Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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ROASTERS REALM by Chris de Mezzo Trading cofee—and then some GAINED PERSPECTIVE: The author (left), roastmaster for Joffrey's Coffee & Tea Company, has connected the dots on the seed-to-cup story through trips to origin, including this one to Honduras. T hose of us who work on the roasting end of the coffee business know the tremendous amount of work that goes into producing a good cup of coffee. Understanding the difficulties producers face in delivering a high-quality coffee has given me an even greater respect for their work. As roasters, we're only as good as what is delivered to us. As roastmaster for Joffrey's Coffee & Tea Company, I deal directly with producers at origin through our importer, Royal Coffee New York. This direct contact has fostered close relationships that have led to better coffee quality and improved quality of life for these farmers. While coffee is our business, it's also vitally important that we're positively impacting the lives of our producers. UNINTENTIONAL ESPRESSO Twenty-eight years ago, I was escorted into the back of a roasting plant. My new co-worker pointed to the green beans and said, "This is the raw coffee." He pointed to the roaster and said, "This is what you'll roast it in." He pointed to a barrel of roasted beans and said, "This is what it needs to look like when you're done." And that was my introduction to the coffee business. Needless to say, I made a lot of unintentional espresso—my nickname for beans accidentally roasted way too dark—during my first two years in the business. Then I began to sit down and taste what I had been roasting. Incredibly, I had never done that before—I was too busy concentrating on not burning the place down and getting as close to the roasting specs as possible. I wasn't much of a coffee drinker back then, but I soon discovered I truly enjoyed drinking what I was producing and wanted to make it even better. Growing up in an Italian family and spending a lot of time in the kitchen, I had an appreciation for things that tasted good. By three and a half years into my roasting career, I was obsessed with learning as much as possible about my craft. Once I became confident in my techniques, I sought to venture outside the roasting plant to the source so that I could better understand the raw material that came to me as a roaster. Panama was the destination for my first trip to origin, and I was overwhelmed to witness the labor that went into producing continued on page 54 52 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com