More About Coffee

There are three main growing regions for coffee around the world:  Africa, South Pacific and Central and South America.   Specialty coffee, like we sell, has to be grown at or above 3,000 feet of elevation in the tropics.  Each region has differing soil types and varieties of coffee that grow well in that particular region.   The different soil types and varieties of plants in each region produce different flavors in the finished coffee product.  Without going too deep into details, most of our customers seem to prefer the rich, "chocolatey" and "nutty" flavors we can consistently produce from Central and South American beans.  So, that's where we focus our buying efforts.  

The industry standard for coffee is to allow it to "rest" for one to two weeks after roasting to allow it to "de-gas."  As we mentioned above, the roasting process starts a cascade of chemical reactions in the coffee bean that start in the roasting chamber and ends with the development of stale, "off" flavors that most people associate with coffee, but that they prefer to cover up with cream and sugar.  These flavors develop as multiple volatile organic compounds oxidize and produce carbon dioxide gas.  

Frankly, we disagree with the industry standard and know deep in our hearts that there are fantastic, interesting flavors that come out in coffee shortly after roasting it.  We leave our beans whole to help slow the oxidation process.  We encourage you to buy a good quality grinder and wait to grind the coffee until you are ready to use it.  And, we encourage you to use the roasted coffee promptly and order in small batches - no more than you can use up in a week.

We leave it up to you to decide when our coffee tastes best, so we tell you exactly when it was roasted and get it to you as soon as humanly possible.  We roast our beans to a medium to dark roast that our customers consistently tell us is completely "dialed in" on the chocolate and nut flavors our customers really enjoy.  You can count on consistently fresh, interesting coffee that has wide appeal here in the U.S.