Roasting the beans with Jim's Organic Coffee
Jun 15, 2011
Jim’s Organic owner James Cannell takes a taste test of some recently roasted blends. BY JAIME REBHAN
The beans arrive in these big bags. BY JAIME REBHAN
Coffee beans are green when they arrive from the countries in which they’re grown. The way the beans are blended and roasted is how Jim’s Organic makes the more than 30 varieties of coffee it sells. BY JAIME REBHAN
Gregg Trainer operates a roaster. Beans are roasted at roughly 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes depending on which blend roasters are working on. BY JAIME REBHAN
A view of the beans inside the roaster. BY JAIME REBHAN
After the beans are roasted, they’re put into a destoner to remove pebbles, wood, or other undesirable objects that may have gotten mixed in during harvesting. BY JAIME REBHAN
Jerson Gonzalez adds flavoring. After roasting and destoning, all-natural flavoring is added to beans for Jim’s Organic flavored blends. BY JAIME REBHAN
After roasting and any flavoring is added, the beans are bagged and shipped. Mmm... coffee. BY JAIME REBHAN
With names like Sweet Love, Wonderbrew, and Blend X (AKA Witches Brew), you may wonder just where Jim's Organic Coffee comes from. The beans are grown in faraway places like Colombia and Tanzania, but they're roasted and shipped right here in Wareham.
For the past 17 years Jim's Organic Coffee has, rather quietly, been pumping out bags of coffee from the industrial park off of Patterson Brook Road in West Wareham.
"We spend a lot of time putting out a great product," said Jim's Organic owner and Mattapoisett resident James Cannell. "We're not Starbucks, but we don't want to be!"
Cannell got his start in coffee in the 1980s while working as a coffee broker on Wall Street. After learning a lot about the industry and noticing a lack of organic roasters, he left his job in 1992 and founded his own roasting company.
"It was a desire to be more environmentally friendly within the coffee business," Cannell said. His company eventually merged with a larger one, and after working with the larger company for a short time, Cannell left and founded his second company, Jim's Organic.
Today Jim's Organic, which consists of roughly a dozen employees, offers more than 30 different kinds of coffee and roasts more than 45,000 pounds per month.
In addition to being organic and kosher, the coffee is fairly traded, meaning the company verifies that farmers are paid a fair price in exchange for high-quality organic beans and that farm workers are treated and paid fairly.
What makes Jim's Organic unique is the fact that organic coffee is all the company focuses on.
"We roast really good organic coffee," said Coffee Specialist Mary Levenson. "Not just organic coffee."
Take a look inside the Jim's Organic West Wareham roasting plant by clicking through the gallery in the left sidebar and viewing the video below!
