How to Start a Coffee Roasting Business
It’s a long way from a bag of raw green coffee beans to a signature double espresso creation with a foam swirl on top. Likewise, starting your own coffee roasting business doesn’t happen in an instant. Rather, it’s a slow-brewing operation that requires agricultural savvy, in-depth research and an extensive knowledge of coffee plantations and how the roasting process works.
From learning the names and origins of the types of beans to setting up a smart business plan -- as a wholesale roaster, you’ll be importing coffee beans from all parts of the world -- to understanding the meaning behind key "green" business terms such as "fair trade," "organic" and "rainforest alliance," you'll require far more than a gastronomical interest in iced almond lattes and Frappuccinos to make coffee roasting your career.
Overview
There's far more to a great-tasting cup of coffee than the cool mug with a designer logo in which it's served. Factors like flavor, aroma and acidity can make the difference between a watery cup of airplane instant decaf and a delicious full-bodied blend with a touch of blackberry essence. It all starts with the coffee bean, most harvested from the nutrient-rich soil of farms in Central and South America. Processed and bagged, the raw green beans are then sent to coffee roasters, who roast the beans and sell them wholesale to global-wide markets. It's a competitive business, but a rewarding one if you get your hands on the world's best beans.
Malina Saval - Demand Media
Outsourced
According to Mireya Asturias Jones, president, co-owner and founder of Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena, California, one of the most important steps in kick-starting your own coffee roasting business is knowing the source of your beans. "Know the sustainability of the source and what farming techniques are used," she advises. "Make sure that the workers are treated fairly. If you're buying from a farm, find as much information about that farm as you can."
Malina Saval - Demand Media
How Have You Bean?
Learn the difference between Robusta beans (grown at lower elevations) and Arabica beans (grown in the mountains, higher in quality and richer in taste). Coffee beans are the seeds of a fruit, also known as the "coffee cherry," and arrive in their original, green form before they're roasted to a toasty brown. Those brown burlap bags found on display at coffee houses that you thought were for decorative purposes? They hold the very beans used to brew your morning cup of Joe.
Malina Saval - Demand Media
It's Roasting in Here
Setting up your own coffee roasting business requires far more than just a gastronomical interest in lattes and cappuccinos. So before you set up shop, carefully study the centuries-old art of coffee roasting. Shadow a master roaster to learn how the intricate mechanical process unfolds, from step one, where the green beans are dried until they turn yellow, to the stage that's called the "first crack," when the bean doubles in size and becomes a light brown color.
Malina Saval - Demand Media
So What's Brew With You?
No two beans are alike, as they say, and each crop has the potential to become a different-tasting coffee, depending on what's called its "roast profile." Certain factors like the coffee bean's origin and its variety help determine what profile a roaster should use to roast a batch of beans. The internal bean temperatures found during the roasting process can mark the difference between an Italian roast or a Vienna roast or a French roast, all of which highlight certain flavor characteristics.
Malina Saval - Demand Media
What a Drip
If a six-dollar double espresso drip at your local hipster coffee house forces you to rethink your choice of morning beverage, then the cost of a professional, high-quality, large-batch roaster -- which can easily run $10,000 -- might force you to question your choice of a coffee biz career. So make sure you're committed (and have the collateral to back you up).
Malina Saval - Demand Media
Don't Get in Over Your Head
If and when you decide to take your venture to the next level and branch out into the retail arm of the coffee roasting business, consider all the costs necessary to keep your quaint cafe afloat: monthly rent, staff salary, money to convert your empty space into a homey, cozy environment for neighborhood customers. And then there's the matter of coffee brewing equipment. The Italian-made La Marzocco brewing machine, for example, is a cool twelve grand. "Be absolutely sure you have the startup funds," cautions Jones.
Malina Saval - Demand Media
Never Get Lax
"Don’t ever feel too comfortable with the quality of your product," says Chuck Jones, Mireya's son and CEO of Jones Coffee Roasters. There's always room for improvement, he notes, and any certification on a bag of beans -- organic, for example -- doesn't always mean it tastes good. Be directly involved with the harvesting and processing of the coffee beans, he suggests, always sample your product and never get lazy when it comes to satisfying your customers.
Malina Saval - Demand Media
How Have You Bean?
Mireya Asturias Jones, president, co-owner and founder of Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena, California, notes that one of the most important steps in kick-starting your own coffee roasting business is to know the source of the beans that you will be importing.
"Like with any other business, when it comes to finding the best coffee beans, it’s all about location, location, location," says Jones, a Guatemala native whose family has been growing coffee on their farm, Fincas Dos Marias, since the mid-1800s.
"Just because something is stamped ‘organic’ doesn’t always mean that it is; and even if it is, that doesn’t always mean that it tastes good." Chuck B. Jones, co-owner and CEO of Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena, California
As beans are the foundation of any great cup of coffee, notes Jones, the first and most important step is to find out in what country and at what altitude the coffee beans are grown. As a rule of thumb, the higher the altitude, the better the growing conditions and the more desirable the resulting South American bean; hence the term "mountain-grown" Colombian coffee. You'll also have to choose from different varietals of beans, like arabica -- lots of delicious flavor, full-bodied -- or robusta -- bitter, less flavorful, 50 percent more caffeine.
Also determine the sustainability of the source, meaning for how long that particular farm can produce coffee without depleting the soil's nutrients. "Know what farming techniques are used," says Jones, who suggests contacting the Long Beach, California–based Specialty Coffee Association of America for literature about different growing regions, international coffee farms and the quality of their beans. "Make sure that the workers are treated fairly. If you're buying from a farm, find out as much information about that farm as you can. As a small roaster, you'll likely buy one bag a month of a certain coffee. What you need to do is find the story behind that bag.”
And no amount of paper can substitute for that research. “Certificates don’t always equate to quality,” adds Chuck B. Jones, Mireya’s son and the co-owner and CEO of Jones Coffee Roasters, which boasts a "cupping room" where roasters sample their coffee for quality and taste. Jones says you'll need a cupping room, too. “Just because something is stamped ‘organic’ doesn’t always mean that it is; and even if it is, that doesn’t always mean that it tastes good. Don’t ever get too comfortable with the quality of your product. Never get lax. Always strive to improve.”
It's Roasting in Here
Once you’ve got high-quality beans in place, the next step is securing the start-up funds to invest in the roasting side of the business and find an affordable space in which to do it. Roasting equipment does not come cheap, and a large-batch, professional-quality version can set you back a cool 10 grand or more.
“The roasting business requires access to a high-quality roaster – both the machine and the person doing the roasting,” says Matthew Sutte, owner and founder of Black River Roasters, a Vermont and New Jersey-based wholesale purveyor of artisan-roasted organic coffee. Artisan coffee is roasted in batches of 30 pounds or less. “Whether you're doing the roasting yourself or hiring somebody else to do it, the most important thing to remember is to never over-roast the beans. If so, your coffee will taste burnt, and nobody wants to buy burnt coffee."
The tremendous upside to hiring a highly qualified roaster is that it will free you up to focus on the business end of the coffee world, explains Sutte.
"You have to know your competition," says Sutte, "and make sure that you are offering the highest-quality product at the best prices.
"As with all sales-driven businesses," he continues, "a high-quality product, the correct amount of know-how and marketing, a great sales team -- starting with the owner -- and a little bit of luck combine to make a successful business."
