We have been roasting coffee since the beginning of 2016. When we started, we were world was new to us, but even then we decided that coffee was we would roast would be of sustainably produced, of the highest world class and that our customers could enjoy it as quickly as possible after roasting.
When you roast coffee every day, and all year around, you obviously learn a lot of lessons along the way. Here we share our top three tips for those who want to roast yourself at home and be sure you have the very best conditions.
Different origins age at different rates and the age of the green beans is of great importance for the final result you get in your cup.
Generally speaking, coffee grown at lower altitudes ages faster. It has grown faster, given a higher yield and the beans do not have the same density as if they had grown slowly at a higher altitude.
As coffee roasters, we are almost obsessed with roasting a freshly harvested coffee. The origins we want to roast all year round are bought on the spot market so that we can choose the latest possible harvest (because even if the harvest only lasts a few months, we can always make sure to choose the most recently harvested coffee). Therefore, if you buy your green coffee from a coffee roaster, such as us at White Elk, we guarantee that you get the best possible and freshest green coffee right now. We would never dream of roasting anything else ourselves!
Believe it or not, how green beans are stored is of huge importance. A green coffee that has been left out in a warm room during the summer months will age faster than it should. The result? A flatter cup, far from the liveliness you so desire.
The enemies of raw coffee are exactly the same as those of roasted coffee (and virtually all other foods): air, heat, light and moisture.
As coffee roasters, we do not buy raw coffee to put in storage – even though our roastery maintains the same temperature all year round (20 degrees), we have the beans completely protected from light and also packed in airtight so-called grainpro bags (in some cases also vacuum packed). Our green coffee comes directly from the origin, in season, or via temperate transit warehouses in Germany or Belgium.
We sometimes dream of turning part of our roastery into a huge freezer. This is the only way to stop the ageing process of raw coffee. Then we would be able to buy on the spot and enjoy the coffee in its unchanged form for a long time to come. But it’s likely to remain a dream… It’s hard to justify both the construction cost and the electricity bill. We will probably have to continue as today, to buy on spot and be content with an even temperature and humidity in the roastery.
If you are a home roaster, you can of course buy green coffee and freeze it. Just remember to get a separate freezer. This is because raw coffee absorbs adjacent foods and smells like sponges. And you don’t want a coffee that smells like fish.
When it comes to coffee, there is no better correlation than price and quality. We Swedes know this, because immediately after the New Year, during the poorest months of the year, we can buy coffee from our grocery chains for next to nothing.
But you get what you pay for. We know that there is as much difference between coffee and coffee, as there is between meat and meat, or fish and fish. A fillet of beef costs more than mixed meat and cod loin is more expensive than Alaska pollock.
We drink our coffee almost every day. And almost every day we also test new origins and producers. We can immediately tell the difference between a green coffee that costs SEK 70/kg to buy and one that costs SEK 100, 150 or 250/kg. The connection is clear and it goes all the way back to the farmer, the love given to the coffee bushes and how they grow.
When you pay well, you also invest in increasing biodiversity. Cheap coffee requires a large harvest and often heavy spraying. Huge areas of valuable rainforest (because this is where the coffee grows) are lost for food chains to promote their coffee. High quality specialty coffees, like the ones you’ll find here at White Elk, have been grown at high altitudes, under the shelter of other rainforest trees, and in harmony with other plants and animals. Only then will the coffee be this good, and when the farmer is paid according to performance, only the best coffee berries will be processed and shipped to you and us to roast.
Finally, a tip from the coach. You can pay any amount for your green coffee and the more you pay, the better the coffee you get. Either way, we have coffee roasters called destoners to sort out rocks that may slip from the origin. If you don’t have a good post-control, it can cost you dearly. Read more about our destoners HERE.
Published by Fredrik, 22-04-05
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