A Fun Visit to Redding Roasters

Yesterday I had a meeting at O'Neil's, the much-loved sandwich shop in Bethel, CT. While standing at the counter, ordering green tea, the coffee delivery from Redding Roasters Coffee Company arrived. I got to chatting with the lovely lady delivering the coffee, and she invited me to come by the shop, which I am glad I did.

Bill O'Keefe, the owner, was happy to show me around. I was asking questions about how we go about getting our coffee decaffeinated. Have you ever wondered about that? Turns out there is a big plant in Canada that does (unintuituvely) Swiss water process and another big plant in Mexico that does (intuitively) Mexican water process decaffeination. I have much to learn.

Bill was kind enough to show me the difference in the beans. The Swiss water process is on the left. The Mexican water process is on the right. He said the Swiss is supposed to be the gold-standard, but he sells both. They roast up differently.

The big decision we are going to need to make is to decide whether our beans are (objectively) good enough to import and private label or whether we should just sell them as a commodity in Nicaragua to the beneficios. Bill agreed to roast some of our beans when I finally get some green beans here, and give me his objective assessment.