It’s 3:30 A.M. in British Columbia’s capital Victoria. Nelson Teskey arrives at Oughtred Coffee & Tea to prepare for a full day of roasting. Nelson is a Q-grader, coffee roaster, SCA instructor and green coffee sourcer at Oughtred. ‘Yes, I do quite a lot, but to not overcomplicate things, I usually tell people that I’m the Director of Coffee at Oughtred’, Nelson explains.
Oughtred Coffee & Tea is the proud winner of Roast magazine’s 2018 Roaster of the Year award. The family-owned company, currently lead by two brothers, was found in 1973 and has made a lot of effort since to transform their facility into one of the first carbon neutral roasteries. The usage of two Loring-roasters, is an example of their thoroughness to reduce environmental impact.
‘With our submission for the Roaster of the Year award, we wanted to show what coffee can be as a whole.’, Nelson continues. ‘You can get your hands on countless coffee profiles in the world, and with our submission for the award, we wanted to showcase coffees diversity. We submitted a Sumatran Boru Batak (La Minita), Burundi Yandaro (32 Cup), and the Ethiopian Gora Kone (Trabocca).’
‘As Oughtred, we prefer to work with people that are deeply connected to a certain origin. We usually have one specific supplier for every origin that we offer. About a year ago, I reached out to Sean Capitrant, trader at Trabocca. He sent me a few Ethiopian samples. Every single one of them clearly outranked other incoming Ethiopian samples.’
‘Among the samples, we cupped the Gora Kone. And believe me, I cup 50 to 60 Ethiopian coffees a year, and the Gora Kone, is by far, the best Ethiopian profile that I cupped in 2017. Just phenomenal. That’s why we gave it 88,5 points. Currently, we roast the Gora Kone as filter, single espresso, and even use it in our espresso blend, as well.’
Nelson was generous enough to share his roasting profile, of the winning Gora Kone, with us. Download here.