Roasting With Fat Puppy Coffee Roasters

Guess what I got to do tonight?

Visit Fat Puppy Coffee Roasters!  While we were in town I tweeted Sean and asked if he was roasting (okay, okay, I hinted that I wanted him to roast) and we met up with him this evening.

First - a tour around the space:

The roaster!

Green coffee beans - in their purest form.

Ready to be roasted!

But first ...

Sean brewed some Decaf Sumatra to drink while we roasted.  I've never been a fan of decaf because I feel like so much of the flavor is lost in the decaffeinating process, but I think Sean is on to something with this.  I'm not sure I would have known it was decaf if he hadn't told me.

(Umm, I totally bought that mug.  You'll see it again.)

He was roasting coffee for orders, which was fun to watch.  He's got a neat system to fill orders.

The process is complicated, so I'm not going to try to explain it (I would probably butcher it!), but I will say this:  As the roaster heats up and roasts the beans, they go from green to yellow to the deep brown.  And the smell changes from beans to coffee!

Sean pulled the beans out periodically to check the progress.  Once the roaster hit his desired temperature (in the 400 degree's - hot!), the roasting was done and it was time for the beans to cool.

They are super hot when they come out of the roaster, but cool off pretty quickly.

And then they get bagged!

Coffee roasting really is a neat process.  It is much more complex than I ever realized!  It was fun to talk to Sean about it, because he really knows both the coffee end of things and the business end of things.  And he was so patient with all of the questions that both Bruce and I had.  Bruce and I are really picky about the coffee that we drink and absolutely loved to learn more about how it gets from the farm to our kitchen.

AND Sean sent us home with a bag of Ethiopian Harar - I cannot wait to get it home!

11:30 already?  Goodnight!