Ritson, Cafe Import’s European sales director. “We don’t buy any commodity coffee.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLY COFFEE

But more than just providing green coffee, the best coffee importers act as a connection point between coffee producers and coffee roasters.

This is especially important for Ally Coffee, a coffee farmer-owned importing company headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.

“I am proud of how global [and] also locally engaged our organization is,” says James Tooill, director of sales for Ally Coffee. “Our buying team has boots on the ground in Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Central America working with producers and exporters.”

Tooill draws from his experience as a roaster in the way he approaches customer service.

“I was a coffee roaster for about seven years before joining Ally, and I know that gives me a better understanding and also empathy for the challenges of buying and roasting coffee,” he says.

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM @CAFEIMPORTS

Ritson also agrees that his time working for a coffee roaster helps inform the way he approaches his job.

“It’s going to be a personal relationship,” says Ritson. “They’ll get to know you and your preferences.”

For Lawrence, that relationship is built on honesty and communication.

“How interested are they in hearing what you have to say, and getting to learn your business needs?” she says.

“When something hits a snag, how open and honest are they with you?”

For Ritson, the human element means that with importers, sometimes less is more.

“Keep the number of importers you work with down to a few—it concentrates your buying power and you can possibly get better pricing or credit terms,” he says.

For many in the coffee industry, direct trade relationships—where roasters do their own importing without an

intermediary—is lauded as superior to going through third-party importers.

But Ritson warns about thinking about importing too romantically.

“Unfortunately the barrier to entry for most roasters is kind of high,” says Ritson. “If you’re gonna buy less than a container you’re going to have to find a way to ship it.”

Then there’s the larger issue: what if the coffee arrives and it doesn’t taste like the pre-ship samples?

“Many roasters justifiably look for the best-quality coffee,” says Roberto Delgado. “This does not always coincide with building relationships with producers, especially smaller producers.

Climate change will make this harder.”

Delgado founded Tiger Orchid Coffee, a now-defunct coffee importer that focused on importing coffee from Mexico.

“Neither small producers nor importers have good insurance systems

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 21

In House

that can mitigate price changes, natural variations in product from one season to the next, draughts, bad processing,” he says.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Winston Harrison, head roaster and green buyer for Crema Coffee in Nashville, Tennessee. Crema sources 30 to 40 percent of their coffees in direct trade relationships, but relies on importers to source the majority of their coffee.

“A bad year for a producer can create challenges for you too.

If you are relying on a specific amount, a shortfall in production can be hard, but delivery of a lower quality product can be very difficult to handle,” he says. “One of our closest partners had a particularly difficult year with coffee rust and lost eighty percent of their harvest. The best we could do was just to buy what we could and continue to support them in hopes that things would improve the next year.”

Even with the risks involved, Crema still values their direct trade relationships.

“The personal connection is amazing when you have worked with someone for many years,” says Harrison. “Having a close relationship also allows us to get special things—new varietals, special processes when they are available.”

But increasingly, importers offer a chance for roasters to connect directly with coffee producers, even

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TOP PHOTO BY ARI ZADAI; COFFEE BAG PHOTO: CREMA-COFFEE.COM

while continuing to act as an intermediary. Both Cafe Imports and Ally Coffee offer their clients opportunities to join them on trips to origin. The trips offer coffee roasters a chance to learn about farming and processing firsthand, as well as be the first to taste, and potentially buy, the new harvest.

“The opportunity to travel and learn is often the most exciting part,” says Ritson. “To understand the personal story of a farm.”

Ritson recommends roasters approach the trip with clear goals.

“If you go during harvest, you’re most likely to get the best pictures, but after harvest you get to taste the widest range,” he says.

With the current coffee financial crisis, many have pointed fingers at coffee importers as being part of the problem. Commodity prices are below the cost of production, and many importers base their specialty premiums on the C market. But for Ally Coffee, a healthy competition amongst coffee importers will help create a healthier ecosystem for producers.

“The sustainability of coffee production is very important to Ally because our sister companies in Brazil are coffee-producing organizations,” says Tooill. “One of my goals for the coffee industry is for producers to have a real choice in where they sell

their coffee just like roasters have lots of options on where to buy coffee. I am proud to say that a large part of our growth so far has been producers deciding to start working with us, and then deciding to continue the relationship.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLY COFFEE

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 23

In House

CUP LIKE AN IMPORTER

BY RJ JOSEPH

EXPERT CUPPERS: Caitlin McCarthy-García (left) and Amanda Amato of Royal Coffee Importers.

C

upping coffee is a linchpin of any roaster’s or importer’s operation.

Depending on how your company runs, cupping can absolutely define the quality potential of the product you’re investing your time, energy, and money into. It’s critical to every actor in the supply chain that cupping processes are as objective and failsafe as possible, since inconsistent or untrustworthy cupping processes can lead to uninformed purchasing decisions and lost revenue for companies and producers alike. Cupping is subjective by nature, so every importer has their own ways of channeling the unique sensory experiences of their team into a (hopefully) consistent, objective buying and quality analysis process.

Cupping At Scale Green coffee importers and sourcing companies cup a lot of coffee. How much depends on their size, the size of the farms they work with, and their specific procedures around purchasing and quality analysis. There are several different

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types of samples that often necessitate individualized cupping procedures: 1. Offer or type samples: These are samples that come directly from producers, producer groups, cooperatives, or exporters; they represent green coffee that has not yet been contracted by an importer or roaster. Offers usually represent specific lots that are already milled and ready to send, while type samples represent the quality of a hypothetical lot not yet processed, or a group of smaller specific lots.

2. Preship samples: Once samples have been contracted and are ready to ship, exporters, co-ops, or producing groups will send a sample to show the quality just prior to shipment.

3. Arrival or approval samples: Once the coffee arrives, importers and sourcing companies will taste a sample to see how the often long, climatically extreme shipping process affected quality. If this is simply a sample to see how the coffee tastes

on arrival, this will be called an arrival sample. If, pending quality, the buyer may reject the coffee, this may be called an approval sample. (In this case, the importer or sourcing company is typically stuck with the rejected lot and can file a claim if the coffee is defective, allowing them to negotiate the price of the coffee.)

Because importers have a lot of coffee to cup—and because mistakes are expensive at this stage of the supply chain—most importers have protocols that allow them to cup accurately even at a very large scale.

Building Objectivity Since human sensory experiences vary day to day and person to person, the smartest cupping procedures build in as much objectivity as possible. There are many ways to do this.

Controlling Variables: “Consistency is the most important thing,” says Joel Edwards, head of

PHOTO BY EVAN GILMAN

quality at Red Fox Coffee Merchants [full disclosure: my employer]. This, to Edwards, needs to be comprehensive: it needs to start with consistently measuring the coffee’s physical variables including moisture, water activity (a measurement of how moisture passes in an out of the coffee seed), and density. It also means consistent roasting procedures, since inconsistent sample roasting can bring an unwanted variable to the cupping table.

To combat this potential variable, Red Fox switched their sample roasting protocol from Probats (conventional drum sample roasters that rely on humans to actively profile them as they go) to Ikawas (air roasters that use an internal temperature control to run a preset profile), which offer consistent results with a narrow margin of error.

Using profiles designed for different water activity ranges, the Red Fox team measures roast level by weight loss and tweaks profiles on a regular basis.

Edwards also emphasizes the importance of high-quality grinders, gram scales that go to the tenth, and digital kettles—all tools that yield consistency.

Anderson Stockdale of Ally Coffee emphasized the importance of repeatability and transferability from lab to lab and client to client.

“Standard cupping procedures let us know and trust our baseline, so that if we need, we can pay attention to particular client requests and coffees to fill our own spot position,” she says.

Caitlin McCarthy-García and Amanda Amato of Royal Coffee Importers agree that consistency and repeatability are the hallmarks of a good QC protocol.

“Coffee quality needs to be assessed using consistent methodology,” says McCarthy-García. “When quality has diminished beyond reasonable expectation from preship to arrival, a quality claim may be in order and consistent standards of measuring quality help to make the case.”

Blind Tasting: Blind tasting, especially at specific points where bias is more likely to

PHOTO COURTESY OF RED FOX COFFEE MERCHANTS

YIELDING CONSISTENCY: A double-blind cupping at Red Fox Coffee Merchants.

influence decisions, allows teams to remove any preconceived ideas they may have about individual producers, farms, or communities when assessing their coffee.

For cuppings that lead to purchasing decisions (offer cuppings), the Red Fox team uses a system called signal detection cupping, introduced to them by sensory consultant Paul Songer and honed over time. The system involves a spreadsheet that double-blinds the cupping as well as three cups of each coffee placed at random across the table rather than in a consecutive set.

The team then assesses each coffee on a scale of 1 through 6 (basically, a scale of “definitely” to “definitely not” based on a set of simple, predefined attributes). Cupping team members feed their scores into the spreadsheet, unblind them, and view a series of metrics that help them make buying

decisions: an average score for each sample, an overall confidence score for each sample, and the individual scores of each cup within a sample. In tasting the coffee with full anonymity, the team can’t bring any preconceived biases to the cupping table.

When making purchasing decisions, the Ally team doesn’t always cup blind, since they sometimes find it helpful to know what they’re looking at when they’re looking for something specific— but, when they do cup blind (which is often), Stockdale makes sure that the table contains duplicates of certain samples in order to test the team’s consistency. Just as Red Fox’s signal detection system places three cups of each coffee in separate, anonymized positions around the table, this type of measure ensures that the removal of bias offered by cupping blind is backed by an assessment of the team’s consistency.

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 25

In House

Cupping with a Team: Without a team, cupping results can end up unreliable and unanchored, so at the scale of importers, team cupping is generally considered essential.

Cupping with your team and calibrating are critical to a successful cupping program, says McCarthy-García.

“If you work alone, make sure you avoid cupping in a vacuum and do your due diligence to cup and discuss quality with other people,” she says.

Since all the salespeople at Royal are involved in purchasing decisions, they usually have a large team cupping. Amato also cites “multiple people at the cupping table” as a key success factor for the Royal team.

Edwards also emphasizes the importance of using a team, especially since the company involves two labs and several remote team members.

“Because we’re comparing different offers over several days, weeks, and months throughout harvest, we need to be able to make sure were calibrated as a team,” he says.

The signal detection cupping system relies on a spread of info from multiple cuppers that not only filters coffees that are clearly within and clearly outside of the quality standard, it also flags coffees in the middle and allows the team to discuss them.

At scale, a team is a key ingredient to cupping success.

Trial & Error Another staple of a good cupping procedure is the ability and willingness to reexamine your process and make changes if and when you need to.

The Ally team is continuously honing their cupping operations, especially around efficiency of workflow— a critical factor not just for shipping logistics, but also for the lives of producers waiting on buyers’ decisions.

26 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLY COFFEE

“Getting to the right offers in the right order is important,” says Stockdale. “We are constantly working on how to sort them.”

The Royal crew is also open to change when needed.

“At Royal, there’s a solid standard in place that’s open to evolution when new ideas or influences are brought to the table,” says McCarthy-García. While they’re satisfied with their current process, they’ve made many helpful tweaks over time.

Red Fox’s cupping team also embraces the occasional necessary shakeup in their daily cupping operations. In addition to the aforementioned change in roasting machines a few years back, they previously used the traditional SCA cup scoring protocol for purchasing as well as preship and spot samples, but decided to swap it for their current signal detection process in order to scale to a second lab while preserving quality.

your goals are and find the signal,” says Edwards. “The takeaway is to identify what you’re looking for, communicate it to your team, and search based on that.”

With a thorough understanding of your cupping goals and a healthy stream of communication between you, your team, and your sourcing partners, you can apply the key principles importers and sourcing companies use at scale to hone your process and increase your accuracy and efficiency. A good cupping procedure is critical to your success, and importers are perfectly positioned to shine a light on the many ways a good cupping procedure can look. FC

Shared Lexicon One of the most important parts of cupping is developing a lexicon you can share with all of your supply chain partners. If you buy coffee from a green coffee sourcing company or importer, you should have a conversation with them about how they sample roast and how they cup.

Calibration is key to good conversation: even though you don’t have to adopt the same cupping procedure as your importer, it will certainly be helpful to understand a) the context in which you’re both tasting the same coffee, and b) the principles that inform their protocols and why they’re valuable.

“It’s much easier to help someone find what they need when we know we’re talking about the same thing,” says Royal’s Amato.

Note that your importer’s cupping process doesn’t have to be the same as yours to build that common ground.

“I’m not sure that the specific signal detection cupping process is valuable to the average roaster’s scale, but the key is to look at what

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 27

Do You Know?

SAM SCHAEFER, Mockingbird Coffee

U

p until 2009, Sam Schaefer had been a self-declared “iced latte, sugary coffee, into-the-culture kind of drinker.” But it was that year, during a visit to Madcap Coffee, he was introduced to specialty coffee—and now, 10 years later, he hasn’t looked back.

“I was still in high school in Grand Rapids,” says Schaefer. “I had gone to Madcap and it was brand-new at the time—their branding was different, their packaging was different. And I finally tried a cafe miel. I drank this thing and I was like, ‘This is different.’ And from that moment on I was fascinated by how it was made, I was fascinated by the people behind the counter, and I was fascinated by the equipment.”

Being a barista—let alone the founder of a coffee company—was never the plan for Schaefer.

28 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

“I had calculated my life in such an opposite direction,” he says. “I thought I was going to become a musician.”

That changed when he moved to Ann Arbor to study Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan. To help pay for school, he took a job at Michigan-headquartered chain Biggby Coffee. He quickly moved on to The Common Cup, and from there to Mighty Good Coffee, where he eventually became lead trainer and lead barista before leaving to work in sales and quality control for Stovetop Coffee Roasters in 2017.

He’s also an avid coffee competitor, having participated in the United States Barista Championship each year since 2017, making the semifinals this past season.

During that semifinal routine, Schaefer announced his new project, Mockingbird Coffee. A roastery and tasting room

BY FIONN POOLER

tucked away beside the train tracks on Ann Arbor’s West Side, Mockingbird will begin roasting and serving this fall.

He sat down with Fresh Cup at the almost-finished roastery to talk coffee, competitions, and community.

Fresh Cup : Tell us a bit about first getting started as a barista.

Sam Schaefer: I applied at every single specialty coffee shop in Ann Arbor, [but] my hours were too restrictive I think….I got a job at Biggby and learned a ton about the infrastructure and logistics of operating a café, and I didn’t think I would learn that. I was really working there to get something on my resume to convince someone else. And shortly after that, right before the end of 2013, I got a job at the Common Cup. PHOTO BY FIONN POOLER

That was the exact opposite of Biggby. There was no training, no infrastructure, but there was all of the equipment, all of the nice coffee. And I had downloaded a lot of books on coffee and started just experimenting. So that was an amazing little playground.

When did you decide to start competing?

Technically the very first Barista competition I attended, I was judging; I did a whole year of technical judging.

I kinda got into the competition circuit by judging, and I got hooked on the entire culture. And then the following year, in the fall of 2017, right before I left Mighty Good, I actually did the very first preliminary round at Quills Coffee in Louisville. I was mostly an independent competitor in terms of

support—I bought everything myself, I paid for my whole way.

I took a job at Stovetop Roasters basically right after that competition, and they sponsored me to compete.

And I helped coach my coworker, Mike [Greene], and we both made it to the United States Barista Championships [in 2018]. I think I got like 21st or 23rd place or something and Mike got 10th place that year. We kind of were just helping each other.

It was a very exciting and humbling time because neither of us felt super qualified to be there, but we weren’t going to stop at anything to be as good as we could be.

And then this past year, the 2019 season, I competed for Stovetop and made it to the United States Barista Championships again. I was starting Mockingbird during preparations for finals, and actually made the announce-

COFFEE BAG PHOTO: FACEBOOK/BREWMOCKINGBIRD; OTHER PHOTOS BY FIONN POOLER

ment of my company part of my routine.

So you could say the company started at the semifinals of the United States Barista Championship.

Will you continue competing?

I am so hooked. The reason I started competing was because of what coffee competitions had done for me as a barista or just even as a consumer.

I had been watching them on the livestreams and keeping up with them ever since I started drinking coffee. The baristas at Madcap were competing and I had been anticipating this competition, not necessarily determined to do it, but there are a few people in the coffee competition circuit over the last decade or so that have really made competition a space for celebration of what we do and inspiration for how we FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 29

Do You Know? Sam Schaefer

can do it better. And I think that propelled me to want to do coffee at all.

I’m just happy to be a part of a group of people that are trying so hard to find a better way to sustain or innovate or create what we all love. The reason I chose to compete is because I felt like I could pass on that torch, or I could continue that message for more people. The scores or the trophies or whatever is fun, but I really love listening to what people have to say, and I take that stuff to heart. So I will compete again and I hope I have something better to say than I did the year before.

So, Mockingbird. Have you been planning this for a while?

I think once I started working in coffee, the dream was that someday I’d have a business of my own. I come from an art background and a music background, so the lure for having my own business was not money or control or power or whatever. It was that I could put a unique stamp on what I do and share something with someone else. But a lot of the things I’ve dreamed about have just been copycats of shops I’ve really loved, and thankfully I’ve evolved over time. Mockingbird is nothing like some of those original ideas.

I’m really drawn right now to curating roasted coffees for a community. I’m really excited for Mockingbird to be about sharing specific kinds of coffees, and helping people experience and understand coffee in a deeper way through that curation. And also we’ll have a tasting space, so I’m really excited to just curate an environment where people can enjoy coffee, try coffee, learn more about coffee.

You recently moved to Detroit. Why did you choose Ann Arbor as a location for Mockingbird?

I moved to Detroit a year ago because I got engaged, and my fiancé has a beautiful home and a career that

30 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

PHOTO BY FIONN POOLER

is less mobile. He’s definitely not moving. I really love Detroit, and I really love Ann Arbor for sort of separate reasons, but the choice to start the business here had to do a lot with the kind of business that we wanted to open.

I thought a lot about, what does it mean to exist in the physical realm as a business and as a person?

If I’m choosing to start a business without my future customer’s consent, then I better think about what they’re going to want to patronize.

I wanted to be super sensitive and aligned with my understanding of where I was. So I chose a place I know really well. I chose a place down the street from where I lived for five years, so it kind of feels like I’m still here. I chose an environment that is looking for something new, and I chose an environment that I think is excited and ready to get behind this mission of a new outlook on coffee economics and coffee finance and coffee as a supply for our community.

Can you talk some more about the space itself?

This first location of Mockingbird is definitely physically more of a production roastery. There is a tasting space, and we’ll use the space for a lot of coffee and non-coffee events, but the brick and mortar itself is designed for producing roasted coffee and shipping it or delivering it to those who want it.

Mockingbird is a business idea, or experiment, in what could make the specialty coffee supply chain more viable from the end of the chain backwards. And that means higher prices, and it means a more specific experience. I think business is often even more powerful than community service or politics, and we’re hoping to use that leverage for good.

What do you see as Mockingbird’s role in the local coffee community?

We definitely have a lot of ideas for how can we support the local baristas and how can we provide access to more information and help empower people who feel isolated or stuck because that is definitely a narrative that I’ve had in my coffee journey.

A big thing at Mockingbird is understanding the importance of cooperation or collaboration, and we want to make that a factor in how and why we host educational events. We definitely want to host educational events for coffee professionals as well as for consumers.

I’m excited to be able to provide a lot of the stuff that I wish I could’ve had when I was just a barista making $10 an hour and going to college. FC

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 31

The Whole Bean

BOON BOONA COFFEE Goes Back to the Source

STORY AND PHOTOS BY BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL

BOON BOONA COFFEE owner Efrem Fesaha (right) and director of coffee, Ali Gulduren.

32 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

I

t’s noon on a Saturday, and things are abuzz at Boon Boona Coffee. As both “boon” and “boona” are East African terms for coffee, the name “Boon Boona Coffee” delivers tripleshot branding for this community gathering place in Renton, a suburban city just south of Seattle. Since opening this past January, the coffeehouse has attracted a large, diverse, and enthusiastic clientele.

Boon Boona founder and CEO Efrem Fesaha has equipped his new enterprise with the typical accoutrements of a modern café: coffee makers, coffee grinders, espresso machines, an enticing pastry case, and a gleaming roaster that presides smack dab in the middle of the space.

But Fesaha points out that all of the above have developed over just the last century or so. As the son of Eritrean immigrants, he is mindful of his roots and what he calls “the narrative of coffee.”

“Coffee has a much longer and deeper history,” he says, “and it’s important to speak to what that history was and what it looked like.”

To that end, Boon Boona focuses on coffee sourced from Africa, where coffee first originated.

Fesaha’s journey toward coffee entrepreneurship has been roundabout.

He was five when his dad was hired as a Boeing engineer and the family moved to the United States. As a kid growing up in Seattle, Fesaha navigated the hybrid life experienced by most children of immigrant families.

At home, his parents spoke their native tongue, Tigrinya, and maintained some of the customs of their homeland. The East African community in Seattle is robust, and Fesaha recalls a “revolving door” of friends and family visiting, eating traditional food, and participating in the daily ritual of roasting beans and drinking coffee.

There was reminiscing about village life back in Eritrea.

“They’d talk about the goats and sheep, about walking to school every

day with their friends, and the family that was their joy,” says Fesaha. “It sounded better than Disneyland.”

Outside of the home, meanwhile, Fesaha was immersed in school and an American adolescence. After graduating from high school, he attended Washington State University, then landed back in Seattle to launch a career as a financial analyst, working for Amazon and Nordstrom.

But it wasn’t until he returned to Africa in 2011 as a grown man and

spent several weeks in the family’s ancestral village in Eritrea that he began to understand what his parents had been talking about. It wasn’t Disneyland, exactly, but “the feeling that everyone is your cousin, your brother, your sister,” he recalls.

That was also the trip when a visit to a local café changed the trajectory of Fesaha’s life.

He’d walked into the café one morning and was enveloped in the heady aroma of roasted coffee beans. The proprietors

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 33

The Whole Bean

did their own roasting onsite, and the sensory impact almost bowled Fesaha over. This was a far cry from the coffeehouses back in the U.S., where coffee was prepared with beans that had been pre-roasted and packaged elsewhere.

And that’s when an idea began to percolate.

Fesaha returned home. Seattle may be headquarters to Starbucks, the corporate Goliath of the coffee world, but now he felt that he had something of his own to contribute to the coffee business: the authenticity of single-origin, sustainably grown coffee beans from Africa.

“I wanted to have that shine,” he says.

He started out small, sourcing the best beans possible so that the transplanted East African community in Seattle could get a reliably delicious taste of home. Gradually, his wholesale business expanded to other markets around the U.S. Next, he started roasting his beans in pop-up settings, getting feedback, and building a clientele.

34 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

Finally, last year, Fesaha signed a lease on a high-visibility, 2,600-squarefoot corner retail space in Renton, and set about creating a café of his own. He continued doing pop-ups, even serving pour-overs from the front door of his new space during the build-out.

By the time Boon Boona Coffee opened its doors to the public in January, it already had a dedicated customer base.

Fesaha brought in Ali Gulduren as coffee manager, and the two have developed a principled approach that focuses on connecting with small, independent exporters to locate African farmers—many of them women—who engage in sustainable cultivation practices. Boon Boona serves coffee sourced from the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia and the Ngozi province in Burundi, among others.

To underscore that direct connection, every weekend Boon Boona offers customers a chance to participate in a traditional East African coffee ceremony.

As business bustles in the main area of the store, Fesaha or his associate Rahel Goitom perform the ceremony behind a counter off to one side.

On a recent Saturday, Goitom is demonstrating to two couples who are perched on stools across the counter from her. She chats with her guests about the origin of the coffee while pouring the green beans into a pan and roasting them over an open flame.

When the beans begin to sizzle and turn brown, she removes them from the heat and pours them onto a small, woven mat called a mesh er efet, holding it up and encouraging her visitors to waft the fragrance toward their noses.

Next, the beans are ground. Traditionalists use a mortar and pestle; this affords more time for conversation, which is the point of the leisurely ceremony in the first place.

Once a medium coarse grind is achieved, it is poured into the jebena, a shapely vessel used for brewing in Ethiopian and Eritrean coffee ceremonies. The

coffee is brewed several times before it is considered drinkable. Sometimes sugar, milk, or coins of ginger are added to the cup or brew.

The final flourish is the pour. In a practiced move, Goitom holds the jebena high and releases a slow stream that prevents any sediment from slipping into the small cups below. The coffee is served with a mildly sweet bread

called dabo (in Ethiopia) and himbasha (in Eritrea), and a roasted barley and peanut mixture called kolo.

For those used to the grab-and-go culture at a typical café, this ceremony is a mesmerizing indulgence in the senses and a chance to reflect upon the source of the drink. You just might say that Boon Boona Coffee’s triple shot is coffee, culture, and connection. FC

Boon Boona Coffee 724 S 3rd St Renton, WA 98057 425-496-8618 www.boonboonacoffee.com Open daily 7 a.m.–9 p.m.

East African coffee ceremonies are held every Saturday and Sunday. The hour-long ceremony is $10 per person. Book online at www.boonboonacoffee.com.

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 35

BY CAITLIN PETERKIN

Recent trends in the café industry reflect a sweeping move towards a more sustainable, plant-based future

36 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

I

n the last year alone, Fresh Cup has covered topics including alternative dairy-free milks, CBD, collagen, adaptogens, and more, each article focused on telling you the Next Big Thing that will appeal to the everincreasing health-conscious consumer base and help grow your bottom line.

Fresh Cup isn’t a health and wellness magazine—nor does it support the notion of a one-size-fits-all methodology of catering to these of-the-moment trends. But some things are hard to ignore. While the past few years have indeed seen a wealth of innovative flavors, vegan-friendly ingredients, and add-ins with purported health benefits, a pattern has emerged through the noise of “better-for-you” trends and products.

From the monumental rise of oat milk to the increasing popularity of Meatless Mondays, today’s consumers aren’t simply looking to make healthier decisions—they’re trying to help the planet.

country have been experimenting with biotechnology to create lab-made dairy products. Motif Ingredients, Perfect Day, and New Culture are just a few of such companies producing animal-free milk, cheese, and yogurt.

Meanwhile, new findings by the World Research Institute estimate the global population will grow to a projected 9.8 billion in 2050, causing overall food demand to increase by more than 50% and demand for animal-based food by nearly 70%. Livestock, including cattle, sheep, and goats, currently use two-thirds of global agricultural land and contribute roughly half of agriculture’s production-related emissions.

A Plant-Based Renaissance Becky Reeves recalls when the only vegetarian options at cafés and restaurants were a simple house salad.

“Now,” she says, “we are seeing Impossible Burgers at Burger King, Beyond Meat at Dunkin’ Donuts, and a general understanding that meat/ dairy substitutes need to be a part of any menu.”

Even major foodservice companies have hopped on board. Within days of each other, Sodexo announced the debut of the Impossible Burger at more than 1,500 U.S. locations in August, while Aramark announced a partnership with Beyond Meat.

“Consumer preferences were driving a need for quality plant-forward offerings and our culinary team has been working with a broad range of plantbased products to create more enticing menu choices,” Heidi Hogan, Aramark’s vice president of product development, said in a statement.

Following the popularity of the impressively meat-like yet meatfree products, scientists around the

food consumption habits, leading to what Reeves calls a “plant-based renaissance where oat milk is kind of the Beverage General of it.”

As Oatly’s Southwest market development manager for the last year and a half, Reeves has been on the frontlines of the oat milk explosion. Although hesitant to label oat milk as a trendsetter— as soy, almond, and rice milk have been around for many years—she believes its rise in popularity is indicative of the growing plant-based market.

“I think it is fair to say that the rise of oat milk definitely coincides with a general rise in plant-based options,” she says. “With more information available to us, especially as it pertains to the environment, our generation is saying enough is enough. We want a planet for our children and grandchildren….

Supporting a structure that allows meat and dairy to be factory farmed to become unrecognizable to the basic agricultural system, and on top of that creating so much methane pollution, this tired and damaging system just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Consumers are demanding change, transparency, and sustainability beyond buzzword but of action.”

Taking Root

“If today’s levels of production efficiency were to remain constant through 2050, then feeding the planet would entail clearing most of the world’s remaining forests, wiping out thousands more species, and releasing enough [greenhouse gas] emissions to exceed the 1.5°C and 2°C warming targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement—even if emissions from all other human activities were entirely eliminated,” the World Research Institute states in the report.

The realities of the effects of climate change have led many concerned citizens—most notably millennials and Gen Zers—to start rethinking their

One business taking such action is Real Roots Cafe, which opened in September 2017 in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, nine miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. After three years working and learning in plant-based kitchens in the Chattanooga area, Matthew and Tiffany Lake decided to open their own business, with a mission to offer delicious, plant-based, whole food.

“We also understand our impact as humans and want to provide amazing dishes that lessen our impact on animals and the planet,” says Matthew Lake.

Since opening, Real Roots has developed a real following in its community, with devotees and initial skeptics of the plant-based movement alike becoming regular patrons. Some of the most popular items on the fully vegan menu

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 37

Better for You the Planet

include jackfruit nachos and tacos, avocado toast with house-made “parmesan,” and key lime “cheezecake,” alongside their beverages made with local Mad Priest Coffee, such as their Ginger Snap Latte, Choco Latte, and cold brew.

KEY LIME CHEEZECAKE at Real Roots Cafe

Lake credits not only medical studies about the benefits of a plant-based diet, but also the wave of celebrities and athletes who have adopted one, that have helped the trend gain momentum over the last few years. He believes the popularity of plant-based offerings will only continue as more consumers are introduced to them through the aforementioned mainstream food channels and become more educated on the matter.

“It will also continue as this is a lifestyle change instead of a ‘diet,’ and really lifestyle changes have a much higher long-term success rate,” he says.

A Tipping Point Following suit with fast-food and chain restaurants, Lake believes that every option on a menu will be able to be veganized down the line. Cafés in particular will need to offer plant-based options, specifically dairyfree milk options—“or get left in the dust” if they don’t, he says.

New research supports this. In July, the Plant Based Foods Association and The Good Food Institute released data showing that U.S. retail sales of plantbased foods have grown 11% in the past year, bringing the total plant-based market value to $4.5 billion.

“Plant-based foods are a growth engine, significantly outpacing overall grocery sales,” said PBFA senior director of retail partnerships, Julie Emmett, in a statement. “We are now at the tipping point with the rapid expansion of plant-based foods across the entire store, so it is critical for retailers to continue to respond to this demand by offering more variety and maximizing shelf space to further grow total store sales.”

38 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

PHOTOS : INSTAGRAM @REALROOTS_CAFE

CHOCO LATTE at Real Roots Cafe

Retailers, restaurants, and café owners must begin adopting practices to cater to the growing demand of consumers seeking plant-based options. Whether it’s offering an array of non-dairy milks and creamers, adding one or two plantbased options, or consulting with vegan chefs to craft an enticing new menu, today’s café owners have more channels than ever to signal that they understand their customers’ lifestyle needs and honor their patronage.

However, Lake cautions that soon it won’t be enough to simply update one’s menu and call it a day. He believes traceability and transparency will be even more key to being a successful business.

“Integrity is also an important part of the customer-to-business connection, and many cafés have taken it upon themselves to show where beans are sourced and how they are washed/roasted,” he says. “Many people are now demanding the same ‘walk-through’ with their food, showing source and farming practices...Look for this to be a normalized practice (boards showing farms where produce is sourced and certain certifications the farm may hold).”

Beyond this, leaders in the industry are also calling for more accessibility as we continue to move toward a plant-based future.

“Who are we granting access to sustainable choices? Those that can afford it? Who are we welcoming into cafés? People who look like us?” says Reeves. “I hope we continue to incorporate the conversation of access when it comes to sustainability. From farmers around the world, to the staff behind a bar, to the products cafés choose to buy, what systematic changes need to be met to make sure we aren’t leaving people behind?”

Throughout history, societal movements have left behind the disenfranchised. But Reeves is hoping that by including more voices and more ideas, the plant-based movement can ensure growth in a way that reflects everyone.

“After all,” she says, “everyone deserves a sustainable and resource-filled planet, not just the folks who can afford the oat milk upcharge.” FC

GRAPHS COURTESY OF PLANT BASED FOODS ASSOCIATION

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 39

N C ANADIA G ROA STIN SOCIET Y

BURE AUX COLLEC TIVE

BAY AREA COROASTERS

COLLECTIVE ROA STING SOLUTIONS

FIRS BL ACK MARKET ROASTERS

40 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

T CR

AC K

N

eil Suthar wanted more control over his coffee program.

He wasn’t unhappy with the coffees he had from a couple of local roasters. And his shop, Foundation Grounds, had experienced plenty of success as a neighborhood anchor in the thriving St. Louis suburb of Maplewood, Missouri, both before and since he took ownership in 2016.

Still, he wanted that ownership to extend further. When presented with the opportunity to begin roasting for Foundation Grounds—without purchasing either a roaster or a place to use it—he couldn’t pass it up.

In October 2017, Suthar was approached by Collin Bay, co-owner of First Crack Coffee, a St. Louis-based Proaster distributor that had recently opened its doors to local roasters to share time on its machines.

“We were inspired by the ability to have direct ownership of the sourcing and roasting process, and to be able to provide our customers a unique product that is specific to our coffee program,” says Suthar. He decided to give it a shot, and Foundation Grounds has maintained its own coffee brand ever since.

Suthar is just one of many in North America to make this leap in recent years, and First Crack is but one of the companies making it possible for shops like his to take roasting into their own hands.

The first of these “co-roasting” spaces, Aspect Coffee Collective, started sharing time on roasters at a Portland, Oregon-based home-roasting supply store called Mr. Green Beans in 2011. The concept has since given rise to more formal business models and spread to other coffee hotspots in New York, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Montreal, Miami, and now St. Louis.

The specifics vary, but all of the spaces essentially offer small cafés or roaster startups the chance to enter the roasting game without the typical entry fees. They’re also enhancing coffee communities throughout North America, as new, small roasters are born in highly collaborative environments.

The community-driven concept has also made its way down under. Catering to the Aussie coffee market, the co-ops provide businesses with more scope for creativity and control. Places like Bureaux Collective, Collective Roasting Solutions, and Specialty Coffee Curators serve as incubators for emerging coffee brands, while also educating the next generation of coffee enthusiasts.

For Melbourne-based coffee institution Patricia Coffee Brewers, joining Bureaux Collective has been the right business decision.

“We love it, and it’s been a great new skill for me to learn,” says Pip Heath, coowner of Patricia. “Over the three years, I feel like I’ve gotten more into [roasting], and…it has helped our business.”

The model is less than a decade old, but it’s spreading quickly and changing the coffee market. As more small companies enter this previously out-of-reach trade, they are finding some major advantages to using these shared facilities.

Putting Roasting Within Reach For most shop owners or other coffee professionals considering launching their own roasting operation, cost presents by far the biggest barrier.

“Roasting machines, permitting, and all of the equipment needed can easily put a company over $200,000 in the hole,” says Jen Apodaca, vice chair of the Coffee Roasters Guild, director of operations for Pulley Collective’s co-roasting space in Oakland, California, and founder of new company Mother Tongue Coffee. “Starting your business with shared equipment helps many companies get through those first rough couple of years.”

The unfettered access to equipment and other resources was enough to convince David Boucher and his partners Marc Séguin and Josh Gieni to pivot from their original plan. When they were planning the launch of Escape in Montreal, they met Andrew Kyres and toured Canadian Roasting Society (CRS), his new co-roasting space.

“When we met Andrew, we were actually going to buy our own equipment,” recalls Boucher, “until I walked into the CRS to meet him—the space and the equipment was just amazing, we couldn’t afford to even think about having such setup.”

That setup includes two new Probat roasters, a P12 and P25/2, equipped with Pilot and Artisan software for roaster control, and Cropster for data logging. CRS members also have access to a fully equipped cupping lab, a weigh-and-fill and sealer for bagging, and space to store pallets of green coffee. Kyres even builds brewing water from scratch every week, providing a highly controlled environment for cupping and quality control.

All of this is available to roasters when they pay an hourly rate for roasting time, plus a storage fee for using warehouse space. It amounts to between 0.50-1.25 Canadian dollars (roughly $0.40-1.00 USD) per pound, a cost more easily built into the business than a massive up-front purchase.

“Rather than needing $150k or something to get a small roastery going, you can walk in with zero dollars, and that’s fantastic,” says coffee consultant and author Scott Rao, who partnered with Kyres in launching CRS in November 2018, and provides training for members. “If you do have a bit of a budget, you can put some of that money towards marketing and other things for the business.”

Drawing inspiration from Brooklynbased Pulley Collective, Melbourne’s Bureaux Collective, led by Tim Varney, who worked at Tim Wendelboe in Oslo, and Tim Williams, who formerly worked at Workshop Coffee in London, was one of the first spaces to open in Australia in 2016.

“I wanted to do something that would democratize the access to roasting,” says Williams. “Make it available for café owners and baristas to get involved, without having to spend five years at a company or 10 years working the floors.”

Bureaux looked at the craft beer industry, where beer would be brewed

PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): ANDREW RIZER, KRISTOFFER PAULSEN, COURTESY OF COLLECTIVE ROASTING SOLUTIONS, LUKE DAUGHERTY, COURTESY OF BLACK MARKET ROASTERS, TAYLOR PELISKA

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BUREAUX COLLECTIVE

using someone else’s equipment and then paid by time or volume.

“Not everyone needs a five-hundredpiece tool set seven days a week,” says Williams. “They need one or two tools, one day a month. And the same is true of coffee. But no one else in the industry jumped into that.”

Having worked as baristas in Melbourne, Varney and Williams already knew café owners and friends who owned cafés and thought about roasting.

“But no one had given them the structure to do it,” explains Williams.

“We went to cafés and said, ‘If you want to start roasting your coffee, we will do all the back-of-house stuff.’”

That includes finding premises, roasters, and green coffee, and providing training—companies would simply come in, roast their coffee, and pay for the time used on the roaster.

The first four coffee brands Bureaux approached—Patricia Coffee Brewers, Everyday Coffee, Assembly Coffee & Tea, and Wood & Co., which also happen to be some of Melbourne’s top coffee leaders—signed on. Now, Bureaux has over 30 members, and is continuing to grow.

“We’re excited to see great coffee and passionate people. That seems to be the kind of clients we work with,” says Williams. “Our pricing and how we’ve set up predisposes a certain type of café wanting to work with us.”

Generally, a café will approach Bureaux for reasons such as wanting to diversify their coffee offerings, the roaster has increased their prices, or they are after more consistency. Then, Williams and the team talk to the café owner about what they want to achieve, and a plan is put together on what green coffee to buy and how to roast it.

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“It’s not particularly complicated,” says Williams. “The coffee industry has done a good job of making [roasting] seem complicated so that people don’t undertake it. But we can have people up and running within a few weeks.”

Loans, organization, and running a whole roastery seven days a week were elements that deterred Patricia coowners Pip Heath and Bowen Holden from opening their own space to roast.

“When Tim Varney and Tim Williams approached us with this idea and asked for advice, we thought it was perfect,” says Heath. “We said, ‘We’re behind you on this.’ We were pretty confident it was going to be awesome for us. But it was even better than we thought.”

The main advantage of the space was that Heath and Holden would be able to finally learn how to roast coffee.

“We would have Tim Varney to teach us to roast. He has a great deal of experience with roasters. And we could do that without any massive outlay of money,” says Heath. “For us, it was about having more control over the product that we had in our shop and just the excitement of learning how to roast. And doing that pretty risk-free.”

Sydney-based Collective Roasting Solutions (CRS) founder Nawar Adra explains that if you are a 50-kilo café and you want to roast yourself, you might buy a fivekilo roaster and put it in a warehouse.

“It would cost for return on investment around A$12 to A$15 a kilo,” he says. “But if a 50-kilo café came to us, it’s only going to cost A$6 a kilo, without pulling anything from the pocket.”

While there are variations in how each co-roasting space structures its pricing model, the end result is the same for any roasters involved: it puts

greater control over their coffee program within reach.

“We have made it so easy,” says Adra.

“All we want from café professionals is to focus on good coffee. Buy great coffee, roast it well, focus on it….They don’t need to worry about maintenance or cleaning.

Grow your business by doing the right thing. Then, go to the next step. Do what you need to do. Just make great coffee.”

Access to Education The material benefits of these spaces are far from the only draw for aspiring roasters. In the co-roasting model, many owners are discovering a much quicker path to learning the trade.

Since its inception, Sydney’s CRS, which is home to 40 clients, has been focusing on building the next generation of coffee professionals through education. Last year, they ran 66 events, including cuppings, educational seminars, and competitions.

Founder Nawar Adra says the next step is to open a CRS Academy. Along with education, the academy will provide accessibility and tools for students wanting to compete.

“We will buy the same machinery and water filtration and give new baristas, brewers, whoever wants to compete, an opportunity,” he says. “They can come and do a rehearsal, work on their competition act, and we will sponsor them.

That way we can bring in new talent.”

COLLECTIVE ROASTING SOLUTIONS

TOP PHOTO BY KRISTOFFER PAULSEN, BOTTOM PHOTO: COURTESY OF COLLECTIVE ROASTING SOLUTIONS

The academy will be a space where different roasting ideologies are taught and welcomed.

“I’m happy to bring anyone,” he says. “I want to make it an institution.”

Pip Heath adds that one of the intangible benefits is having hands-on knowledge of more steps down the line—not just for himself, but for his staff, and, ultimately, the consumer. He brings his staff in on days he is roasting to show them the process, taste the coffee, and talk about sourcing—details they can in turn share with Patricia customers.

“It is such an opening up of the product,” he says.

“I think that that’s got a lot of potential to affect the coffee industry in Australia and globally.”

For owners Collin and Bryndon Bay of First Crack Coffee, which opened its roasting space in January 2018, education is first priority. The brothers, who grew up in the music publishing industry, were new to coffee themselves when they originally sought to launch a wholesale roasting operation. They learned quickly through SCA courses, events, and other opportunities, eventually becoming SCA-certified instructors. That learning experience shaped their business model.

“I first and foremost identify as an education business and sales business,” says Collin Bay. “So it would be shortsighted and elitist to exclude people who are new and soliciting education.”

First Crack eventually became a distributor of a variety of smallwares and other equipment en route to becoming the exclusive North American distributor for South Korea-based Proaster roasters. But when it comes to persuading cafés to try out their services, the brothers’ focus has remained on education and support.

That emphasis has also been a primary selling point for Suthar and his team at Foundation Grounds.

“They’ve been more than generous with hand-holding through the entire process,” says Suthar. “They still continue to do so—that’s what makes it so important for us is that they provide this partnership and expertise for us so I can focus more on customer experience and running the day-to-day operations.”

Many of First Crack’s customers come in with little to no experience roasting. In addition to offering training on the roasters, support for green coffee purchasing, and consultation in the cupping lab, First Crack offers SCA classes à la carte.

“It’s awesome if it can be a community resource,” says Collin Bay. “We had two of our customers in here today who both independently used the term ‘empowerment’ because you’re giving people new skills, access to things that they couldn’t have before. If you used to be a café only, and now you roast your own coffee, you’re giving people skills and a means to support themselves that they didn’t otherwise have.”

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Cultivating Collaboration Education doesn’t only flow from the top down in these co-roasting spaces.

In fact, much of the learning is gleaned from the collaborative environment they create.

Nurturing this communal spirit has been central to the success of Bay Area CoRoasters (CoRo for short), which Floy Andrews and Tim Hansen launched in 2016 in the space that was larger than what its original inhabitant, Supersonic Coffee, needed. Hansen says they specifically sought to model the business around collaboration, not competition.

COFFEE ROOM AT CoRo

When they opened the space to anyone who wanted to launch a roasting business, Supersonic (later rebranded as AKA Coffee) was the first CoRo member.

For Andrews, it was about “having a space to come and connect with others around the thing they’re really passionate about.” She wanted to create coffee community, not merely rent out equipment.

“They learn from each other,” adds Hansen. “People share their information. It’s really kind of a wonderful environment.”

This has proven true for CoRo member Mike Weaver and his company, 3-19 Coffee.

“The community of roasters is a big bonus.…It’s nice to roast in a place that has a neighborhood and community feel,” he says. “It’s been great to get to know other roasters as every company and person has their own path and reason for being in coffee. Roasters benefit from being near competition, as we can all learn from each other along the way.”

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CoRo’s collaborative model is common among co-roasting spaces across North America. In many of these spaces, members cup each other’s coffees, share roast profiles, and provide feedback. “[That’s the b]iggest advantage hands down: we taste way more coffee and roast profiles than any of our competitors,” says Boucher about his Canadian Roasting Society experience. “We cup everybody’s products, everybody’s productions, everybody’s sample roasts, everybody’s importing tests, etc. We would never have tasted that many coffees in this short period of time if we had done it by ourselves.”

While some roasters may prefer to keep more information private, Montreal-based CRS co-owner Andrew Kyres notices a difference in the ones who open up.

“The ones that are sharing are improving so quickly,” he says. “I think they’re seeing the benefit of an open, more socialized version of coffee roasting.”

For Sydney’s Collective Roasting Solutions, its main goals are to help coffee businesses grow, to ensure clients don’t leave for another co-roasting space, and to build respect and harmony across the industry.

“The roasters are not behind the curtains,” says Nawar Adra. “They are out there talking about roasting.”

Co-founder of Sydney’s Edition Coffee Roasters, Daniel Jackson, says roasting at a collective space such as CRS provides a platform for people to talk about issues, solutions, and innovations.

Therefore, there is more chance of these things being tackled and changed.

“Enabling more to be involved brings awareness to the coffee industry and some of the struggles that can be had in an industry we all love,” he says.

Disrupting the Industry Collective spaces also provide an opportunity for café owners to question their situations: “What is this roaster doing for us, and what value are they bringing?”

PULLEY COLLECTIVE

Tim Williams says while many Australian roasters bring a lot of value, there are some who’ve gotten away with poor practices for a long time. “[They] put questionable coffee in bags and ship it out, with café owners not having too much choice,” he says.

“One of the impacts, we hope to have, is for mid-tier roasters to buck up their ideas to generate more value. Otherwise, café owners will go and do it themselves. And arguably, do it as well.”

For Sydney’s CRS, their mission is to be direct trade. They also hope to influence the coffee industry to bind together and not drop coffee prices.

“If café owners keep pushing prices down of a wholesale company, there will be a turning point, where wholesalers will start to use terrible coffee to give the market what it’s asking for,” says Adra.

“If you are here to represent the farmer, then you need to look at scaling.”

With that in mind, coffee professionals need to say: “I want to have a wider audience. The more audience I have, the better the buying is, the more benefits I’m giving that farmer.”

By roasting at collective spaces and having access to technology to ensure consistency, coffee can evolve itself, and the price of coffee can go up.

“Then we can give the quality that we are meant to give,” says Adra.

“We need to go back to the service.

We need to start realizing we need to serve people better, and we need to make them feel comfortable.”

While collective roasting spaces are financially sustainable, they also have the potential of being more environmentally sustainable. CRS, for example, is looking into roasting equipment that has a better footprint.

LEFT PHOTO BY TAYLOR PELISKA, RIGHT PHOTO BY JENNY LEDERER

Many of those who have started these spaces are seeking an impact that goes beyond all of these objectives, though.

“I wanted to see coffee shatter,” says Tim Hansen of CoRo. “Wine shattered a few years ago—it used to be there were just a few wineries. A few companies made the lion’s share of sales....There are now thousands of small wineries and more winemakers control their own economic future, they’re in better control of their lives, they are producing more creative and better wines, and those few big ones are no longer so dominant. So, we thought that if that could happen to coffee, that would be awesome. The quality of the coffee would go up, the number of people making a decent living would go up, and people would take control of their lives.”

These spaces have certainly sparked a proliferation of roasters in their markets, as many small cafés begin roasting for the first time. CoRo alone serves more than 20 members and between five and 10 customers who rent on an as-needed, hourly basis. For consumers in markets that support a co-roasting space, this means a wider array of coffee options.

For Steve Mierisch, the end goal of this market diversity reaches beyond the consumers. Mierisch opened one of the first co-roasting spaces, Pulley Collective in Brooklyn, in 2012 and has since added locations in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, but his roots in coffee extend beyond the U.S. “I’m originally from Nicaragua. I grew up on coffee farms and know many coffee farmers,” he says. “The more coffee roasters that exist that can sell their coffee for $20 a pound in their coffee shops, the more coffee roasters will exist that can pay $4–5 a pound for green, making farming more sustainable when these roasters practice responsible and transparent green buying.”

Pulley Collective’s Brooklyn location opened its doors with around five members seven years ago. Today, the location boasts between 25 and 30 members, on top of a number of highprofile alumni that have since gone out

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPECIALTY COFFEE CURATORS

on their own, including Parlor Coffee, Ninth Street Espresso, and Noble Tree.

“Multiple small roasters on offer in one city reinforces the feelings and knowledge that coffee is an agricultural product produced by humans,” says Steven Sadoff, founder of NYC’s Ground Support, a Pulley Collective member.

“When you only see a few large roasters across a dozen stores, coffee feels like it’s supplied by a few factories, thereby contradicting what attracts so many of us.”

A More Inclusive Roasting Trade Collective roasting spaces are also there for those who are done waiting— done waiting for someone to hire them, done waiting for someone to offer them a chance to upskill. It’s about taking control of one’s coffee journey, and, ultimately, career.

Situated in Sydney, Specialty Coffee Curators was formed after teaming up with an investor, Espressology. The idea came from seeing the growth of communal companies such as Uber and WeWork.

“I thought, ‘Why can’t we make coffee beans accessible?’” says founder Caleb Holstein. “We wanted to provide a space where there would be some industry structure.”

Holstein wanted to open the coffee industry to provide a gateway for people to access the best coffee, to understand it, and not to feel intimidated by it.

Specialty Coffee Curators is a communal training facility, where Holstein and his team help coffee professionals run training courses. There is also a shared office, which can be utilized by those wanting to start their own business.

CALEB HOLSTEIN

“We are the incubator and platform for them to create,” he says. “We’re not experts. We’re just giving people space and a supporting network.”

One of their current members is Black Market Roasters, who uses the space to roast as well as run their training courses. Black Market founder Angus Nicol says collective spaces make roasting accessible to anyone wanting to give it a go. They also help develop a community of coffee professionals who share ideas or hang out while chasing their own coffee goals.

“There are so many passionate people out there who want to learn,” says Holstein. “So I’m trying to make it more accessible and affordable.”

Along with increased accessibility, upskilling is one of the most significant advantages of these spaces.

“The higher end of the coffee industry is cannibalizing itself because we’re taking baristas from one store to the next to the next to the next,” says Holstein. “They are looking to upskill, and they don’t know where to go. And the easiest thing is to go do their job somewhere else.”

Specialty Coffee Curators is there to break down barriers and preconceptions of coffee roasting. It’s also a space where staff can upskill, and afterward, go and have a coffee together.

“It creates that sense of community in the business where everyone is brought in for the one product,” says Holstein. “We need more people to know about coffee, to understand and value our product. There are some fundamental issues in the coffee supply chain. It’s about valuing green coffee.”

For Kobi Morris, head roaster and café manager of Sydney-based Paramount Coffee Project (PCP), the opportunity to roast only came up around nine months ago when PCP decided to roast their coffee at CRS. “We were looking for an impartial space to roast our coffee,” she says.

“As we are a business co-owned by two Australian roasters, we were mindful of maintaining our brand. If we had started

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roasting in the Reuben Hills or Seven Seeds space, it would have been difficult to grow and develop our roasting style.”

Morris explains that the training programs make it easier for a barista to go on their own and learn to roast, or for a café to create more opportunities for their staff.

KOBI MORRIS

“I’ve worked as a barista for 14 years, but never for a company that roasted, until now,” she says. “It always seemed hard to learn how to roast without getting employment at an established roaster….Now, the idea that I could go into business on my own as a roaster through a collective space is empowering. And empowerment is essential in

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the hospitality industry, particularly for underrepresented people.”

Morris is not alone as a woman experiencing these benefits of empowerment, diversity, and inclusivity.

“Shared roasting spaces lower the cost of entry into the coffee roasting world for women and other marginalized people that are denied access to capital,” notes Jen Apodaca, who also founded #shestheroaster, an organization that exists to help self-identifying women in coffee become roasters.

Samantha Padilla experienced these benefits firsthand, thanks to First Crack. Although she had worked in roasters in San Diego in the past, that work had only consisted of production assistance outside of roasting. After moving to St. Louis, her opportunity to roast came unexpectedly while working as general manager for Kitchen House Coffee, a two-shop multi-roaster that wasn’t roasting its own coffee when she came on board.

When First Crack approached the owners of Kitchen House Coffee, they gave Padilla the opportunity to launch the program. She roasted for the company for 18 months before accepting a sales position with First Crack in June.

“It was definitely the only opportunity I’ve ever been given to be able to roast coffee,” says Padilla, whose

background in nuclear engineering with the Navy made the science-heavy work of roasting a natural fit. “I don’t know if or when that would have ever been able to happen if it wasn’t for First Crack.”

Padilla also spent time last year at Re:co, where she met several female roasters, including some from #shestheroaster. In her short time roasting, she has already mentored several other women, including many who roast at First Crack, and is hoping to launch a St. Louis Women’s Roaster Alliance.

“I think it’s definitely becoming more known—the lack of women in coffee, especially in higher skilled or roasting jobs,” she says. “It could be really exciting to get to expand and hopefully get more females into roasting.…I think [places like First Crack] will open up a whole door of opportunity for a lot of

LEFT PHOTO COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT COFFEE PROJECT, RIGHT PHOTO BY LUKE DAUGHERTY

underserved communities in the coffee world in general.”

Apodaca cautions that these companies can’t just expect this type of diversity to happen on its own, however.

“Although the door is open, shared roasting spaces still need to do work to encourage and invite women and POC into their spaces,” she says. “Just seeing women roast coffee can change the minds of people who previously thought differently and maybe encourage them to make their first non-white male hire on the production floor.”

A Trend in Development Co-roasting spaces don’t come without challenges. Roasters have lastminute needs that demand scheduling flexibility. There are inevitable tensions that come in sharing a space with one’s competitors, no matter how collaborative the spirit. Growth limitations are also inevitable in a shared space with limited equipment and time slots for each member.

Kobi Morris says the only hurdles PCP faces is that of logistics, transporting coffee, and having a short time slot once a week.

“I use my own car at the moment but if we do more volume we might look at a van,” she says. “Also just having a

PHOTO BY ANDREW RIZER

CANADIAN ROASTING SOCIETY

short time slot once a week means it’s hard to really get to know the roaster, and all the variables like weather that can affect the roast.”

Additionally, with café owners now able to gain training, support, and more or less immediate feedback without much investment, there is the danger of cutting corners.

“I think [roasting co-ops] have the potential for people to cut corners and go cheaper, and lower quality,” says Pip Heath. “People go off and do things their way. I think it’s great that people can do that, but I don’t think it necessarily results in higher quality.”

Furthermore, adequate safety training must be ensured, and clear communication of which responsibilities fall on the co-roasting business and which fall on the members is essential.

Especially when it comes to liability insurance or specific state and federal

regulations, all parties must understand who is accountable.

Still, despite these challenges, co-roasting spaces have already made a noticeable impact on the industry—on both sides of the globe—in a relatively short time.

“I’m so hell-bent on making this place the best roastery in North America that, at this point,” says Kyres of Canadian Roasting Society, “I’m already at a place where to top what I have here you’d have to have a very, very deep pocket and significant investment to replicate the kind of perks that people have here.”

Ultimately, co-roasting spaces around the world bring industry professionals and coffee enthusiasts together to share knowledge and experiences, and collaborate over a global product that many hold dear. Time will tell how far this trend will go, but this first wave of co-roasting owners is clearly hoping it’s here to stay. FC

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STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAITLIN THROGMORTON

THE OLD BARRACKS in Birdhill, County Tipperary, is both a roastery and café located in former army barracks.

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J

ust over a decade ago, few specialty coffee roasters existed in Ireland.

Now, more and more roasters are coming onto the scene. To get a sense of the landscape of Irish coffee roasters, I visited three roasteries—including one of the first, and two relatively new operations, though all are led by seasoned coffee professionals.

Over a Decade of Roasting Coffee in the Irish Countryside of Fermoy Getting to Badger & Dodo felt nothing short of idyllic, and their specialty coffee would prove to be the same. I knew it would be an adventure when my emailed directions read, “Don’t worry if there are cows or horses about.”

After meandering through the verdant farmland of rural County Cork, I finally arrived at Badger & Dodo’s roasting facility, located a few miles outside of Fermoy and about half an hour outside of Cork.

The roastery faces rolling green hills, much of which is farmland belonging to the owner’s in-laws. The company is named for owner Brock Lewin (broc means “badger” in Irish Gaelic) and for his father-in-law, nicknamed Dodo since childhood.

Though he’s lived in Ireland for over a decade, Lewin hails from Australia, and likes to say he brought flat whites to the Emerald Isle. After years of working in coffee in Australia, upon arriving in Ireland, he either wanted to open up a café or a roastery.

“I looked at the beans options—and there were no beans options,” he says of the Irish roasting landscape a decade ago, with the exception of one specialty roaster in Dublin. “It was a huge challenge coming here in 2008, and people really didn’t know coffee.”

He also noted a lack of barista training and quality equipment. After realizing he could fulfill a need, he launched the Badger & Dodo roastery.

What started in 2008 as a small endeavor on a ten-kilogram roaster, operating out of a five-by-ten-meter shed, has developed into a booming business.

BADGER & DODO’S Brock Lewin (above), roasted beans, and beans being roasted by head roaster Elia Burbello (below).

Though Badger & Dodo was once one of just a handful of specialty roasters in Ireland, some cafés that used to source Badger & Dodo beans have since gone on to open their own roasting businesses. In 2013, they rebuilt the roastery to accommodate their growing operations, adding room for a much larger thirtykilogram roaster; they plan to expand again this year by opening a training center and adding more storage.

In addition to expanding Badger & Dodo’s physical roastery space, Lewin has been experimenting and pushing the boundaries of how he operates, too. While making a Chemex of Ethiopia Gigessa, he told me more about the roastery’s journey, and what lies ahead. Though he’s long been sourcing from a variety of places, including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, Lewin made his first trip

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The Roasters of Southern Ireland

to origin last year, visiting Colombia, “literally tasting hundreds of coffees,” he says. In the future, he’d like to make more visits to origin.

Lewin has also been tinkering with new ideas, such as when Badger & Dodo offered a roast aged in oak casks, called “Barreled,” for the 2018 Christmas season. Lewin considers new endeavors crucial to the success of his business.

As one of Ireland’s earliest specialty coffee roasters, Lewin has seen the rise and fall of many other coffee operations.

“When people come into the industry, through baristas and having that experience, and then decide to roast, they get all the respect in the world out of me,” he says.

Of those just out to make money, however, he’s skeptical. He also believes in the whole process, not just the beans. He wants cafés to do more than just find a great roaster; he wants them to invest in high-quality equipment, barista training, and the entire customer experience from bean to cup.

“It’s not good enough to just source good coffee,” he says.

SOMA COFFEE COMPANY: Enjoying a latte while watching head roaster Matthew von Zweigbergk at work (above).

A Newcomer Roaster in Cork’s City Center Steps from the River Lee and the English Market, nestled in an alley in the center of Cork, lies a new roastery called Soma Coffee Company. I entered the café in the late afternoon, not long after I returned from touring Badger & Dodo. As bass thumps in the background, coffee connoisseurs congregate around dark-stained wood tables amidst dark walls and exposed gray brick. All the dark colors make Soma’s turquoise roaster stand out.

During my visit, head roaster Matthew von Zweigbergk was roasting a washed red bourbon coffee from Shembati Lot 17 in Burundi.

After working in coffee for more than 10 years, founder Alex Bruce decided to open Soma in the spring of 2017.

About a year later, in September 2018, the café acquired a six-kilogram Giesen W6A, and hired on von Zweigbergk. In

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keeping with the company’s transparency values, they placed the roaster on the café floor, and “roast during business hours so our customers can see the process from roaster to cup,” says Bruce in an email.

Having the roastery in-house also creates a feedback loop between roaster and barista, allowing Soma to make tweaks instantaneously and ensure they’re getting the “best out of the bean,” says Bruce. Through the daily process of logging brewing and roasting information online, roasters and baristas can quickly communicate about what’s working, and what needs adjusting.

“In relation to roasting I don’t think we will ever stop learning,” adds Bruce.

So far, Soma has been experimenting with roasting specialty coffees from all over the world, including from Indonesia, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Colombia, many of which are sourced through Nordic Approach. They recently made a three-day cupping trip to the importer’s Oslo headquarters to taste and sort through more than 200 coffees.

Ultimately, Soma prioritizes the people—both customers and colleagues—as the center of their work.

“It’s all about the people,” says Bruce.

“The coffee is secondary.”

Roasting for the Coffee Curious in Beautiful Birdhill On the other side of Ireland, in Birdhill, County Tipperary, stands another tucked-away roastery called The Old Barracks, located in, as one might suspect, a former army barracks. As seen from the road, dark, weathered stone and small white-trimmed windows look unassuming, but in the back, the building looks like a beautiful conservatory, with the café and roastery encased in glass and surrounded by greenery. On a misty, grey morning in the middle of winter, few things could look more inviting to me.

Much like Badger & Dodo, a scenic drive through the countryside is required to reach The Old Barracks. Unlike Badger & Dodo, however, The Old Barracks is both a roastery and a café, and the owner Alan Andrews is mindful of the fact that they’re a “destination for most people.” They’ve set up the café to be an experience worth driving out of your way for, and they seek to “specifically punctuate the customer’s journey,” says Andrews.

When I walked into the café, I encountered a tablet listing the coffees available for that day, which Andrews says creates “theater in picking origin.”

On my visit, I chose a Biftu Gudina from Ethiopia, but the coffees change weekly to keep the experience interesting for repeat customers. In order to “pull down the barrier between barista and customer,” two sleek Modbars—the first in Ireland—await customer orders.

Just behind the bar, tucked behind a wall of coffee available for purchase, sits a 15-kilogram Giesen roaster. At The Old Barracks, they roast four days a week, but Sunday is “showcase” day, when customers are specifically invited to watch the roasting process—though customers can watch any time roasting is underway, because the roaster is out on the café floor. Speaking with customers about the many steps that go into transforming coffee from a fruit to a beverage, it “helps validate the price,” says Andrews.

THE OLD BARRACKS: Roastery and café are situated in 300-year-old former army barracks

Before The Old Barracks, Andrews opened Coffee Culture, a barista training school, in Dublin in 2009. He saw a “massive gap between roasted bean and what was being delivered in the cup,” and ever since, he’s focused on education, consistency, and quality in coffee. When Andrews originally launched The Old Barracks in Birdhill in 2015 as another school, before rebranding as a café and roastery in July 2018.

Andrews believes what sets The Old Barracks apart is their commitment to “bring the customer closer to what we do.” He echoes Brock Lewin, saying, “If you’re only selling coffee, it’s never enough.” Instead, they aim to be a destination for the coffee curious, and to continuously be improving—always in search of “the golden shot,” as Andrews put it.

Whether it’s roasted in the countryside or in the heart of the city, and whether they operate out of a warehouse or run a café onsite, too, Irish

coffee roasters are working hard to showcase specialty coffee from bean to cup—all while recognizing that it takes more than just good coffee to stay in business. It takes heart, hard work, and fine-tuned attention to what the customer wants—and perhaps, it takes just a bit of that famed Irish luck. FC

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Saving Endangered Species, One Sip at a Time Black Rhino Cocoa Chai David Rio BaristaProShop.com To help raise awareness and funds to protect the black rhino, David Rio has decided to feature this endangered species with the newest addition to their chai line. This limited-edition chai contains a blend of spices, black tea, cocoa, and a pleasant hint of cayenne pepper heat. Artfully crafted, this versatile cocoa chai is easy to prepare hot or iced—simply mix it with water, dairy, or dairy alternative.

Gluten-free, kosher, and non-GMO, this product is made with premium, organic certified chai spices and contains no trans fats or hydrogenated oils. Order David Rio Black Rhino Cocoa Chai at BPS today, and sip it knowing that you are helping save the regal rhino!

Primitive, Yet Effective Primitive 380 Pitcher Engrav EngravCoffee.com

Counter Intelligence

Heat until red hot and then hit with hammer—that’s the simple, brutal recipe that Jordan Wilkins used when designing his first prototype concave milk pitcher. While primitive, Wilkins’ methods proved innovative: The concave design allows baristas to get the spout deeper into the cup and provide further control earlier in the latte art process while still properly steaming and aerating the milk. Several far more high-tech prototypes later, the Engrav Primitive 380 pitcher was born. “Giving baristas more time allows new baristas to grasp the concepts of designing sooner, as well as allowing professionals to create detailed designs,” Wilkins tells Fresh Cup about how his design helps baristas do their job.

Fresh businesses & products

Everyone is Swooning Over Swoon Zero Sugar Simple Syrup Swoon TasteSwoon.com From Eleven Madison Park to Bluestone Lane, Matchaful to the Alfred Tea Room, Swoon has built quite the following for a sugar-free simple syrup. The reason? Swoon utilizes the natural sweetness of a melon native to Southeast Asia: monk fruit. Now, baristas, bartenders, and smoothie masters can create any beverage they can dream of, with no added sugar or sacrificing taste and texture. Just like traditional simple syrup, Swoon can be used 1:1, so no fickle measurements, either. The product is also diabetic, paleo, and keto friendly, as well as gluten-free and vegan.

Foam Fit for a King King’s Brew Nitro King’s Row Coffee KingsRowCoffee.com Have you ever opened a canned coffee expecting the velvety, creamy texture that only nitro can provide, only to by disappointed by how flat the resulting beverage was? Be disappointed no longer! These petite cans of cold brew by King’s Row Coffee pour a hearty, frothy cup that will tickle your taste buds with their effervescence. While we at Fresh Cup found the Original Black to be our favorite, the King’s Brew Nitro line includes five bold flavors: Original Black, Maple Water, Bourbon & Butter, Decaf Cappuccino, and Mushroom Mocha.

52 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

Trade Show & Events Calendar SEPTEMBER 7-8

SEPTEMBER 10-13

SEPTEMBER 11-14

SEPTEMBER 11-14

MIDWEST TEA FESTIVAL

BARISTA CAMP

GOLDEN BEAN

Kansas City, MO

Anavyssos Greece

Nashville, TN

NATURAL PRODUCTS EXPO EAST

goldenbean.com

Baltimore, MD

midwestteafest.com

baristacamp.coffee

expoeast.com

SEPTEMBER 15-16

SEPTEMBER 22-23

SEPTEMBER 23-25

OCTOBER 7-10

FLORIDA RESTAURANT & LODGING SHOW

CANADIAN COFFEE & TEA SHOW

TEA & COFFEE WORLD CONFERENCE

PIR EXPO

Toronto Canada

Hong Kong

Moscow Russia

tcworldcup.com

pirexpo.com

Orlando, FL flrestaurantand lodgingshow.com

coffeeteashow.ca

OCTOBER 10-14

OCTOBER 18-22

OCTOBER 28-29

NOVEMBER 1-3

CHINA XIAMEN INTERNATIONAL TEA FAIR

HOST MILANO

CAFFE CULTURE

Milan Italy

London United Kingdom

CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL TEA FEST

host.fieramilano.it

caffecultureshow.com

citfest.com

NOVEMBER 1-10

NOVEMBER 6-9

NOVEMBER 7-10

NOVEMBER 8-10

KONA COFFEE CULTURE FESTIVAL

WORLD COFFEE LEADERS FORUM

CAFE SHOW SEOUL

Kona, HI

Seoul Korea

Seoul Korea

LOS ANGELES COFFEE FESTIVAL

konacoffeefest.com

wclforum.org

cafeshow.com

Xiamen China

Chicago, IL

teafair.com.cn/

54 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

Los Angeles, CA la-coffeefestival.com

NOVEMBER 10-11

NOVEMBER 13-16

NOVEMBER 15-16

NOVEMBER 20-22

HX: THE HOTEL EXPERIENCE

SINTERCAFE San Jose Costa Rica

COFFEE FEST

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE WEEK

Tacoma, WA

thehotel experience.com

sintercafe.com

coffeefest.com

Belo Horizonte Brazil

NOVEMBER 21-23

NOVEMBER 28-30

DECEMBER 4-6

DECEMBER 14-15

WORLD TEA & COFFEE EXPO

INDIA INTERNATIONAL TEA & COFFEE EXPO

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE & TEA FESTIVAL

COFFEE & TEA FESTIVAL VALLEY FORGE

Kolkata India

Dubai UAE

Valley Forge, PA

teacoffeeexpo.in

coffeeteafest.com

coffeeandtea festival.com

JANUARY 19-21, 2020

FEBRUARY 15-19, 2020

FEBRUARY 23-26, 2020

MARCH 8-10, 2020

WINTER FANCY FOOD SHOW

INTERGASTRA

NGA SHOW

COFFEE FEST

San Diego, CA

New York, NY

messe-stuttgart.de/ intergastra/en

thengashow.com

coffeefest.com

MAY 4-7, 2020

JUNE 18-20, 2020

JUNE 26-28, 2020

AUGUST 9-11, 2020

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COFFEE EXPO

WORLD TEA & COFFEE EXPO

COFFEE FEST

COFFEE FEST

Mumbai India

Chicago, IL

Anaheim, CA

coffeefest.com

coffeefest.com

New York City, NY

Mumbai India worldteacoffee expo.com

San Francisco, CA specialtyfood.com

Melbourne Australia internationalcoffee expo.com.au

semanainternacional docafe.com.br

Stuttgart Germany

worldteacoffee expo.com

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 55

The Last Plastic Straw

UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS

Cafés foster university ties to go zero-waste

BY ROBIN ROENKER

FOODSTORY’S Jonny Chirnside; the University of Aberdeen’s zero-waste café and window signage.

A

s college students head back to classes for the start of the semester, many will reach for a daily cup of coffee or tea to keep their study momentum going strong. Across the globe, a growing number of cafés are working to ensure that a steady stream of student customers doesn’t necessitate a steady stream of cup and paper waste.

Building a University Partnership Last September, Foodstory Café, a vegetarian restaurant and coffee shop based in Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, opened its second location, a zero-waste café on the campus of the University of Aberdeen, one of Scotland’s top universities.

56 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

The university reached out to Foodstory about setting up shop on campus as a way of improving onsite dining options for students, but the owners, who are alumni, thought, “Why not up the stakes a little and try to make it a zero-waste campaign?” explains Jonny Chirnside, a business development executive at the café.

So far, the partnership has been ideal. “We’ve felt very supported by the university. And it’s given us the freedom to push the boat [on sustainability] a little bit more than if we were doing it fully independently,” says Chirnside, noting that, to his knowledge, Foodstory’s Uni café is the first zero-waste café operating in Scotland.

To cut out waste, Foodstory’s Uni café does not offer takeaway cups; all

takeaway is done in reusable containers that customers either bring in or purchase on site.

“To be fair, students are quite possibly the best group to do this with, in that they’re super open to the idea, super progressive, and quite likely already have a similar kind of value system,” says Chirnside.

The café also offers discounts to encourage students to save and bring in used plastic takeout containers from other restaurants, which Foodstory then washes and reuses in order to provide its own food takeaway without additional waste.

To avoid plastic milk jug waste, the café sought out a local milk supplier who agreed to deliver to them using returnable glass bottles. And to skirt the

PHOTOS BY SCOTT ARTHUR @SCOTTARTHUR

use of coffee bean bags, which are often not compostable, the Uni café sources its beans from Obadiah Coffee Roasters, based in Edinburgh, using reusable tubs that incorporate a CO2 valve to maintain the coffee’s freshness and quality.

“Building relationships is so key when you’re trying to do something like this,” says Chirnside, who characterizes the café’s location on campus as “mutually beneficial.”

“There’s been a real flexibility and supportiveness on their side to work with us, and on our side, I think we’ve benefitted the university,” he says.

“It’s good for the students to have a cool place on campus [to eat] that’s quite progressive on the sustainability side as well.”

return for a deposit. The shop uses no disposable cutlery; instead, Huckabone purchased an inexpensive inventory of stainless forks, spoons, and knives at the Salvation Army that customers can use while dining in. Reusable, bamboo cutlery is also sold on-site. To avoid paper waste, customer orders are taken via an app-based system, rather than written by hand.

Right now, the café serves its to-go coffee in compostable cups, but Huckabone plans to move away from singleuse cups entirely by January.

“We’re still exploring how that will work,” she says. “I know other cafés in

other cities are doing a few different things—either a deposit system for reusable containers, or just not offering anything to go. We’re still taking feedback from our customers and considering our best options.”

Already, many customers at Vertex bring their own, reusable containers.

Huckabone is optimistic that the young student clientele frequenting her café come fall will be on board with her zero-waste approach.

“The university has a really big sustainability program, and so I’ve been in contact with them to see how we can work together,” she says. FC

Making Sustainability Accessible This past June, Vertex Coffee Roasters opened its first location near the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. Its name stems from its location at the intersection of campus and the broader Ann Arbor community.

Co-owner Kara Huckabone, who operates Vertex with business partner Matt Bjurman, owner of sister café, Milan Coffee Works, has been implementing zero-waste strategies in her personal life for more than a decade, so she knew right away that she wanted the café to do the same.

“I wanted to make [sustainability] approachable for people,” says Huckabone. “You have to be really intentional [to reduce waste], and I wanted to provide choices that make it a little easier to pick the sustainable option.”

From day one, the café has enacted a number of steps to reduce waste, including using cloth roll towels in the bathroom—or, alternatively, bandanas that customers can purchase and take with them—rather than disposable paper towels or napkins.

Customers can also get their whole coffee beans and takeaway food in reusable to-go tins, which they can later

PHOTOS BY KELSEA JOY PHOTOGRAPHY

VERTEX offers beans in reusable to-go tins.

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 57

Advertiser Index

To view our advertiser list and visit the websites listed below, go to freshcup.com/resources/fresh-cup-advertisers

ADVERTISER

CONTACT

AeroPress

650.493.3050 aeropress.com

35

Barista Pro Shop

866.776.5288

38

Brewista

888.538.8683 mybrewista.com

22

Build A Blend

725.222.9218

buildablend.com

43

Café Femenino Foundation

360.901.8322

cffoundation.org

6

Cappuccine

800.511.3127

cappuccine.net

5

Coffee Fest

425.295.3300

coffeefest.com

9

Curtis

800.421.6150

wilburcurtis.com

1

Descamex

844.472.8429 descamex.com.mx

26

Divinitea

518.347.0689 divinitea.com

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Dr. Smoothie

888.466.9941

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Elmhurst

888.356.1925 elmhurstmilked.com

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503.236.2587

freshcup.com

53

Ghirardelli Chocolate

800.877.9338

ghirardelli.com/professional

Golden Bean

503.706.1330

goldenbean.com

15

Gosh That’s Good! Brand

888.848.GOSH (4674)

goshthatsgood.com

11

The G.S. Haly Company

650.367.7601

gshaly.com

26

Haelssen & Lyon

212.480.5721

haelssen-lyon.com

23

Java Jacket

800.208.4128

javajacket.com

The Lease Coach

800.738.9202

theleasecoach.com

43

Malabar Gold Espresso

650.366.5453

malabargoldespresso.com

27

Milkadamia

630.861.2102

milkadamia.com

4

Monin Gourmet Flavorings

855.FLAVOR1 (352.8671)

monin.com

3

Mountain Cider Co.

800.483.2416

mountaincider.com

38

Peerless Coffee & Tea

510.763.1763

peerlesscoffee.com

30

Planet Oat

800.242.2423

planetoat.com

60

RetailMugs.com

970.222.9559 retailmugs.com

SelbySoft

800.454.4434

selbysoft.com

SerendipiTea

888.TEA.LIFE (832.5433)

serendipitea.com

StixToGo

800.435.6789

stixtogo.com

Tea Trade Show

973.551.9161

teatradeshow.com

46

Theta Ridge Coffee

800.745.8738

thetaridgecoffee.com

47

Toddy

970.493.0788

toddycafe.com/brewing

31

WaterWise

865.724.1200 waterwise.pro

13

Your Brand Cafe

866.566.0390

yourbrandcafe.com

13

Zojirushi America

800.264.6270

zojirushi.com

58 ] SEPTEMBER 2019 » freshcup.com

ONLINE

baristaproshop.com/ad/fresh

drsmoothie.com

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