Bill O”™Keefe is not into mass production of good coffee.
“Some day I”™d like to be,” he said. But for now, he focuses on the sort of quality that has him challenging the big roasters to match his flavor.
“Taste my Sumatran ”“ I hope mine tastes much better,” he said. “I”™m a stickler for freshness. I”™d prefer to run out than to have it sitting around for a couple of weeks. I”™ve gotten pretty darn good at estimating how much we will need.”
O”™Keefe and fellow Redding Roasters Coffee Co. L.L.C. principal Stan Crouch founded the Bethel-based company in May 2004. It occupies 1,580 aromatic square feet set back on Greenwood Avenue. In 2009, the company roasted and sold 27,000 pounds of coffee.
O”™Keefe reported the first year in business “was kind of scary.” But the company still managed to sell $49,000 worth of coffee. The next year business reached $92,000 and the last two years it has held steady at about $150,000. “Expansion just didn”™t happen in 2009 the way I want it to happen in 2010,” he said. That expansion means packaging Redding Roasters coffee for offices: “This year (2009) I had hoped to get the packaging machine, but that did not happen. The packaging machine would enable that expansion. That would be ideal and that”™s the next move. I need to grow, to expand, but I don”™t want to overextend.”
About 30 percent of the company”™s sales are organic. All coffees are Arabicas, but they come from 13 to 17 different countries. The most popular coffees are Costa Rican and Guatemalan. “We roast two to four bags per month of Guatemalan,” O”™Keefe said, noting a bag contains 154 pounds of beans.
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“Each country of origin has a flavor that stands out,” O”™Keefe said. “I concentrate on single-origin coffees because I”™d like people to enjoy the specific taste of the country of origin.” As for his personal preference: “I like variety. My assumption is that my customers like variety, also. And it has been working.”
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Thirty pounds of green coffee beans yield 24 to 25 pounds of roasted beans. Redding Roasters sells them as roasted beans or ground. “We don”™t pre-grind and prepackage,” O”™Keefe said. Custom grinding is available, specific to the brewing method and the filters involved and always with the idea that the bottom of coffee cup be free of grounds.
“The big coffee companies use what”™s called universal grind,” O”™Keefe said. “In the specialty realm, we tend to tweak things a little more.” Paper filters, for example, will trap more sediment than the reusable metal-mesh baskets of many coffee makers. As such, those who use paper can accommodate a finer grind. A French press ”“ those plunger coffee makers that traditionally appear after a meal featuring linen napkins ”“ accepts the coarsest grind.
It takes 16 to 20 minutes to roast 30 pounds to three major specifications:
- Full city is roasted at 338 to 345 degrees: “This brings out and maintains the quality of the body and allows the nuances to come through. There is ”˜below full city,”™ which is lighter and which I do not produce.”
- Viennese is roasted at 455 to 460 degrees: “Most of the body burns off along with some of the nuances, but some caramelized oils are preserved. There”™s a bit of a tang to it.”
- French is roasted at 467 degrees: “The body and nuances are replaced with caramelized oils that add ”˜snap”™ to the coffee taste.”
The web-based Global Market Information Database places Americans 12th in per-person coffee consumption at 6.6 pounds per year. It places Norway first at 24 pounds per person per year.
Twelfth might not be a bad place to be. A University of Connecticut psychology department study in 1993 found that “locomotive engineers on irregular work schedules reported a general coffee consumption rate higher than that reported by a comparison sample of permanent shift factory workers.” And “This increased coffee consumption was correlated with longer sleep latency, increased negative mood, and decreased positive mood on both work and non-workdays.”
There were no data on the moods of those denied a cup of coffee in the morning.
