Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Pounds of beans at home

Sharing beans and trading notes with the San Diego Home Roasters Club.

A sack of green coffee beans at Café Virtuoso
A sack of green coffee beans at Café Virtuoso
Place

Cafe Virtuoso

1616 National Avenue, San Diego

Each month a small group of coffee roasters meets up at Café Virtuoso, the organic roasting shop in Barrio Logan, to share beans and trade notes. Most are not coffee professionals, though some have been cooking for decades. The San Diego Home Roasters Club mainly consists of hobbyists who’ve embrace a more hands-on approach to expressing their fondness for coffee.

I dropped in on their November meeting to meet some of the group and to see what goes on when long-term coffee buffs get together. It was free of the hipster trappings often associated with artisan coffee. Many of the members skew older, and some have been doing this longer than the term third wave has existed.

Sponsored
Sponsored

That said, they seem keen on working with different roasting profiles and trying out new equipment. One member I spoke to, named Lee, said he’d collected four roasters at home, partly just to gauge the different results they yield.

Another, Fulton, says he got into roasting more than 20 years ago when he dropped by longtime local coffee purveyor Pannikin to buy roasted beans. He said the barista mentioned he could buy green beans 20 percent cheaper, adding with a laugh, “He didn’t tell me you lose 20 percent of the weight when you roast them.”

Another roaster, Andy, described his early days, when he’d acquire beans through mail order. Today, most of these guys get beans through online shops such as Sweet Maria’s and Bodhi Leaf, which also runs a locally accessible storefront outside Anaheim. Andy belongs to the Green Coffee Buying Club, an internet group that pools its resources to split large batches of beans tough to come by for individuals. “I have pounds of beans at home,” he said, “I call it my library.”

This Sunday, we sampled coffee from a more unlikely source, as longtime member Fred brought in freshly harvested beans from a plant he’s been growing at home in East County. The San Diego climate’s not at all ideal for growing coffee, so he must take great care to keep it thriving. He says a plant takes 4 or 5 years to bear fruit, with 8 or 9 months between harvests.

During a meeting a couple months ago the group sampled the coffee cherries produced by Fred’s plant, describing the taste as similar to a bell pepper sweetened by Stevia. At a meeting prior to that, each member brought in a roast he cooked at home from the same batch of green beans, to compare and contrast the results.

San Diego Home Roasters Club has been meeting more than ten years, floating from location to location. It found a more regular home the past few years when Virtuoso’s head of business development, Rigo Hernandez, got involved. A 20-year coffee veteran, Hernandez sees the roasting club as fitting in to Virtuoso’s mission. The club meets the second Sunday of most months, usually around 2:00 or 2:30 p.m.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Tijuana sewage infects air in South Bay

By September, Imperial Beach’s beach closure broke 1000 consecutive days
A sack of green coffee beans at Café Virtuoso
A sack of green coffee beans at Café Virtuoso
Place

Cafe Virtuoso

1616 National Avenue, San Diego

Each month a small group of coffee roasters meets up at Café Virtuoso, the organic roasting shop in Barrio Logan, to share beans and trade notes. Most are not coffee professionals, though some have been cooking for decades. The San Diego Home Roasters Club mainly consists of hobbyists who’ve embrace a more hands-on approach to expressing their fondness for coffee.

I dropped in on their November meeting to meet some of the group and to see what goes on when long-term coffee buffs get together. It was free of the hipster trappings often associated with artisan coffee. Many of the members skew older, and some have been doing this longer than the term third wave has existed.

Sponsored
Sponsored

That said, they seem keen on working with different roasting profiles and trying out new equipment. One member I spoke to, named Lee, said he’d collected four roasters at home, partly just to gauge the different results they yield.

Another, Fulton, says he got into roasting more than 20 years ago when he dropped by longtime local coffee purveyor Pannikin to buy roasted beans. He said the barista mentioned he could buy green beans 20 percent cheaper, adding with a laugh, “He didn’t tell me you lose 20 percent of the weight when you roast them.”

Another roaster, Andy, described his early days, when he’d acquire beans through mail order. Today, most of these guys get beans through online shops such as Sweet Maria’s and Bodhi Leaf, which also runs a locally accessible storefront outside Anaheim. Andy belongs to the Green Coffee Buying Club, an internet group that pools its resources to split large batches of beans tough to come by for individuals. “I have pounds of beans at home,” he said, “I call it my library.”

This Sunday, we sampled coffee from a more unlikely source, as longtime member Fred brought in freshly harvested beans from a plant he’s been growing at home in East County. The San Diego climate’s not at all ideal for growing coffee, so he must take great care to keep it thriving. He says a plant takes 4 or 5 years to bear fruit, with 8 or 9 months between harvests.

During a meeting a couple months ago the group sampled the coffee cherries produced by Fred’s plant, describing the taste as similar to a bell pepper sweetened by Stevia. At a meeting prior to that, each member brought in a roast he cooked at home from the same batch of green beans, to compare and contrast the results.

San Diego Home Roasters Club has been meeting more than ten years, floating from location to location. It found a more regular home the past few years when Virtuoso’s head of business development, Rigo Hernandez, got involved. A 20-year coffee veteran, Hernandez sees the roasting club as fitting in to Virtuoso’s mission. The club meets the second Sunday of most months, usually around 2:00 or 2:30 p.m.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Todd Gloria gets cash from McDonald's franchise owners

Phil's BBQ owner for Larry Turner
Next Article

Jazz guitarist Alex Ciavarelli pays tribute to pianist Oscar Peterson

“I had to extract the elements that spoke to me and realize them on my instrument”
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader