Local coffee roaster scores ‘A’ on new blend

Roaster Justin Freeman watches the beans and monitors the control panel to achieve the perfect roast. Freeman worked with Andrew Bowman, Tony's head roaster, to develop the Summit Winter Blend, which scored 90 points in December on Coffee Review, a leading review site.

He’s the morning person’s version of a beer brewer: In a large warehouse, lit unevenly by fluorescent lights, he stands next to a large round vat that looks like an antique washing machine connected to what looks like a miniature antique furnace – but none of it is antique. His job here is to make sure that the green coffee beans are roasted at the perfect temperature and then cooled quickly.

He is Justin Freeman, a coffee roaster at Tony’s Coffees and Teas who, along with head roaster Andrew Bowman, developed the Summit Winter Blend and in December scored 90 out of 100 points on Coffee Review – a leading review site for the industry – for the blend.

The Summit blend – part of Tony’s new line of seasonal blends – combines beans from El Salvador and Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia, and is roasted at Tony’s Irongate facility on Division Street, where all Tony’s coffees are roasted.

After breaking $3.5 million in sales for 2012, a high-scoring roast could help push sales past the $4 million mark for 2013, the goal that Wendy Owen, director of sales, said Tony’s hopes to reach.

“If I have any say about it, we’re gonna do it,” Owen said.

A score of 90 points doesn’t come easy either, said Rosie Germond, Tony’s distribution manager.

“Receiving a 90 is a big deal,” Germond said.

Prior to this high score, Tony’s has received scores between 89 and 93 for coffees dating back to 2009. Coffee Review scores are based on five scales: Aroma, acidity, body, flavor and aftertaste.

But Tony’s has been in the coffee roasting business since long before 2009. The company has been at it for 42 years.

Though the company started small, roasting small batches in its small Fairhaven coffeehouse in 1971, it has grown into a sizable player in the coffee business, distributing coffees up and down the West Coast and beyond, Germond said.

Last year, Tony’s roasted more than 500,000 pounds of coffee beans. With 17 full-time employees in its entire operation– including four drivers – that much work requires everyone to be flexible, Germond said.

“We all wear a lot of hats here,” she said.

Although Tony’s won the high score for a blend – and plans to release a Homestead Spring Blend soon – Germond said there is a shift in coffee tastes now that is moving away from blends and toward single-origin coffees like what Tony’s offers in its Taste of Place program.

The Taste of Place program brings coffees from small, fair trade, certified organic farms for limited roasting runs based on seasonal availability, Germond said.

Though the Taste of Place program has been active for a couple years, it has only recently picked up steam, Germond said. Last summer, the program brought coffees from two farmers in Honduras – Jose Marel Portillo and Luz Zelaya.

While all Tony’s worldly beans are now roasted at the Division Street facility, the roasting operation was previously located on Irongate Road, according to commercial real estate broker Steve Moore.

The roasting operation itself is overseen by one person standing next to an oven connected to a large round vat, known as a drum-type roaster. Bright lights illuminate the vat as freshly roasted beans are poured out of the oven and spun around with forced air to cool them quickly. The beans are roasted at temperatures varying from 460 to 520 degrees fahrenheit depending on how dark the roast is meant to be. The overseeing roaster watches the temperature and pushes a number of buttons on a control panel to keep the operation moving smoothly.

In addition to its Bellingham roasting facility, Tony’s has operations further south on the West Coast.

Tony’s operates a distribution center in the San Francisco area which services distribution to stores and coffee houses in that area.

The company recently turned its Seattle Cupping Lab – where new roasts are sampled to determine quality and flavor – into a full coffee bar open to the public and offers free tasting every Saturday at noon.

Although Tony’s sticks to its small-town roots with its products, dealing primarily in fair trade, certified organic and direct-trade coffee beans, it also sells to some major players in the retail industry, including Fred Meyer and QFC, Top Foods and Haggen, The PCC and Whole Foods stores located in the Northwest, Germond said.

Germond said that while Tony’s continues to grow and sell to a wider market, it maintains sustainable practices in its roasting and distribution facility, participating in the Working Towards Zero Waste program. Germond pointed out that the entire roasting facility has only one standard-size garbage can and recycles or reuses all the rest of its waste.

Beyond reducing its own waste, the company donates to local organizations helping the environment, like the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association.

These practices keep Tony’s connected to its roots, Germond said.

Germond said she expects to see these practices continue in the next few years.

“I feel like we’re going to continue to have that small company feel,” Germond said. “Maybe the future for us is having our own flagship stores, like the Tony’s coffee house. A coffee house that’s our house.”