Coffee

Roast, Brew, Drink, Repeat...

A lifelong love of coffee leads to a logical place - start roasting your own! Here at Saratoga Suds, we are aficionados but not snobs; we'll gladly drink any coffee put in our hands. But we can also appreciate the fruit notes of a lightly roasted Kenya natural arabica, the earthy notes of a dark roasted Sumatra, or a perfectly pulled espresso. There is no bad coffee, just some coffees that are better than others (the same can be said for donuts).

Here are Saratoga Suds we roast coffee in small batches. Very small batches, from 150 to 200 grams (less than half a pound). At such a small scale we focus on quality and source characteristics of the bean. Roasting is a science as well as an art, with many factors in the balance to extract the best qualities of the coffee bean.

The Bean

This area is all about about the coffee we source and roast. Maybe someday there will also be some links to reference information about the process of harvesting, processing, and roasting coffee.

A common question is "where do you get your green coffee beans?" Professional roasteries give/sell small quantities of their green coffee to home roasters, but that is rather rare. The internet is the largest and most convenient source but is rife with sketchy suppliers; below are some reputable bean sellers we order from:

We have an informal quest to roast our way around the world, and below are the source countries for beans we have already roasted. We like all coffee, but bolded countries are our favorites:

  • Bali

  • Bolivia

  • Brazil

  • China

  • Colombia

  • Congo

  • Costa Rica

  • Dominican Republic

  • Ecuador

  • El Salvador

  • Guatemala

  • Haiti

  • Honduras

  • India

  • Java

  • Myanmar (formerly Burma)

  • Mexico

  • Myanmar (Burma)

  • Nicaragua

  • Peru

  • Sulawesi

  • Sumatra

  • Tanzania

  • Thailand

  • Uganda

  • Vietnam

  • Zambia

Roasting

Sure, there are plenty of commercial coffee roasting machines for purchase, but what is the fun in that? In true homebrew spirit the building of roasting equipment is almost as fun as brewing and drinking the coffee (almost). We have developed a roasting system with a semi-automated controller able to operate multiple types of roasters. All equipment built here is open-platform and open-source, with designs shared for non-commercial purposes.

©2024 - Saratoga Suds