Continued from Page 12
Photos by Gregory Zschomler
ABOVE: Coff ee beans cool in a cooling
tray during one step of the roasting
process. BELOW: Josh Olson, head
roaster at Columbia River Coff ee
Roaster, watches a batch of beans as
they rotate in the Diedrich roaster.
Columbia River Coff ee
Roaster sources beans directly,
and traceably, from family farms
and through trusted importers
who buy from small farms. If the
company doesn’t visit growers or
importers in person, they connect
remotely to confi rm samples.
Once the raw beans arrive,
they are stored under controlled
conditions until roasted in sin-
gle-origin batches of 25 to 100
pounds.
“We really dial in on con-
sistency,” Reimer said. “We’re
locking in on individual pro-
fi les.” Reimer noted that head
roaster Josh Olson plots tempera-
tures at various points in the pro-
cess assisted by a digital readout.
Though computers are an import-
ant part of today’s roasting oper-
ations, the craft is still carefully
developed and monitored at sev-
eral points by human senses.
The raw beans are dumped
into a hopper and suctioned
into a roasting drum where they
are roasted at various tempera-
tures and durations, depending
upon the desired outcome: dark,
medium or light.
As the beans heat up, they
reach a stage where the parch-
ment, or chaff , separates and is
vacuumed off into a separate
chamber. Once the beans are suf-
fi ciently roasted — which means
they’ve come to the desired fl a-
vor profi le — they are dumped
into a cooling bin where they are
constantly in motion while air is
drawn over them.
Once cooled, they are moved
into a destoner to remove any
small rocks and the like that
might remain. Each batch is then
stored in bins for a resting period
before being bagged as single-or-
igin or combined in blends.
“As a roaster, we can’t make
the coff ee any better. We can
only bring out characteristics and
qualities that are in each bean,”
Reimer said.
Quality beans are essential,
but so is creating ideal roasts.
That is largely subjective, but
roasters and growers have in
place their own language and
certifi cation to put them all on
the same page. This familiarity
allows for consistency as diff er-
ent beans and roasts are tasted.
The process of cupping, or tast-
ing, is used to fi nd the various
roast profi les of each bean. These
fl avor notes are used as play-
ful descriptors in the coff ee’s
labeling.
Columbia River Coff ee
Roaster continues to develop new
tastes and blends, and are cur-
rently crafting a nitro cold brew
to be off ered in an upcoming
retail space. In the near future, a
training center with a coff ee lab
and cupping room will be set up,
with classes and tastings off ered
for the community.
“We want to celebrate cof-
fee and everything about it, from
seed to cup, including all the peo-
ple along the way,” Montgomery
said. “The best thing about coff ee
— it brings people together.”
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2022 // 13