COURTESY VT ARTISAN COFFEE & TEA
- such as the state of Vermont doing away with plastic bags in grocery stores . Our daily choices have an incredible impact on both our local communities and the larger global community . That ’ s why I went out of my way to buy a roasting machine that was energy efficient - A Loring S15 . It wasn ’ t cheap . I could have done it another way . I could have bought an afterburner . I could have used more fuel . You can buy a high end 15-kilo roaster for $ 35,000 . My roaster cost $ 85,000 by the time I got it commissioned . I made an investment in a machine that was using the least amount of fuel possible to roast the coffee . I paid more than double what I could have . It was completely worth it because of the impact it ’ s going to have on my carbon footprint .”
Tony says that the most enjoyable aspect of his job is “ the craft process that goes into roasting the coffee . I have a machine that has a feature where I can program the temperature sequence for roasting the coffee . If I put a 25 pound batch in that hits the temperature sequence exactly how I want it to every step of the way during the roast , I can hit ‘ save ’, and then the next time I put 25 pounds of coffee in , I can select those settings by selecting that saved roast program and the machine will duplicate those roast settings . It will basically do a technically perfect roast without me having to do anything . I don ’ t use it . I never use that automatic roast preference saving feature . I manually roast every single batch of coffee because I enjoy the
process itself . I enjoy pushing the envelope . Every roast is different day to day . You might have green coffee that sits in the bag for a few weeks or months , that same coffee changes slightly during that time . It can pick up a little bit of humidity or dry out . My aim is to take those subtle differences into account . I really try to be sensitive to those factors . That ’ s why I like to always roast my coffee manually , because when you program the machine and you use a pre-programmed sequence , the machine doesn ’ t understand the subtle changes in the beans that can occur over time . That ’ s where the human element comes in . For me it all comes down to passion . That ’ s what got me into the coffee business in the first place . I try to put my passion and love for my craft in every batch that I roast . If you ’ re equally passionate about your morning cup of coffee - and it ’ s as meaningful for you as it is for me - I really think that you will enjoy my coffee . I put my love and my joy into every bean .”
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