At Trees Organic, we roast our own organic fair-trade coffee beans. How do we do it? Café owner Doron Levy roasts beans right in the café on Granville Street several times a week. He shows how it’s done.
Trees Organic uses a commercial-quality Probat coffee roaster to ensure that the best beans get the treatment they deserve. After all, we work hard to source organic coffee beans from around the world that meet our customer’s standards.
First, Doron puts fresh beans into the top of the roaster in a part called the hopper. He sets the temperature he wants and when the thermometer gage says it’s ready, he drops the beans in by turning a lever.
Once the coffee beans are in the roaster drum, baffles turn the beans so that the roasting will happen evenly. This is important to ensure a uniform taste for the batch. Think of it the same way as clothes tumble in a dryer.
Doron can see the beans through the sight glass, but it’s a bit tough to really get a sense of what’s going on inside the roaster. To get a better feel for the process inside, he can pull out the tryer, which holds a few of the roasting beans. He can look at the beans, smell them and decide when the beans are perfectly roasted. Timing is really important, as even just a few seconds either way can mean the difference between too light or too dark of a roast.
When the coffee beans are ready, Doron opens the little door at the bottom and drops them into the cooling tray. He moves the stir arms to keep the beans moving and ventilated so they cool quicker, sealing in the smell and flavor of the coffee oils. Fast cooling ensures the beans do not continue roasting from the residual heat. Then the beans are collected and when the time comes, they are ground and served to our coffee-loving customers.
Have you tried our holiday-featured Ethiopian Sidamo Coffee? We love this coffee bean. It delivers an earthy aroma with just a hint of chocolate – a very pleasant coffee for the consummate café aficionado. Ask for it when you come in – and yes, the Granville café is open on Christmas day from 11 am to 5 pm. Drop by and say hello!
