Coffee Tao

Now that I’ve spent the last two months or so filling out forms for permits, purchasing a roasting machine, finishing the buildout for the roaster, and opening some coffee accounts, it’s time to make the formal announcement: WayOfCoffee.com will soon be changing to become the official site of our new roastery, Fremont Coffee Roasters.
Starting […]

Seems we’ve figured out our flame issue–a dirty thermal coupling was causing the flame to go out at temperatures above 380 degrees. We’ve partially disassembled the burners, cleaned it, and realigned it. Our initial test run was promising, but I’m going to give it a real shot today.
Apologies if it seems like I’ve […]

Used the machine for its first roast today.  How’d it go, you ask?  Terribly, ha ha…turns out our gas pressure is too low, so the flame kept going out.  I tested it with a pound of Brazil Cerrado–almost got something manageable, but the third time the burners lost their flame, I couldn’t relight it for […]

So what’s going on with the roastery?
Glad you asked. After a week’s sprint of laying gas and electrical line, we worked out the kinks, hooked it up, flipped the switch, and we’ve got flame!:

If you’ve never worked in a roastery, let me tell you they take a long time to set up. […]

New York coffeeshop Roasting Plant Coffee Company is pioneering an interesting design for the sale and delivery of their coffee–by turning the entire store into a coffee machine. Dubbed the “Javabot”, in truth it seems to be really just the various aspects of a typical roasting plant and retail shop joined together by pneumatic […]

[I haven’t gone anywhere…for some reason WordPress keeps eating my posts. Going to try to tackle this technical issue but if it seems like there’s a recent posting drought that’s why. -a]
The UK paper The Guardian ran a story today about a “50 GBP cup of espresso” (about $80), served at the Peter […]

Check out this great article on the top ten uses for fresh or spent coffee grounds
on HowToDoThings.com. Most of us already know you can use it for compost, but did you know you can use it to deodorize your kitchen drain, or as a dog shampoo? Some of this stuff was new to […]

Starbucks announced the other day that it has bought the Coffee Equipment Company, makers of the much-ballyhooed Clover brewing machine, for an undisclosed sum. Apparently Starbucks intends to put Clovers in all but the smallest stores, as part of Howard Schultz’s overall push to increase quality in his stores and slow the recent but […]

In a nod to the classic style of apprenticeship from ye olden days, the Lincoln, Nebraska, coffeeshop Cultiva Coffee is offering a literal apprenticeship program for baristas, roasters, and even managers.
By “classic” I mean that applicants would travel to Lincoln and stay in the owners’ home, working at the shop 30 hours a week in […]

The most recent post on That Other Coffee Blog about roasting with an audience got me thinking about my own experiences roasting coffee in a public (or semi-public) environment. At my last shop our roasting room was actually set apart from the retail floor; we used to have our 12k Samiac sitting on the […]