Memoirs of a coffee roaster
Chapter 1-Who am I?
I am a child of the Americas; born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, subsequently migrating to the US to attend university and to find my fortune. I am a 5th generation descendant of Indian indentured laborers who left British controlled India by ship, in the late 1800s, for work and a new life in a small island colony halfway across the world. As progress marched onwards, many generations left the rural life for education, enterprise in a more residential setting.
My paternal grandfather started a sawmill and furniture business that did quite well until the oil crisis in the 1970`s. The ensuing recession forced it into a slow spiral to bankruptcy. Despite that, I was essentially born into a family business and spent my young days there. My great grandfather on my mother`s side was a capable farmer with a modest piece of land and some animals. They lived in a rural part of the island and living off your land was quite common. He grew coffee and cocoa trees, processing their bounties both into cocoa blocks and roasted coffee beans. He was entirely vertically integrated! Sadly, the craft all went away after he passed. Now you will be tempted to presume that it is no wonder that I eventually opened my own coffee enterprise, however the truth is quite the contrary.
My great grandfather passed away 1 year before I was born and I never got to experience his coffee trade. In fact we drank very little coffee as Trinidad is a former British colony- tea was the norm in our house. After the demise of the sawmill I vowed I would never go into business, instead focus on a career field what would guarantee me a good living. My interest in coffee roasting was rather incidental, as was my evolution into a small business owner. My point here is that you don’t need any sort of pedigree or lineage to pursue a craft/trade. Sheer will is adequate wind to drive your sails.
Brown Bear Roastery (BBR) began as a home-roasting project in a friend`s motorsport shop; every Saturday I was there with my table top home roaster learning roasting while vintage Porsche race cars were prepped for their next race. Since its inception in 2015 it grew to a modest operation, becoming the very first micro-roaster in Florida to partner with a Marriott luxury brand. Additionally we had a few small retail accounts (2 cafes and an Italian restaurant) as well as a solid Amazon presence.
What I was more proud of was the roasting knowledge I acquired, and subsequently passed on to 3 others who worked with me. While the specialty coffee renaissance focused on single varietals, I was most curious about espresso. You see I really started this to make my own espresso, because I honestly could not find one I liked-none that was affordable! And so I started roasting in the deep end of the pool-trying to lean the mystery if espresso blending; that journey alone gave me a wide breadth of knowledge in roasting varying varietals and blending.
The pandemic hit just as the roastery was making stride, and after bringing it thought that challenging period, I decided that by 2023 it was a good time to sell and move on to new adventures. While it was still fresh in memory, I wanted to pass on my experiences and knowledge on to the coffee-sphere. The art of specialty coffee roasting is quite a niche craft-yet its products are the most used drug in the world.
I have created this Substack as a resource for coffee roasting and plan on covering the following:
Life as a roaster.
The business of roasting.
The art of roasting.
Business development
If you are a coffee lover, these articles will help educate and enlighten you as to how your beans get into your grinder.
If you are on the front (service) side of the house, then this will complement your extraction skills.
If you think you want to be a coffee roaster, well read on!