Artisanal microbatch coffee roasting by Dennis L Hitzeman
Well, 2019 at the Roastery at Innisfree has come to a close. It wasn’t a huge year, but it wasn’t a small one either. I roasted 161 pounds of green coffee, 27 of which I drank myself. My primary outlet was the Miami County Locally Grown Virtual Market followed by direct sales. My top four varieties this year were Brazilian, Tanzanian, Guatemalan, and Peruvian. All in all, a good year.
DLH
I haven’t updated this site in quite a while and, unfortunately, it shows. Changes are coming, but it may take me a while to get them implemented.
In the meantime, if you want to see a real-time list of what I have in stock, I sell my coffee through the Miami County Locally Grown Virtual Market, and the varieties and prices on that site are up-to-date.
So, what’s coming? Well, first off, I plan to update my varieties and prices here. I’m also in the process of moving into a new roastery that will make roasting coffee easier. Once that’s up and running, I plan to revisit my current varieties of coffee to add some and, perhaps, discontinue some others. My main focus will be on adding sustainably grown, fair trade, organic coffees from sources I can verify.
Until then, stay tuned. More is coming.
DLH
In a word, yeouch!
All sorts of things factored into the most recent price increases, including world turmoil, weather, climate, and the fact that I waited way too long to start raising my prices in the hope green coffee prices would actually go down.
My new prices reflect the current market and should allow me, barring unpredictable world events, to avoid raising them again for a while.
DLH
The good kind of changes.
This August, it will be five years since my wife, Keba, and I moved back to Innisfree on the Stillwater and I restarted my coffee roasting business. Since then, we’ve changed and grown, and now is time for the next change:
Starting today, I am changing my business name to The Roastery at Innisfree to better align what I am doing as a roaster with what I am doing as a farmer. The coffee won’t change. The small batch roasting won’t change. The personal service won’t change. But this change will help us focus even more on what we are doing at Innisfree.
Enjoy your coffee!
DLH
It’s not much, but I updated the prices page.
DLH
The coffee roasting I do is probably best defined as artisanal. That word tends to conjure the image in most people’s minds of a skilled craftsperson working tirelessly to produce masterpiece after masterpiece in his or her chosen form, and to a great degree, that image is correct.
Most of the time.
The fact is, however, that even for the most skilled craftsperson, things sometimes go wrong. And so it is with coffee.
This summer I’ve been having quality problems with some of my coffee, especially my Tanzanian Peaberry Mt. Meru Estate. Something has just been off with it. Between two batches roasted one right after the other to the same time and temperature, one will under roast and one will over roast. One will crack quickly and heavily where another will never crack. This problem has generated the first complaints I have ever had about the quality of my coffee, to the point that I feel I need to discuss it here.
I will be the first person to admit there is a problem. The fact is I haven’t quite solved it yet. Coffee roasting is a complex process at any level, but in my little roastery I have to deal with a variety of variables that makes the problem more complex than most. My roastery is not climate controlled, so I have little control over temperature and humidity. Both of these factors do things to the beans, and in the case of the Tanzanian, I suspect the wild swings in humidity we’ve had this summer are the culprit.
On the upside of this problem, it has forced me to revisit my roasting process in a very direct way. I’ve even added new, more precise equipment to help me sort out certain specific factors that contribute to the quality of a roast. Yet, even with those factors in place, the problem persists, and I continue to work on it.
So, with all that said, I want to pass on to you, dear coffee drinker, this reality: if it’s bad, don’t drink it, even if it’s artisanal and even if you paid a lot of money for it. If it’s bad and I roasted it, let me know. I will replace every ounce of coffee I’ve roasted for you until it meets your satisfaction.
And, that last bit is why artisanal coffee–or food or clothing or whatever–is superior. We artisans care about what we produce and want to make it right. I hope that fact alone continues to earn your business.
DLH
It’s exciting to me anyway. I am in the process of adding five new coffees to my lineup for 2013:
The Malabar, P-NG and Zimbabwean coffees will be all be City Plus roasts more than likely while the Mocha-Java will be a City Plus or Vienna roast and the Peruvian will be a Vienna or an Espresso roast.
I will let you know once they are available!
DLH
I finally updated the price list on this site to reflect my current prices. Of course, some of you might be wondering, “Why the big increases?”
Unfortunately, coffee, like many other commodities, is experiencing large price swings right now. Many of the varieties I carry increased as much as a dollar a pound for green coffee last year and some of the varieties I want to carry are simply not available this year.
In order to ensure I can continue to roast–let’s face it, roasting involves a lot more than just buying green beans–I had to adjust my prices accordingly. If prices were to go down, and there is evidence that they may for some varieties later this year, I will adjust my prices accordingly.
In the mean time, thank you for your patronage and I look forward to roasting coffee for your in 2012.
DLH
Based on the recipe from Sweet Maria’s, Classic Italian Espresso Blend is a full bodied, full flavored coffee with just a hint of acidity and bitterness that one would expect from an espresso blend. It is great as a drip brewed or pressed coffee, but it’s even better made in a moka pot or espresso machine. This blend will be available starting 7 July at the Piqua Farmer’s Market, and you can also pick some up at the Covington Farmer’s Market (Facebook) or the Downtown Troy Farmer’s Market.
DLH
Welcome visitors from the Downtown Troy Farmer’s Market. Don’t be shy. Poke around and contact me if you have questions.
DLH