Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roast with Us, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
What is a soak?
What does soak mean? We get asked quite often – what is a soak? When we refer to a soak in our Roasting 101 class, we’re generally talking about an initial period of time at the start of the roast where the burners are intentionally turned off to manage heat transfer. So before charging your… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roast with Us, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
Winter Workshop Recap
If you want to increase sales this year, we’ll be handing out the equivalent of free money at the Winter Workshop here in Minneapolis on February 23rd and 24th. Free money? How does that work? In the last class, we helped people figure out how to roast more challenging coffees to a better end result.… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roast with Us, Roasting & Education
Sweet With Complex Acidity: Sumatra Natural
We’re excited to share this beautiful coffee from Cafe Imports, the Sumatra Natural from the Aceh region. This coffee works well between a lighter-medium to dark roast with deep sweetness and complex acidity throughout. We utilize this coffee in our holiday blend, Hibernate, and appreciate it’s structured fruit-forward character and big velvety body. Region The… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
What’s In A Roastery: Part 5
This is the fourth in an ongoing series on what tools we keep in the Mill City roastery for efficiency, quality control, and more. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4. Our list of roastery supplies seems endless. There are many miscellaneous items we keep around the roastery that might… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
Green Blending Basics
The mystery of blending In a recent post about creating a great Holiday Blend, I mentioned a few strategies for blending greens. Blending helps roasters create something greater than the sum of its parts. Roasters often have questions about blending, and it’s a topic that we spend a lot of time discussing during our roasting… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roast with Us, Roasting & Education
Complex Cup: Tanzania Mahenje AB
Boasting a complex cup from hot to cold, the Tanzania Mahenje AB offering from Cafe Imports always has us reaching for more. Great at all roast levels, this green provides a layered drinking experience serving as a beautiful single-origin to offer customers. In the cup, we’re getting notes of rooibos tea, lychee, and blood orange… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roast with Us, Roasting & Education
Approachable and Dependable: Brazil, Carmo de Minas
Just landed in the roastery is a Yellow Bourbon, Natural processed in Brazil from the Carmo de Minas region. This coffee comes from the Fazenda Sertăo farm where many other varietals are planted, such as Red Bourbon and Yellow Catuai. For us, this offering is an approachable, all-day drinking coffee with lower perceived acidity and… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
What’s In A Roastery: Part 3
This is the third in an ongoing series on what tools we keep in the Mill City roastery for efficiency, quality control, and more. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2. What Do You Need In Your Roastery? In our last roastery supply post, we covered cupping supplies we keep in our space to help us… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
What’s In A Roastery: Part 2
This is the second in an ongoing series on what tools we keep in the Mill City roastery for efficiency, quality control, and more. Click here for part 1. What Do You Need In Your Roastery? In our last roastery supply post, we covered a few essential things we keep in our roastery for efficiency… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
Cupping Professionally: Part Four
This is the final post in a four-part series about how and why we cup coffee at Mill City. Click to read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Part Four: Tasting coffee as it cools After your first pass, you’ll continue to taste the coffee as it decreases in temperature. We try to take… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
What’s In A Roastery?
This is the first in an ongoing series on what tools we keep in the Mill City Roastery for efficiency, quality control, and more. What do you need in your roastery? We help customers build their roasting business from the ground up. From choosing the right size roaster, and offering roasting classes, to providing ongoing… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
Cupping Professionally: Part Three
This is the third in a four-part series about how and why we cup coffee at Mill City. Click to read Part One and Part Two. Part Three: The first pass After breaking and cleaning your cups, you’ll wait to allow the coffee to cool. How long you wait to take your first tasting pass… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Roaster Cleaning: Exhaust Fan and Impeller
It’s time for our quarterly maintenance at Mill City Roasters! If you’re on a similar schedule, you may want to start thinking about diving into your exhaust fan and venting to make sure they’re clean before the holiday season is in full swing. If you do not have a maintenance schedule, there’s no better time… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
Cupping Professionally: Part Two
This is the second in a four-part series about how and why we cup coffee at Mill City. Click here for part one. Part Two: Fragrance and Aroma The first pass you take around the table will allow you to smell the dry grounds (fragrance). Then, after pouring water, you’ll smell the wet grounds (aroma).… Read More
Brew with Us, Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Dialing In Coffee by Taste
Whether you’re checking quality control of a roast, brewing a pour-over for customers, or ensuring espresso shots pull correctly, identifying if a coffee is properly dialed-in is important. Dialing in allows us to unlock our coffee’s potential and present it at its highest quality by brewing an excellent cup that highlights all attributes of the… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education
A staple in our roastery: Guatemala Quetzal, Huehuetenango
From the well-recognized region of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, this coffee provides a crisp malic and citric acidity. By developing relationships with producers in Guatemala, Cafe Imports brings this green to us from smallholders within the region’s community. We enjoy carrying this coffee in the roastery because of its clarity and versatility. It produces a full body, crisp… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Becoming A Better Taster
When I started working in coffee I experienced a lot of frustration with not being able to identify or taste as well as others at the cupping table. That frustration overshadowed my excitement about my new job and distracted me from the experience of tasting new coffees. I quickly learned that to become a better… Read More
Brew with Us, Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roast with Us, Roasting & Education
Roasters Brew Box Recipes: A dialogue between the barista and roaster
Our Roaster’s Brew Box is a sensory development tool that’s built to help roasters learn more about brewing and share roasting technique with baristas and home brewers. In the newest edition, the Colombia Manos Juntas Brew Box, we had an opportunity to pull back the curtain and show how changes to the end of the… Read More
Brew with Us, Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Commercial Batch Brewer Tips and Best Practices
A commercial batch brewer is a useful tool in either your roastery or cafe for serving large volumes of drip coffee. It’s also capable of much more, and understanding programmable settings can allow roasters and brewers to better control the quality of their coffee. In this post, we’ll review the general settings of a batch… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Heirloom Varietal Ethiopia Guji Wolichu Sodu
In our continuous effort to bridge the gap between the roaster and the specialty coffee industry, we are taking a closer look at our green coffee selection with a focus on farms, producers, varietals, and processing methods. A fresh crop of washed coffee from Ethiopia just landed in our roastery. We are always excited around… Read More