Sitting in L.A. morning rush hour grid lock I pondered on how far I was removed from the chain of events that brings espresso to my door. What I need is a little education on the process, please.

I've assumed, perhaps wrongly, that buyers will meet with growers or groups of growers, cup their offerings and base their purchasing decisions on what they taste. BUT that leaves me wondering; as many a post here has stated the skills of the roaster are very important to the end result ... then how is the roasting done for these important cupping sessions? Are growers equally proficient in their roasting abilities or are they hiring someone else? How does a buyer judge one crop to the next if they have roasters of different skills?

Once again, please pardon my ignorance ... its the holiday season AND I've had a lot of Xmas gifts stolen off my front porch including 5 pounds of Klatch Belle, so be kind. I know, a pathetic plea for sympathy, but my holiday spirit is limping.

It's different from company to company.

You can generalize companies falling into four rough categories (though many are actually hybrids of these rough groupings).

1 - those who rely upon their wholesale source. These companies have one or perhaps two importers (Royal et al) who provide them the kinds of coffee they are likely to buy (usually determined by country of origin and price - ie "we need a guat for less than $1.80 a pound and a harrar for less than $1.70 a lb"). These companies rarely if ever cup coffee as part of their buying decisions.

2 - those who work with their wholesale source. These companies are similar to the above in that they only buy from one or two importers - but they actually do in fact cup coffees. They tend to cup at the importers - and the importers do the sample roasting for them. So they will schedule a time to go to the importer and will cup a bunch of coffees that the importer has selected for them. As a general rule, these roasters tend to buy something around half their coffees without cupping (just trusting their importer) and then "fill out" the roster with coffees based upon cupping samples.

3 - those who buy from importers and sample roast themselves. These companies request samples from three to five different importers and sample roast and cup these samples in order to make buying decisions. They will get regular shipments of small samples of coffees (often a mix of spot market coffees, auction lot coffees and pre-release coffees throughout the year) and will sample roast them in-house. They'll then cup these samples and make buying decisions based upon the combination of the cupping results, the price and their current and planned menu.

4 - those who go to origin and buy direct. These companies tend to travel extensively and cup at origin in order to make buying decisions. Some of the time, this is as part of an organized event (Cup of Excellence, etc). Other times it's more ad-hoc. In both these cases, the buyers are usually dependent upon a local partner (most commonly an exporter or co-op) to assist in the sample roasting and cupping process. Coffees are cupped and evaluated and purchased based upon the same mix of results, price and menu as above.


Now, in terms of your question - it's important to differentiate production roasting from sample roasting. Production roasting is all about "getting the most out of the coffee" whereas sample roasting is all about "not distracting from the coffee". In other words, sample roasting is not as much about creating a great tasting coffee as it is about not hiding the flaws and attributes and potential of the coffee.

Finally... a good green bean buyer is very capable of evaluating samples. As such, they are quite able to see through flawed roasts. If you cup at origin with any regularity - you have to be able to do this (just like you have to be able to see through coffees brewed with problematic water etc).


I hope that provided some insight...

There is also another scenario, you can hire the services of someone like Mane' Alvez of Coffee Lab International http://www.coffeelab.com/ to cup green coffee for you prior to purchasing. It was my pleasure to meet Mane' more than six years ago when I finally decided it was time to start roasting my own coffee. After than 30 years in the business it was becoming more and more obvious that if I wanted real quality coffees that I needed to do it myself. So I purchased more than $300,000.00 worth of equipment including a Renegade 30 kilo PID controlled roaster http://www.renegaderoasters.com/Site/Welcome.html, Matrix Packaging machine, Modern Roll Grinder, Agtron Scale, Oxygen analysis machine, grind analysis machine, etc, etc. I cut no expense. Now came the hard part, knowing what green coffee to buy and how to roast it to get the most out of the coffee. I went to Mane's school and brought Tony Nowik, a long time employee that was going to be in charge of roasting with me. We spend more than 4 days there and it became very evident to me that cupping coffee was not only a science but an art. It was also quit evident to me that the art of cupping coffee was not something that I was EVER gong to be as good at as Mane'. Mane' is world renowned as one of the best in the industry and after spending just a couple of days with him I could see why. Fortunately for me Mane' and I hit it off great. Mane' has the same PID controlled roaster as I do and therefore his services not only can help me pick the best green coffee but he helps me with blending and roast profiles. He travels to producing countries all over the world and will call me on Skype from time to time when he finds exceptional coffees in countries like Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, etc. and will ask if I want to purchase a container together and split it. The answer of coarse is always yes. He makes all the arrangements and has it delivered to my warehouse since the biggest portion is for me and it is easier for me to unload 280 one hundred and fifty plus pound bags of coffee from the floor of a container and stack it on pallets since I have the staff and the loading docks.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for your replies. To get a small glimpse thru the curtain whetted my appetite for more and showed me how ignorant of a consumer I am. I may have to find some publications to read more, if they aren't too dryly written. I did wonder if there wasn't the existence of providers like Mane' who had a clientele of smaller boutique roasters who couldn't afford to leave their business and travel to different parts of the world where the growers are.

Thank you again.

Ed

malachi wrote:It's different from company to company.


3 -[b] those who buy from importers and sample roast themselves. These companies request samples from three to five different importers and sample roast and cup these samples in order to make buying decisions. They will get regular shipments of small samples of coffees (often a mix of spot market coffees, auction lot coffees and pre-release coffees throughout the year) and will sample roast them in-house. They'll then cup these samples and make buying decisions based upon the combination of the cupping results, the price and their current and planned menu.[/b]


Now, in terms of your question - it's important to differentiate production roasting from sample roasting. Production roasting is all about "getting the most out of the coffee" whereas sample roasting is all about "not distracting from the coffee". In other words, sample roasting is not as much about creating a great tasting coffee as it is about not hiding the flaws and attributes and potential of the coffee.

Finally... a good green bean buyer is very capable of evaluating samples. As such, they are quite able to see through flawed roasts. If you cup at origin with any regularity - you have to be able to do this (just like you have to be able to see through coffees brewed with problematic water etc).


I hope that provided some insight...

I'm #3. As for green roasting and cupping...it's difficult. I'm on a BBQ roaster, and it's hard to roast the 4-6oz sample most brokers send out. I only have one shot to get it right. The roast at 6oz will taste different than at full capacity, there's virtually no way for me to reproduce the temps of the 6oz roast at 48oz.

So say I get a bunch of samples of Colombia from 5 different brokers. I roast them all to the same level, and all to a fairly neutral medium roast at first hint of second crack. Due to differences in bean density, I may totally blow my targeted roast time/temp, and very possibly toss what might have been the best coffee. I'll never know, because I only have the one shot. As I don't have a way to visually check my beans as they roast, it's challenging! Then I cup, and pick the best one. I try to pick one that not only is the best, but best fits my roasting style and roaster limitations. The circus doesn't stop there: I buy the bag, and start roasting for real, trying to dial it in. If I chose well, it's not hard. If I chose poorly, the coffee is very finicky, and requires more precise roasting than I can achieve (given that ambient temps, weather, bean temp, etc all provide me with unwanted variables). I've only blown it once: I cupped an Organic Nicaragua that blew my mind with notes of apricot and sweet, tangy tamarind. It was so good I bought 2 bags (first time ever), and then was never able to reproduce that flavor profile at full roasting capacity. BAH! Roasting at 1/4 capacity FTL!

I hallucinate about a Diedrich. Now I'm gonna go polish off this 5lb bag of Klatch I've been working o...wait, did I say too much? Hope you're issues were resolved, edwa. I haven't been missing anymore coffee shipments, hopefully you can say the same.