Grrrrrrr!

Grrrrrrr! was Originally Posted on December 14, 2012 by lavarock

I am grinding my teeth because of a slight problem.

I took green coffee to be roasted and because I am not a “big producer” I get behind people roasting hundreds of pounds at a time. I am working on a 50 pound order. They just told me that I am in line to be roasted Monday or Tuesday! That does not help me with orders that I have to get out, ones I know are being used as gifts for Christmas and should have already shipped from here.

My options are to call around ad see who else can roast, then get the coffee and head there, wait (and perhaps drive back) and still be late with the shipments.

The other alternative it to roast it myself in my small roaster. I use this roaster for small batches because it cannot quite do an “island” coffee to give me a pound of roasted to the degree needed. So I will do two roasts per pound times 6 pounds, and spend most of today roasting. I can then get the orders mailed in the morning.

By waiting until I have an order or two to roast I can ship very fresh coffee, compared to what you end up getting in the stores which could be MONTHS OLD.

If I had planted a whole farm with coffee, and took in coffee from neighbors, I *might* be able to afford a real roaster and be able to roast 30 pounds at a time or so. But then again, you have to do a lot or roasting at 60 cents a pound to pay that off against a $10-$20,000 roaster.