Here at Rad Roasting, we strive to make your coffee experience better. Whether it be coffee quality, service, pricing, or overall experience: we want to deliver that to you as a retail or wholesale customer. Roasting good coffee in small batches helps with quality control, freshness and the ability to roast more varieties more quickly. Finding quality coffee that meets all your desires can be tough to navigate. Different roasters are going to have different varieties, roast differently and have different techniques. There are millions, if not billions of coffee drinkers around the world and people are going to have individual tastes that speak to them, and that’s okay! We don’t take offense if our coffee isn’t what you are looking for, though we do try to have something for everybody and welcome you to try them all first. The thing that we have really focused on is having what we call “drinking coffees.” What that means to us is we have body forward coffee with really good front end flavors, a hearty body, and a smooooth finish. The consumer can enjoy cup after delicious cup without that bitter after-taste (even our dark roasts like Carmen Sandiego and Aviator). There are a lot of factors that go into coffee roasting but three come into play more than others: The Bean, The Roast, and The Grind.

The Bean: The origin of the bean is going to make the biggest difference when it comes to outside factors. It’s also the hardest thing to decipher from a consumer standpoint. A roaster can make any farm from any region sound sexy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good quality. This is a huge internationally traded commodity that has complex growing times, certifications, elevations, growing conditions, plant origin, government instability, and many other facets. Consumers are looking for organic, fair trade, shade grown, rain forest certified, or any number of other factors. The only thing that a consumer can do it trust what they like! It sounds simple, but too often the coffee industry is telling consumers what they should like. Find what you like and expand upon that. Trust your taste buds and you will never go wrong.

The Roast: The roasting process can really make the cup. We like to roast slowly to really get that good body and smooth after-taste. We are a little old school with our roasting process. We roast by taking it in with all of our senses. Well, four of them at least. When roasting we can see the color of the coffee we’re trying to achieve. We are also listening for how the coffee cracks to determine when we’re reaching our desired roast. The process also gives off different aromas that takes us through the roasting process. Finally, we taste! If we like something, we keep it in our rotation. If we don’t enjoy the coffee, then we make a note of it and move on. Good green coffee does not always translate to good roasted coffee, especially when it comes to blending. We try to have a wide variety of roasts to make sure we have something that everyone can enjoy. One of the easiest ways to improve your coffee quality is to find fresh coffee. We strive to get coffee out within one week of roasting. If not us, then find a place that roasts frequently and recognizes the importance of freshness.

The Grind: The grind is one of the easiest ways to affect your coffee quality. The grind of your coffee is going to have a great influence over the cup in a couple different ways. I know that everyone cant grind themselves and that’s okay. But if you can grind it yourself, the quality will not depreciate as quickly as it will with pre-ground coffee. The more recently ground, the higher the quality of the cup. It’s also important to make sure that you are grinding for your correct brewing process. This is another big reason to avoid pre-ground coffee if you can.. A good rule of thumb is the longer the coffee is in contact with the water, the coarser your grind should be. For instance, espresso grind is really fine but a 20 hour cold brew will have a very coarse grind. It can create bitterness if too fine and major loss of flavor if too coarse. Don’t be afraid to play around with it a bit and find what works best for you. If you ever need any advice on this, or any of these fronts, be sure to contact us!