We started becausethe coffee was stale.
Not bad coffee. Good coffee, bought carefully, that had been sitting in a warehouse for a month before anybody drank it. Everything below follows from deciding that was worth fixing.
How it went
- 2017
A 1kg sample roaster in a garage
Ben bought a second-hand sample roaster to work out why the coffee he was buying tasted flat by the time it reached him. The answer was that it had been roasted five weeks earlier. He started roasting for himself, then for the people who kept asking.
- 2019
The first real drum, and a market stall
A 5kg drum roaster, bought at auction and rebuilt over a winter. Saturdays at the Vic Park markets, roasting on Thursdays for whatever sold. That is where the habit of roasting to order started, and it is the one thing that has not changed since.
- 2022
A roastery in Bayswater
A tin shed with three-phase power and enough room to keep green coffee properly. Two people, then four. The market stall stayed for another year out of loyalty and was eventually beaten by the volume of parcels going out on Fridays.
- Now
Twice a week, still to order
Tuesdays and Fridays, six or seven coffees at a time, small lots that sell out. We have been asked more than once to hold stock so orders can go out faster. We have said no more than once.
The one thing that has not changed is that nothing gets roasted before somebody orders it.
It is slower. It means we sell out, often, and that a coffee you liked in March may not be there in May. We have been asked more than once to hold stock so orders can go out same-day, which is a reasonable request, and the answer is still no. Coffee is at its best somewhere between five and twenty-five days off the roast, and every part of how this place runs is arranged around getting it to you inside that window.