Coffee Bootcamp: roasting masters!

Well the good news is that we do not feel like we have been through the ringer as much today, although at one point we thought: "wouldn't it have been fun to come here on vacation rather than on a work trip". Ok, ya, would have been more fun but we are so fortunate to be learning what we are learning. We are also thankful we got to do this all together, because we truly have fun together and we each have different strengths and each will be great at different things in the coffee business.

This morning we were left, basically alone, in the roasting room. The task: Roast four different roasts, each three different loads of 18lbs a piece. Total of 216 pounds of coffee this morning. And guess what?!?! We did it!! Not only did we do it, but it was absolutely acceptable for coffee shop use in a quality shop. This was a giant success... not that we won't ever make mistakes but it gave us the confidence that we really needed to be able to say..."we can do this and we can do it well". We still need lots of practice but everything related to roasting is "clicking" and its fun to see it happen.

This afternoon we learned the art of cupping. Again, something we need to keep practicing but even so we learned the methods, how to rank coffees and which to pick and which not to pick when testing different beans from different farms. Even Brock, who is truly trying to enjoy coffee for the first time in his life liked one of the ones we roasted! Success!

It was a fun day to do what we learned and then try them in the form of cupping and then drip coffee. Tomorrow we plan on doing the same thing again (plus the beginning of barista training).

And then because our trainer, Mike, has a fun sense of humor... he gave me this cup...