The first coffee was roasted in cast iron pans, and as it travelled up from Africa to Europe, more advanced coffee roasters with internal stirring mechanisms were built. And for about two hundred years, from about 1650 to 1864, most coffee was roasted this way. It looks like a Whirley Pop popcorn popper made out of cast iron. Same principles. The roaster stirs a handle on the top, rotating the beans and giving them a more even roast. In 1864 the modern drum roaster was invented, and that’s how 99% of all coffee is roasted today, with most drums being made of stainless steel, which doesn’t give coffee the same flavor as cast iron.
We started out roasting in cast iron stovetop roasters, for more than a year. One small batch at a time on stovetop by hand. That’s a lot of stirring.
Then we started to wonder if there was a a way to scale this method of production without losing the flavor. We knew it would still have to be cast iron, not the more common stainless steel drums, if we wanted to keep the signature flavor.
The stovetop roasters create a slightly uneven roast with some light and some dark beans. It’s not as uniform as the modern drum roasters. So when we began roasting on a cast iron drum roaster, we had to make sure the roast wasn’t too uniform. This meant releasing beans throughout the roasting process. Some lighter (Norwegian roast levels) and some much darker (German roast levels) with a whole spectrum of levels between. This gives our coffee a unique full bodied flavor. We also roast at lower temperatures and keep more of the coffee bean silverskin in the beans. This all combines for a coffee that tastes (from our tests) exactly like stovetop roasted coffee. This is why we say our coffee is roasted with a 17th century technique. We roasted exactly that way for a year and it’s exactly what our coffee tastes like to this day.
It simply requires more time, and a more hands-on approach to roasting.
For a more in-depth look at our roasting process, check out this article.