Back in March, we hosted Sacramento news station, FOX40's morning news reporter, Bethany Crouch, at our organic coffee farms in Panama.
They recently aired this segment on how the Rogers Family Company is improving conditions for workers on the farms.
Press the play button to view the video.
We think we may have found the best single-serve coffee maker out there. After a long journey, we’ve finally reached coffee-maker nirvana.
At $2500, the Bunn Trifecta is expensive, and it's probably best for an office of coffee connoisseurs (like us). Yet, we couldn't be happier with the cup of coffee it produces.
Here is a personal message from Jon Rogers - CEO and Founder about this coffee maker:
After first being exposed to high quality coffee a little over 30 years ago, I have become a student of achieving the "perfect cup.”
To achieve the perfect cup, there are three steps, each of which must be perfect if you are to have the best cup of coffee.
Those steps are:
1) Source the highest quality green coffee beans.
2) Roast those coffee beans to perfection understanding the intricacies of the roasting process.
3) Brew the ground, roasted beans perfectly.
We believe our company has achieved perfection in steps 1 and 2 for years. But I have finally found the third, and final, step in that goal.
Step 1: Source the Highest Quality Green Coffee Beans
We started sourcing our coffee directly in the mid 1980’s and, during those years have acquired the expertise to grow the best coffee. We actually own about 4,000 acres of coffee farms and we have a strong influence over the agricultural processes at the farms from which we receive about 90% of the coffee we roast. By that I mean type of tree, pruning, picking, fertilizing, wet milling, dry milling, etc. We are dealing with coffee farmers from whom we have bought coffee for many years, and we pay them more than almost any other roasters do.
Step 2: Roast the Coffee Beans to Perfection
Quite serendipitously we learned that the roasted coffee tasted better when you vary the amount of heat and the amount of air at various stages of the roast. Since that time in the early 1980’s we have been “tinkering” with all of the possible variables used in the roasting process. Actually, we are still tinkering, but what we have accomplished so far is definitely better than the “time and temperature” roasting used by almost all other roasters.
But of course, it's the process of brewing coffee to perfection that has been hard to achieve - until now!
Step 3: Brewing the Roasted Beans
The keys to successful coffee brewing are:
Assuming you've found the correct grind for your coffee maker (not too fine or it will be bitter – not too course or it will be weak), you're ready to brew coffee.
Most consumer market coffee makers spray hot water over the coffee grounds residing in some sort of filter basket. The water (often at a temperature much less than the optimal 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit) is sprayed over the top of the coffee. Infusion takes place as the water quickly passes through the filter. Many times, all of the coffee is not even wet, much less infused.
Up to now, the best medium for infusion has been the French Press. To do it right, water must be removed from the heat at just the right point, and the slurry must be stirred several times. Then there is the problem of pressing the coffee so you can remove it from the grounds at just the right time.
The Best Coffee Maker
We were recently exposed to the Bunn Trifecta coffee maker that automates the ideal French press, does it perfectly one cup at a time, and saves your personal settings so that you can achieve that perfect cup each and every time.
Here's how it works:
1) Place the recommended amount of ground coffee into the bottom of a two part chamber. Once you find the right amount for you, it is best to weigh it to insure you get the same amount each time
2) Determine your settings on a number of key parameters such as:
3) Put your cup beneath the exit valve and press go.
There are drawbacks:
Net, net this is the best cup of coffee that any of us in the office have ever tasted. In addition, it allows us to completely change the taste of the coffee brewed. We made the same coffee (from the same bag) under four different sets of parameters and got four different coffees. Pick the one you like best and enjoy!
This week we've been hosting Sacramento news station, FOX40's morning news reporter, Bethany Crouch, at our organic coffee farms in Panama.
The third day, Bethany sent in this video blog of her harvesting coffee on our Santa Barbara farm. While there, she learned about "tetra prieta" - our innovative and eco-friendly technique for improving soil quality on our organic, shade grown coffee farms.
Click here for all videos from her trip to Panama.
Why not buy our "Organic Panama Santa Barbara" coffee on our e-commerce website - Bethany might have picked it!
This week we've been hosting Sacramento news station, FOX40's morning news reporter, Bethany Crouch, at our organic coffee farms in Panama. The first day Bethany arrived in Panama and Day 2 she sent in this video blog of experiences at the Panama Canal and explains the importance of the canal to our coffee industry.
Stay with the video in the beginning - they do get the live Skype feed to work!
Click here for all her videos from her trip to Panama.
Why not buy our "Organic Panama Santa Barbara" coffee on our e-commerce website - Bethany might have picked it!
We recently received an email from a concerned customer about recycling our coffee bags. Our president, Jon Rogers responded via email with an update that we thought we'd share.
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We take our obligation to the environment very seriously. As you may know, our company is not only carbon neutral, but actually carbon negative. We actually take more carbon out of the atmosphere, than all of our activities put into it. We also grow our coffee in concert to nature. We are almost 100% shade grown. We convert almost all of the waste generated during processing into fertilizer (via billions of California red worms who devour the waste and emit rich soil) and bio gas (which we use to run the plant).
Sadly, we live in a world of conflicting priorities.
First let me give you some background. Roasted coffee does not like air. The O2 in air will make the coffee go stale and lose it flavor in a reasonably short period of time. To prevent the oxidation, we package our coffee in a multi layer bag that does not let the O2 penetrate. In addition we go to great lengths to make sure that the bag is tightly sealed so that there is no leakage. To prevent O2 penetration one of the 5 layers has to be metallic. That is the conflict, because the metallic layer is not recyclable and cannot be separated from the several layers of plastic materials which make up the bag.
Now the good news. We have been working with one of our suppliers to achieve a bag that keeps the air (O2) out but will be completely recyclable. Actually the bag is made with a material made from sunflower oil. The problem right now is the “gas escape” valve that we put on all of our packages so that we can package the coffee immediately after roasting. [See mentioned valve at the top of the bag in the picture above...] Without the valve, the bag would blow up like a balloon as the gasses trapped in the freshly roasted coffee escape. It seems that we cannot get the valves to adhere to the recyclable bags……yet.
We are working very hard to solve that problem and, they tell me, are reasonably assured of a solution. Please bear with us until we can solve this sticky problem.
- Jon Rogers, President Rogers Family Company
Thanks Jon!!!
What do you get when you 1) take nearly 900 hectares of Central American coffee growing lands, 2) plant native trees in and amongst the coffee trees, and 3) leave a third of those lands in their native rainforest state? You get 13,244 tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere!
And that's just what we've done. In fact, after having an auditing company calculate our company's carbon footprint last year (it came to 7497 tons of carbon emitted), we found that the approximately 900 hectares of coffee farms that we own in Central America help us to sequester more carbon than we emit. In fact, we figure we're a carbon negative company to the tune of about 5,747 tons a year! So if you've been doing more local shopping to avoid carbon emissions, you can feel good knowing your Rogers coffee is actually improving carbon conditions in the atmosphere.
It's just one more good reason to buy & enjoy delicious Rogers gourmet coffees or teas!
