The Coffee Roasting Process | Photography

At the beginning of February I had the opportunity to visit a coffee roasting factory, and the barista in me was excited to see the process she's heard so much about during her time working in a cafe. The raw coffee beans arrive in big, colorful bags from all over the world. After the maintenance of the machines in the beginning of the day (and a cup of coffee), the staff is ready for the first batch. Each bag is hand-picked and manually put into the round oven that spins it while it is being roasted. When you start hearing the coffee pop and crack, you open the little handle and check if it's ready. At this point the smell is divine. Then it spins outside the big oven for about ten minutes so it can cool off properly. From there it is transported through the factory in pipes that go all around the ceiling, and it is sorted to the correct compartment. Depending on the blend that has been ordered, the right proportions of different sorts of coffee are being put into the computer, and the coffee starts pouring while mixing. The blend is packaged by another person into the assigned bags, and they are ready to go. It was very interesting to see with my own eyes this process that is surely going extinct with the modernization that time brings.