Published On: September 01, 2022
What Happens at a Coffee Roastery?
Why Should You Visit a Coffee Roastery?
Sample Different Types of Coffee
Experience the Action
Learn the Best Brewing Tips
Get the Freshest Coffee Beans Possible
Be a Sustainable Consumer
Visit the Hermanos London Coffee Roastery
A coffee roastery is one of the most exciting places to be if you’re a coffee lover or interested in how the roasting process works.
However, there are still misconceptions about what happens here and how it relates to the other parts of the global coffee supply chain.
For those who are looking to dive deeper into the world of coffee, we explore why visiting a coffee roastery in person is one of the best things you can possibly do.
Most large-scale coffee companies and chains will purchase their beans from wholesale roasteries, which can lead to some confusion about what a roastery actually is and how it differs from a coffee shop.
Although many independent specialty coffee shops roast their own coffee, and serve coffee from their roastery (including us), roasteries themselves are unique spaces and serve a very important purpose in the supply chain – connecting coffee producers with consumer markets.
A coffee roastery is where green beans are turned into the brown coffee beans we all recognise and love. And a lot happens on a daily basis to make this happen, including storing and sorting imported coffee, roasting beans to match certain profiles (using specialised equipment and software), tasting coffee to check quality, and fulfilling orders for customers, shops and wholesale partners.
Not sure what your preference is when it comes to coffee yet? Or just wanting to try something new?
Our best advice is to get yourself to a coffee roastery. Every bean that the company sells will be right there, and probably available to purchase. The bonus of buying your coffee from a roastery rather than online, or from a supermarket or chain, is that you get to ask the roasters themselves which bean to buy, and how to prepare it at home for best results.
At a coffee roastery, you’ll be able to find unique and interesting flavour profiles and find out details about the estate or farm that the beans were grown on. And if you ask nicely, they might just let you try a couple cups on the house!
A lot happens at a coffee roastery. As well as the sorting and roasting of beans, coffee must be regularly tasted and quality checked before it can be packaged and sent out.
The smaller the roastery is, the more individual processes will be handled by hand. And the "busier" it can all seem. For instance, some large roasteries will be able to roast batches in extremely large volumes, relying on software to produce coffee that matches a certain profile. Others will require a roaster to carefully monitor every small batch by hand.
You'll also generally find many of a coffee company's key team at a roastery, who, if you're lucky, answer any questions you may have directly.
Many roasteries are willing to offer tours and take questions from curious coffee enthusiasts, explaining things like why they roast certain beans to specific profiles (light, medium, dark).
Although all coffee beans can be brewed using any equipment (espresso machine, V60, Chemex), the taste and enjoyment that you’ll get out of the drink will vary greatly depending on your technique and how you match certain beans/profiles with certain coffee beans.
For instance, some beans are imported and roasted with the intention of being brewed either for espresso or filter coffee.
As an example, our Gesha beans have been carefully selected and are loved by people who are passionate about special filter coffees. Using these beans for an espresso-based drink would not draw out the same splendid floral aromas and flavours that filter brewing does, and would be a disappointment to a consumer who only drinks espresso-based drinks like flat whites.
Purchasing your beans directly from a roastery gives you the opportunity to ask the baristas and roasters their brewing method recommendations. Finding out how to brew your beans to their maximum potential will transform your daily coffee.
Shop Our Full Range Of Colombian Coffee Beans
This may sound obvious, but the freshest coffee that you’ll try will be from a roastery. As soon as green coffee beans are exposed to the air and roasted, they begin to lose their flavours and may even develop unappealing qualities. This means that buying coffee directly from a roastery is the best way to ensure that the beans you’re brewing at home are fresh and delicious.
A lot of supermarket or commodity grade coffee will have been bought inexpensively in bulk, roasted, and shipped off to multiple shops, having lost the best of its flavour long before it is brewed.
Sustainability is at the forefront of everyone’s minds these days, and for good reason. We pay attention to so much of what we do and consume on a daily basis, and coffee should be part of this as well.
Often, the best way to ensure that a bag of coffee has been ethically sourced and the growers fairly compensated is to buy it directly from a roastery.
Smaller specialist roasteries should be able to tell you the country that a bean came from, as well as the estate/farm and the name of the farmers – giving you a better idea about where your money is going.
If you’re ever at our roastery in South London, don’t hesitate to ask anyone from our team about the origin or sustainability of our coffee beans, we’d be more than happy to answer any questions!
Sustainability is at the forefront of everyone’s minds these days, and for good reason. We pay attention to so much of what we do and consume on a daily basis, and coffee should be part of this as well.
Read About Our Values And Commitments
We couldn't be bigger advocates for visiting a coffee roastery and witnessing, partially at least, where your coffee comes from. Understanding the roasting process and seeing it happen first-hand is a great way to appreciate your daily brew even more. And it's also a great way to level up your typical daily coffee run!
Our South London roastery, located in Arch 16, Angel Lane, SE17 3FR is always open for people to come in, have a freshly roasted cup of Colombian coffee, and watch our roasters at work. Many roasteries still aren’t open to the public, or are only open for guided tours, but we encourage as many people as possible to come down and learn more about how their coffee is made.
Visiting our roastery allows you to watch beans being roasted, packaged, and shipped, try out a number of different coffee flavour profiles, chat to experts about each of the beans we stock, purchase bags of coffee to take home, and order yourself any drink from our extensive menu to sit down and enjoy!
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