Hello All,

I am new to the espresso culture and am slowing feeling my way and learning. I have a question regarding acquiring good quality coffee. From what I have read, freshness is truly key. And most regional roasters/sellers are very good at shipping out their freshly roasted coffees promptly. But what about using local roasters that are within easy commuting/errand distance?

Even here in podunk New Hampshire, there is a coffee roaster in Concord, where I work. I can stop by any day and pick up a small amount of freshly roasted coffee. No freezing. No vacuum sealing. No watching the calendar. This would seem to accomplish a great deal of the goal of good coffee with ease.

I imagine that many of you live in much more populated areas that I, with what I am surmising to be a much greater variety of local roaster options. Yet it appears that most of you have preferred regional suppliers and avail yourselves of mail order.

Why?

My only guess is that you find the bean selection/roasting techniques of the regional roasters to be sufficiently superior to your local people that it justifies the added expense and inconvenience.

I will most likely pursue both avenues, as least for comparison's sake. (The learning and experimentation in all of this is fascinating to me!) But your thoughts on this matter would be instructive. Thank you.

Nick

I always prefer local, but not at the expense of freshness or variety.

If you can get the variety of coffee to suit your coffee style and you can get it within a week of the roast date, then buy local. But that is a big "if".

I roast in 5# batches, which allows me to keep a wide variety of coffee on the shelf and keep it fresh. It would be a lot more efficient to roast 25# batches, but then I would either have to cut down on my coffee selection or sell stale coffee.

Most of my coffee is sold during the week it was roasted. I will not sell a bag of coffee that is over 3 weeks old. If, in the rare instance a bag gets left behind, I will usually just give it away to a good customer.

I do not sell wholesale and I do not encourage online sales. I'm just too busy at the bar and I'm not inclined to take the steps to get a bigger roasting space and hire the staff required to be involved in that end of the business.

Sounds like you are doing it right, Almico.

I don't know about that, but I'm doing something

I buy both mail-order and local. This depends upon what I want and what is available locally.

There is this local place in New Hope, PA that I like a lot...can't quite recall the name...

Kafana Nick wrote:Hello All,

I imagine that many of you live in much more populated areas that I, with what I am surmising to be a much greater variety of local roaster options. Yet it appears that most of you have preferred regional suppliers and avail yourselves of mail order.

Why?

Nick

It is the same as Amazon killing most local businesses large and small. An online supplier has much larger reach and because of that works with larger volumes and thus is able to lower the cost. I would assume (although small scale roaster present here would start throwing rocks in my coffee grinder) that a large operation has more experience, better equipment, and more consistent process.

So true. I am going to give my local people all benefit of the doubt and explore their coffees first. I have always pulled for the little guy.

Nick

99.9% of all the beans I buy get shipped to me. Nothing very exciting locally...

I try to keep my coffee as local as my garage most of the time, but when I run out of coffee I'll pick up a local roaster from Whole Foods if I can find it with a recent roast date or from Chromatic Coffee.

I do occasionally have coffee shipped to me, but I'm lucky enough to have a few good roasters nearby.

I love local roasted coffees. In fact, I've bought much more local than mail/web orders. But I also love variety. And when on-line folks are raving about some coffee they found, I want a piece of that action and possibly taste something new. And I have had those experiences.

But in terms of freshness. Nothing beats a day off the roaster. With coffee that fresh, I would immediately put the beans in a jar and crack lid now and then as the coffee outgasses. After a week, it goes into the freezer locking in freshness. Often, coffee ordered is just coming in a week after roast date. The outgassing is minimal and freezing in freshness does lack a tiny bit IMO.

But more often than not, my local roasters are dark and more dark roasts. I love a good dark roast, but not all the time. This has been the main reason I went looking for other roasters farther away.

Although, I now roast my own. Fresh as can be. But every now and then, I need somebody else's roast. Keeps me calibrated.