Beans

During half term we visited our friend's new coffee roasting business. Coleman Coffee Roasters is Jack. Jack was revered coffee maker at Leila's Cafe before setting up the roasting business, and now supplies the coffee for her cafe and shop. We like Jack a lot. Some people say he is Jack of the Beanstalk.
Jack has a stop watch around his neck most of the time. His roasting machine is over 60 years old. Jack restored it himself, adding useful bits like an extra thermometer and devised a cooling extractor. It feels like a inventor's science laboratory. A very delicious smelling laboratory.






It's a very precise affair, so we mostly watched and lounged on sacks of beans. It was very noisy; the roar of the gas, the giant tinny shaker sound of the the drum rotating and the extractor fan drone. We joined in weighing the green waxy unroasted beans and packaging the bags. Jack records the exact weight, timings and temperatures of each roasting, so he can chart how this affects the flavour; each bag is marked with batch number and date.

Jack's workshop is in Brixton so we ate pizzas at Franco Manca. A very perfect day.