Why we roast on Tuesdays
One roast day a week keeps every bag within a few days of the roaster, and keeps the shop small enough for two people to run.
We roast once a week, on Tuesday, and ship on Wednesday. People ask why we do not roast every day. The short answer is that one day of roasting fits the amount of coffee we sell, and it means every bag that leaves the shop was roasted no more than eight days earlier.
What a roast day looks like
The roaster takes about 40 minutes to warm up. We roast light coffees first, while the drum is at its most even temperature, and finish with the espresso blend and the decaf. A 12 kg batch takes 11 to 13 minutes, then four minutes in the cooling tray. On a normal week that is six or seven batches.
Every batch gets a line in the roast log: green weight, roasted weight, charge temperature, time to first crack and total time. If a coffee tastes different at the Thursday cupping, the log is where we start.
Why not every day
Roasting every day would mean smaller batches, more warm-up time and more gas for the same amount of coffee. It would also mean one of us at the roaster every morning instead of packing orders, answering email and buying coffee.
Coffee also needs a few days to rest. Beans give off carbon dioxide for about a week after roasting, which makes very fresh coffee hard to brew evenly. A Tuesday roast that reaches you on Friday or Saturday is close to its best.
What this means for your order
- Orders placed by Monday night ship on Wednesday with that week’s roast.
- Orders placed on Tuesday or later ship the following Wednesday, unless they hold only pantry goods, which ship the next weekday.
- The roast date is written on every bag.