2006 ROASTER OF THE YEAR

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

THERE ARE MANY WAYS for small roasters to distinguish themselves from the competition. They can create long-term relationships with producers of quality coffee. They can purchase the top coffees through Internet auctions and cup them with their customers. They might try a new style coffeehouse, where customers can order a cup of coffee by co-op, region and varietal. They could create a roaster internship, bringing up-and-coming roasters from origin countries to the States for an exchange of ideas and knowledge.
     For most roasters, just one or two of these unique business approaches would be enough to set them apart. For Stumptown Coffee Roasters, these approaches are all just business as usual in the company’s drive toward sourcing, roasting and selling the best coffees from around the world.
     Stumptown Coffee may seem like a new face in the industry—it opened its doors in 1999—but it’s come a long way in a short amount of time. The Portland, Ore.-based company currently has three retail cafés, as well as a roastery, and Stumptown’s newest space, called The Annex, sells estate and co-op coffees by the pound or by the cup.
     Stumptown’s early years were focused on building and solidifying the company’s infrastructure, while still concentrating on coffee quality. Last year, with the company on solid ground at the local level, it was time to start looking outward at the coffee community at large.
     “In the space of a year, the scope and impact of our philosophy has shifted dramatically from one that focused, by necessity, on the immediate local community to one whose breadth has become global,” says Jodi Geren, the company’s chief operating officer. “We spent the last year growing up—from a small roasting company that minded its own business to one that we can proudly say is a leader in the industry.”

On a Mission

The company’s mission is two-fold, says Stumptown owner and founder Duane Sorenson. First and foremost is to provide people with an unsurpassed coffee experience. “Rather than focusing on marketing, we focus on unbelievable quality, not just something good,” says Sorenson. “And we’re not even close to the quality we want yet.”
     Currently, 90 percent of Stumptown’s sales stay in the Portland area, which also plays a role in Stumptown’s mission of the ideal coffee experience. By catering to such a specific market, Stumptown can stay focused on quality, while still creating a unique coffee experience for customers. “We want to help Portland folks become the most educated coffee consumers in the world,” Sorenson says.
     The second half of the company’s mission statement has a much larger purpose: to spread Stumptown’s knowledge and passion for specialty coffee as far as possible. “We want to take what we know and learn and use it to help improve the state of specialty coffee in the world today,” Sorenson says.
Good for Coffee

     To fulfill the first half of the company’s mission—an unsurpassed coffee experience—Sorenson and his crew work hard to source and purchase the best coffees he can find. Often, they do this by purchasing collectively with other roasters, creating long-term educational relationships with growers, and by actively seeking out unusual flavors, varietals and heirloom coffees.
     “This year, we’ve been able to get more involved in cup quality and in improving the life of farmers, pickers and the communities we buy coffee from,” Sorenson says. “Because of the teamwork of everyone at Stumptown, it really allowed me to travel to find the very best coffees out there, the very best farms and the very best varietals.”
     One of the things that sets Stumptown apart is the company’s large offering of small estate and co-op coffees, as well as its focus on heirloom varietals. “We don’t do a lot of blending,” Sorenson says. “We’re much more about varietals, origins and areas.”
     Because of the focus on varietals and regions, roasters work to bring out the best flavors in the cup. “We don’t want to force flavors into the coffee,” Sorenson says. “We want to let the coffee find its way.”
     The Stumptown philosophy is that coffee is an ever-changing thing that needs constant attention to be at its best. “Coffee’s a living thing,” Sorenson says. “It changes from when it’s picked, how it tastes through the year. So we believe that massive cupping is the only way to find the coffee’s sweet spot—it’s the most important thing we do.”
     To take that focus one step farther, Stumptown recently opened The Annex. This small café is lined with jars of freshly roasted beans, each labeled with the country, region and farm or co-op of origin. Employees help customers choose the coffee that might suit their tastes—from Don Pachi Reserva, a Best of Panama winner, to the cherry-chocolate flavor of a fair-trade Rwanda Musasa. All coffees are then made to order in a vacuum pot or filter cone. A large flat-screen TV along the back wall shows slideshows and videos of the growers.
     “We like to put a farmer behind each cup of coffee,” Sorenson says. “Rather than just offer the customer a Guat or a Nicaraguan, the focus is on this great coffee from this particular grower.”

Good for People

     And that’s where the second half of the company’s mission statement comes in. By supporting producers while offering education to employees and consumers, Stumptown hopes to improve the demand, understanding and desire for specialty coffee around the world. There are three parts to this people equation: producers, employees and consumers.
     Like many coffee companies, Stumptown is committed to helping producers. Not just by making sure they receive fair wages for their coffee, but by offering them the education and information they need to understand the market and to produce better coffee. “By working with the farmer directly, we’re trying to be able to see what their needs are to make improvements on the farm, for the people and the community,” Sorenson says.
     Next comes employee education. At Stumptown, that means more than just getting the facts. Sorenson believes that for Stumptown to achieve its mission, employees need to be just as jazzed about coffee as he is. To do this, he offers a great working environment, including providing full health coverage for every employee, hiring a full-time on-staff massage therapist and paying competitive wages. “All of this encourages us to be healthy,” Sorenson says. “It’s all expensive, but it’s worth it in the long run. I want to take care of my people here too.”
     This year, the company also released its first employee compilation record, created by Stumptown’s band-worthy baristi. Not only does this annual jam session create strong bonds between employees while giving exposure to their talents, it also offers them the opportunity to help producers and coffee, as all of the proceeds go to source to help improve coffee quality.
     This stuff might seem superfluous to some, but it makes it that much easier for employees to be excited about working at Stumptown and, consequently, about working with coffee, Sorenson says. A high level of knowledge is expected of every employee, no matter what position they hold within the company.
     Employees and wholesalers attend early morning coffee and farm classes after every origin trip that the company takes. “After every trip, we have in-house all-employee powwows,” Sorenson says. “We do intense cuppings, give out farm information and offer updates on the people and communities that we’re working with.”
     Employees share their knowledge too, by volunteering through USAID to help in developing countries, judging and teaching at events like Cup of Excellence and SCAA conventions, holding cupping and brewing seminars at Stumptown retail locations and traveling to source to meet the producers that supply the company’s coffee. “I’m also taking roasters with me on source trips to educate them on coffee varieties,” Sorenson says.
     New this year is a roasting exchange and scholarship program, where Stumptown hosts roasters from origin countries, such as Rwanda and Nicaragua. Visiting roasters get the chance for hands-on roasting and cupping experiences at Stumptown and other roasteries. Stumptown also pays for English classes for the roasters.
     Consumer education is the vital, but often missing, final step to quality coffee. To ensure that consumers understand what they’re purchasing and drinking, Stumptown offers twice-a-day open-door cuppings at The Annex for wholesale and retail customers, for interested parties who have signed up, and for anyone who happens to walk by and wants to know what’s going on. On weekends, the store offers demonstrations and classes on home brewers and espresso machines.
     Sorenson makes sure all of Stumptown’s wholesale customers have a good understanding of coffee as well. “We don’t have one wholesaler who has not cupped at least once with us,” he says, “or who has not gone through our espresso training classes.”

The Future of Stumptown

     Never a company to stop moving forward, Stumptown’s list of goals for next year is just as long as its list of accomplishments for this year.
     Not only does Sorenson hope to continue to source, roast and sell amazing coffees, he says the company will continue to make great strides in the industry at large, whether it’s by sponsoring the Northwest Barista Competition, judging in Cup of Excellence events or heading to unknown origins in search of the ultimate cup. “We’ll be seeking after other beautiful coffees, looking for other farmers and communities to work with,” Sorenson says. “That’s our goal.”

2006 ROASTER OF THE YEAR Runner-Up

Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea

SAY “BLACK CAT” to almost anyone in the coffee industry, and they’ll know you’re talking about Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea’s famous espresso blend. This heavy-bodied, earthy espresso might be what Intelligentsia’s best known for, but it’s only one of the many ways the Chicago-based company has built a name for itself since 1995.
     The company’s mission is straightforward: create and promote a new business model in which everyone involved in the production, handling, roasting and preparation of coffee is invested in preserving and developing quality.
     According to Doug Zell, CEO of Intelligentsia, the everyone in the mission statement means just what it says: Employees, customers, producers, millers and exporters are all expected to uphold the company’s mission of quality coffee.
     Intelligentsia begins this process by educating employees through classes and hands-on events. In the past year, the company also worked to strengthen its infrastructure, thus allowing Intelligentsia to put its attention outside the office and focus on coffee quality. “I really feel that this is the first year our efforts have finally come to fruition,” Zell says. “Our entire line is really bullet-proof—there are no coffees that are weak links.”
     As part of the internal redesign, Intelligentsia solidified its cupping practices as well as its quantitative and qualitative testing. “That’s a huge step for us,” Zell says. “We’re marrying the art of tasting and cupping with the scientific pieces, which is so important for great coffee.”
     For years, Intelligentsia has been known for staying ahead of the curve when it came to developing relationships with growers in countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Now, all of that hard work is paying off. “For the first couple of years, our relationships with different co-ops and estate owners were very exploratory, very trial and error,” says Geoff Watts, vice president of coffee. “Now, we’ve been working with a lot of these guys long enough that we have a good system in place and there’s more of a mutual faith and understanding.”
     There’s also a lot more knowledge: Intelligentsia works with producers to increase everyone’s understanding of how to taste, talk and sell great coffee. “Part of what will make the whole specialty industry and any individual efforts successful is being able to have a big pool of common knowledge,” Watts says. “Getting producers to speak the same language and understand how, where and why quality is critical while always trying to understand what challenges the producers are facing.”
     The company also makes a point to educate retail and wholesale customers on coffee so they can talk about it and serve it correctly. This, says Zell, is the important final step in the coffee quality chain. “If our retail and wholesale customers don’t have a deep understanding of how to preserve quality, they’re never going to represent the coffee the way it should be,” Zell says. “The quality will be lost at the last stage, which is tragic. They need to be emotionally invested in honoring the quality.”
     Not surprisingly, Intelligentsia has big goals for next year. From working with emerging origins in the same way they worked with countries like Guatemala and Nicaragua, to creating connections within the coffee industry, the company plans to continue playing a big role in the future of specialty coffee.
     “One of our goals for this year is to continue to promote connectivity between all these organizations that are doing cool things in coffee that aren’t yet collaborating,” Watts says. He sees great potential in connecting groups like Cup of Excellence and ACE, as well as in the collaboration of the Roasters Guild with researchers world-wide who are doing quality-driven experimentation. “We’re trying to be a company that’s connecting these various groups so their work can have some sort of synergy, so progress will speed up.”
     The future also holds more work on the relationship side, Watts adds. Up next: how to cement the current relationships for the long-term. “We’re doing more strategic planning now, so we’re able to ask, ‘How do we create a three-year plan that’s based around quality and sustainability’ versus ‘How do we get great coffee out of here right now?’ he says.
     There’s always more work to do, agrees Zell, whether it’s at origin or at the office. “We cheer our successes,” he says. “But as a company, by no means do we think that we have all this down or that we understand it. We’re taking a humble approach to trying to be great.”

2006 ROASTER OF THE YEAR Runner-Up

Dillanos Coffee Roasters

MOST BUSINESSES either have great branding or a great product—it’s rare to find a company that can do both. Dillanos Coffee Roasters is one of the few businesses that has managed to pull it off.
     Known for its retro-classic blue, gold and red logos, as well as for its quality coffee, Dillanos has been serving wholesale customers in the Sumner, Wash., area since 1992. With almost 500 wholesale customers in nearly 50 states, Dillanos is doubling in size every three years while still retaining its commitment to quality.
     Named the 2005 Top Place to Work in the South Sound by the Business Examiner, Dillanos’ mission statement has people at the forefront: “Help People, Make Friends and Have Fun!”
     “We focus on the people because we believe everything starts and ends with your people, whether it comes to passion and quality in roasting or good customer service,” says David Morris, chief executive officer for Dillanos. “No matter what you’re selling, it’s always about celebrating and valuing your own people first.”
     This is especially true this year, Morris says, as the company expands from a regional northwest roaster into a national profile roaster. “Now, over 50 percent of our business is national,” Morris says. “And our foundation is so solid that no matter how much competition we get on the national level, we’ll be able to succeed.”
     By committing to people in the industry, Dillanos strives to create solid, long-term relationships with employees and customers. The company offers education to all of its employees through monthly meetings, cupping classes and educational seminars such as, “Relationships 101.”
     Customers, too, get the benefit of the company’s breadth of coffee knowledge. Dillanos offers free training to all of its customers and their baristi, as well as marketing and financing assistance and information. “I think that’s what really makes us stand out—our commitment to our customers and helping them in every way,” says Phil Beattie, roastmaster for Dillanos. “We’re not just focused on teaching them to pull a good shot of espresso—we want to also educate them on the whole coffee chain.”
     “Of course, it’s your coffee that sets you apart from the other roasters, but beyond that, I think roasters tend to stop there,” Beattie adds. “They think customers will just flock to them. But in order to grow as a roaster, you have to help your customers grow, too.”
     The company’s commitment to coffee people extends beyond customers and employees. Dillanos believes in taking small actions to benefit everyone in the industry, whether they are producers, coffee shop owners or other roasters. Employees volunteer to present at trade shows, teach classes and seminars, and contribute to articles and books on specialty coffee.
     In addition, the company sponsors a child for each employee through the International Christian Children’s Fund, a program that provides food, aid and education to children in impoverished areas. Dillanos also has a long-term roasting partnership with Pura Vida Coffee, an organic, fair-trade coffee program that empowers at-risk children in Costa Rica by providing interactive computer centers and other programs.
     For Dillanos, building such a strong foundation in its people—and people throughout the coffee industry—leads directly to roasting and selling better coffee. “You have to first build a quality culture to get a quality product,” says Morris.
     When it comes to roasting, roasters at Dillanos live by the adage that “The art of roasting is developing flavor—the science is repeating it.”
     “I approach the art as developing flavor profiles and tasting the coffee, so I think it’s important to think creatively as far as your roast profiles go,” Beattie says. “The science then is repeating it, which requires logging every possible aspect of the roast that you can: how long the batch is in, what Agtron number it is and really analyzing the time versus temperature at every point in the batch.”
     While science might be what makes great coffee, it’s the passion that sells it, Beattie says. “You hear a lot of roasters talking about educating their customers, but I think it’s the role of the roaster to create the romance,” he says. “We can sit here and say you need an 18-second shot or rattle off a number, but the underlying thing you’re creating is really the passion for coffee. As roasters, our main focus is on the religion of quality and the romance of the bean.”