Siblings Britt, left, and Jens Peterson smell freshly roasted
coffee at their family’s coffee roasting operation in Hailey.

Express photo by Willy Cook

 “It was a personal hobby of my husband and me,” she said. “Having the chance to make something I love so deeply my business, was like, ‘Duh, aren’t you going to do this? Of course you’re going to do this!’”
    Roquet has a bustling online coffee business supplementing her local shop in northern Ketchum. She offers a handful of regular roasts along with three limited-edition blends. With business savvy and extreme attention to detail, Roquet doesn’t do anything half-heartedly. When she decided to get into the coffee business, she took classes in roasting and coffee-making. She offers some beansthat are bought and prepared according to U.S. Department of Agriculture organic and fair-trade standards. All of her beans are in the top 3 percent of specialty-grade specifications.
    “That means it’s free of defects and things that taste bad, and that it also brings something really dynamic and interesting to the cup,” Roquet said. “So the Harrar might have a really crazy cool taste of blueberry, the Brazilian might show a really nutty flavor. It’s that they’re free of yuck and actually quite special of taste as well.”
    In the south valley, the Peterson family has made coffee roasting a multi-generational business. Kurt Peterson began roasting K&K Mountain Roast out of his Hailey garage decades ago. These days, Peterson’s operation has branched out into an industrial space in Woodside to include Grace Organics. Britt’s husband, Corey, was originally a roaster for K&K, and their 10-year-old son, Shayde, will begin learning roasting techniques this summer, she said.
    Britt doesn’t use “USDA Organic” labeling on her Grace Organic coffees, but she does use coffees that are certified as organically grown from the coffee broker. Since organic beans are more costly, the types and availability play a big role in determining which varieties she orders.
    Son, brother and roaster Jens is starting his own, unique coffee-roasting brand called Maps, which he hopes to open as a shared retail/wholesale business in Seattle. He said Grace coffees have a lighter roast than does K&K, and Maps will use a less-processed coffee bean with a lighter, fruitier flavor. He already has one wholesale customer, a donut shop in Boise.

From green bean to cup of Joe
    The Woodside facility where the Peterson family roasts their beans has the feel of an artist studio-cum-coffee plant. Bright artwork and a booming music system create a youthful space, but the nose notices its intoxicating coffee aroma. The family has roots in Seattle, arguably the coffee capital of America. In anticipation for the interview, Jens set up a series of cups filled with coffee beans showing the physical effects of the roasting process. They start small and green, losing moisture and growing in size throughout the roasting.
    “You weigh out 15 pounds of green beans, and by the time it came out, you’d have maybe 12 pounds,” he said.
    Different beans roast for different amounts of time. Columbians are harder beans, Peterson said, and Peruvians softer. Roasters listen for the “first crack”—the sound that signifies water leaving and sugar caramelizing in the bean. For darker roasts, they’ll wait for the second crack. However, lots of roasters choose to end roasting soon after the first crack. Jens continually spoons out beans to smell them during the roasting process, but Kurt says some people go by temperature alone.
    “[Roasting time] depends on how much heat you’re dumping into the coffee, how dense the coffee bean is and also the moisture content of the coffee,” Jens explained.
    Once the coffee beans are roasted and packaged to the roaster’s specifications, there’s a time window in which it should be consumed.     
    “When coffee ages, it loses all its beautiful, dynamic aromas and then the oils go rancid,” Roquet said.
    She recommends that customers grind and brew beans within two weeks of buying them. And the time from grinding to brewing?
    “Five minutes,” she said with a laugh.
    Coffee drinkers who buy ground coffee in stores are sacrificing flavor for convenience, Roquet said, but added that it’s really a “to-each-their-own” approach.
    “If you were like, ‘Gosh, I wish my coffee was more flavorful and more dynamic,’ then grinding is No. 1,” she said.
    Roquet recommends a burr grinder, which “crushes the beans into even, consistent particles.” Less expensive blade grinders slice the beans into “boulders and dust,” she said—leading to inconsistencies.
    For her wholesale customers (several local coffee shops and restaurants, as well as businesses across the country), Roquet requires that baristas undergo coffee-making training with her prior to serving her coffees. From start to finish, she wants to ensure quality in her product.  
    “A barista can’t make good coffee out of bad coffee,” she said. “And they can wreck great coffee.”

Buying local
    Jens is involved with his family’s coffee from the roasting process all the way to shelving it at Atkinsons’ Market. Part of the reason he’d like to branch off into a new market, with a retail component, is to have more control over how his coffee is prepared, like Roquet does.
    Taking pride in their product doesn’t end when the beans are in the bag—the Peterson family and Liz Roquet both care about their coffee from bean to brew.
    Valley shoppers who fill their carts with locally roasted coffee beans are not only helping a homegrown business, but ensuring that their coffee is as fresh as possible.
    Britt Peterson said keeping money in the valley makes everyone richer in the long run. She said there’s still a pretty strong presence of national coffee brands in the local marketplace—and she’d rather deal with more local competition than vie against outsourced franchise products.
    “We have a unique situation here with many more roasters per capita than most places and even in this scenario, national brands still have a significant impact,” she said. “I’d be in favor of a few more local roasters if they primarily captured the national-brand market share.”
    There’s accountability in roasting for your friends and neighbors. Complaining to a national coffee company headquarters is impersonal, while an e-mail comment to Britt or Liz would be promptly read and absorbed.
    Roquet believes in buying locally, but said her commitment to her customers is top-quality, delicious coffee—she doesn’t want residents to buy her product simply because she’s a local businesswoman.
    From Kirk’s garage-roasting operation, to his family’s eventually branching out with coffee businesses of their own, the Peterson family believes in quality, too.  

    That’s reason for all of us to raise a mug.

-Amy Busek