WE ROAST, NOT BURN…
Most people are still accustomed to burnt coffee. And while they often find joy from their morning cup, it is all the while a tragic notion that so many millions are going about their lives not knowing the full possibility of their coffee life. It’s akin to having always drank heavily chemically treated water. Yes, it will hydrate you. Yes, it will sustain you. But until you have had delicious, chemical free water, you don’t really understand what you are missing… And so it with coffee. So many don’t know the deliciousness of un-burnt coffee. So many companies still thrive on burning their coffee because of laziness and habit.
While approximately half the coffee consumed in the US fits under the umbrella of “specialty coffee” even within that arena there is a whole contingent of roasters that regularly spend more attention to marketing and sales than they do to roasting. A coffee that hasn’t been burnt has a wide variety of flavor possibilities and nuance. A burnt coffee essentially has one characteristic. You taste the burn. And for that reason, once a coffee hits that point, it enters into a state of homogeneity, a league of mediocrity, where everything tastes the same… burnt. All nuance, all individual characteristics, all depth and terroir are gone… It might as well be from anywhere, it might as well be any varietal, it might as well be charcoal.
We strive to highlight individual coffees. And when we blend, it is not to mask a lesser coffee, but to build a coffee akin to a jazz band, to assemble different characteristics into a single cup. We roast to bring out the best of each coffee, not to homogenize through burning. And that is what set a very small number of roasters apart from the masses. And within this small group there are still differences, none right or wrong, just inevitable. As roasters we all have different palettes. We taste for different things. We like different characteristics.
Some love sharp. Some love smooth. Some love highly acidic coffees, some love coffee with more sweet and less sharpness. We strive for sweet and smooth. We like the acidity to be a note, not a definition of the cup. Playing with coffees to find their best is what we enjoy about roasting. It starts with quality coffee. It requires time and work to get the roast right. And then requires the best equipment and attention to maintain consistency to roast that coffee during its time with us.
We love that evolution. We love getting you coffee that tastes like coffee, not charred wood. We love working with and highlighting the best coffees out there, and providing them for you on a daily basis so that even the smallest part of your coffee ritual can bring a highlight to your day.
