Boutique coffee micro-roaster "night owl"

Coffee micro-roaster is the abbreviation of "order small / micro coffee roaster" (Micro-roaster).

After World War II, the global coffee market experienced three waves. The first wave began in the 1950s, represented by canned coffee and instant coffee, and the army played an important supporting role in coffee consumption during this period. The second wave began in the 1970s, starting with the "Peet's Coffee" founded by Dutch coffee roaster Alfred Pitt in San Francisco, USA in 1966. After the gestation and development in the 1970s and 1980s, Starbucks spread all over the world in the 1990s. The proposal of Ms. Knudsen's concept of boutique coffee (1974) and the birth and growth of the American Fine Coffee Association (1082) played an important role in the development of the coffee industry. The third wave began in the millennium, marked by the pursuit of transparent and personalized manor coffee from seed to cup. Coffee roasters such as STUMPTOWN, INTELLIGENTSIA and COUNTERCULTURE in the United States were the leaders of the coffee movement in this period. With the ups and downs of these three waves, coffee roasting has been separated from the huge commercial roasting in the past and baked at any time to meet the increasing requirements of coffee drinkers for quality and freshness. self-made roasting coffee shops are also springing up all over the world. Whether this kind of small quantity / micro roasting can survive and develop is the concern of many people. With the same thinking, the author specially visited several boutique coffee roasters in Portland, which is at the forefront of the American boutique coffee industry. The "night owl" introduced here today is a typical representative of the "miniature coffee roaster" (Micro-roaster).

Mr. Black Fowler, the owner of the owl coffee roaster, met with the author at the annual meeting of the American Fine Coffee Association Baker Association held at the Scamania Lodge Hotel in Stevenson, Washington at the end of August 2010. It was agreed that I would visit him in Portland after the party.

Mr. Black is a very enthusiastic man. When he arrived in Portland, he turned on the computer and received his email, offering to show me some famous coffee roasters in the city. Considering that he had just returned from the party, he must have an order to cash, and the transportation in Portland was very convenient, so I declined his hospitality and reassured him to bake coffee for his clients.

Blake and Katie are the two main staff of the owl boutique coffee micro-roaster. They had received formal training in biology and embarked on careers in biofuel research and medical device manufacturing and botany. Coffee roasting was only a hobby, but was attracted by the charm of coffee roasting. In their view, the process of roasting coffee is so fascinating: coffee beans are hard and inedible, but through roasting, they become a very aromatic and endless coffee drink. Blake spent more and more time studying baking and met many brown friends, so they encouraged him to open the mini coffee roaster, while Katie was in charge of taking orders, shipping and raw beans and other raw materials. The customers of micro bakers relatively have their own drinking preferences, and because micro baking can meet a variety of customer requirements, easy to order and quick to receive goods, they gradually win more customers. Such miniature coffee roasters have sprung up in the United States in recent years.

Only twenty minutes after getting on the bus from the hotel, I arrived at the northeast 25th Street where Blake was located. After getting off, I followed the house number. This street is a residential area, and the tree-lined streets are lined with "villas", which makes me sigh: how comfortable it is for a coffee roaster to live in such a wonderful environment! Later, when I was talking to Blake, I specifically asked him about the house prices in this area. Only when I knew that the houses in this area were more expensive in Portland, they cost about three or 400000 dollars each. This makes me sigh again!

Mr. Black Fowler (right)

Black's micro-drying workshop, in a separate room in the back yard of a villa, uses a Diedrich gas-heated floor coffee roaster, North America's first brand, similar to one of the four machines we used in the SCAA annual coffee roasting competition, except that it was Diedrich's latest desktop model. Due to the requirements of environmental protection, the roaster is equipped with a post-burner system. The post-burner system consumes more than three times as much gas as coffee roasting. I suggest that Blake retrofit the water-cooled smoke removal equipment.

After visiting the bakery, Blake used the kettle to make the Sumatran boutique Mantenin coffee. Sitting at the wooden table in his courtyard and sipping the freshly baked coffee, he suddenly felt fragrant, well-balanced and rich, with a thick taste and a sweet aftertaste. In China, we often use the commercial grade Sumatra Mantenin class, and we have no special preference for its taste, especially the herbal bitterness, but this boutique Mantenin sweeps away the impression of Indonesian coffee in the past. No wonder it's boutique coffee, no wonder it's roasted in small amounts! I think that's what attracts coffee lovers.

See Blake's house from the backyard

After drinking the coffee, Blake drove me back to the hotel in his Volkswagen Beetle. As I wave goodbye, I sincerely wish and believe that its "night owl" boutique coffee micro-roaster is getting better and better. His speech, behavior and lifestyle really make me feel the meaning of a sentence I often hear: enjoy coffee and enjoy life.

Manning, the boutique of the "night owl" micro-baker.