Roasting

At Gold Star we take great pride in the quality of our "Select Gourmet" Coffee line.  Before we purchase any coffee for roasting, we go to great lengths to ensure that our high level of quality is met to both our own and customers' satisfaction.

While roasting coffee in a large commercial company is simply a science, we use both art and science to achieve the ultimate roast.

  • Once the coffee beans are delivered to the Gold Star Coffee Roasting Plant, the sacks are quickly offloaded.
  • The Roasting Plant is completely temperature controlled in order to preserve the coffee freshness.
  • The sacks are quickly opened and checked and a small sample of the coffee is sampled to confirm coffee quality.
  • The roaster is pre-heated to around 400 F by gas flames.  Coffee beans are roasted at specific temperatures and duration since all our coffees are roasted to fulfill special orders.  Small batches are roasted for the specialty coffees while larger batches are roasted for the more traditional coffees.  Customized roasting batches ensure that the coffee is always fresh when sold.
  • Roastmasters use both smell, sight and colour (roasting shades) to determine when the type of roast desired has been achieved.  Just before the beans reach their optimum colour, they are released into a large metal pan called a cooling tray. Large fans air-cool the coffee to room temperature and during this time coffee will darken one final shade.

Cupping

  • Every coffee sample is roasting is small controlled batches and then we screen the coffee as follows
    Coffee sample are roasted in micro batches then prepared for cupping on a coffee table.  Coffees will be cupped and rated on their quality.
  • The first step after the preparation of the samples is to break the crust (the upper layer of the sample) and smell the coffee to make sure the proper aroma is present.
  • The next step is to sip the coffee sample and rate them on their flavour characteristics.  Up to 8 samples from a single origin may be cupped to compare their quality head to head and rated

The final step: Constantine gets a second opinion from Naushad Panju.  Naushad has been recognized by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and the Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica (SCAC) as one of the World's Best coffee cuppers.  He is also the 1996 cupping champion recognized by the Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica.

Brewing Tips

  • We recommend that our coffee is ground fine since it is so fresh for the best flavor extraction. Never grind it to a powder. Fresh high quality coffee will be very clean tasting with no bitterness or aftertaste. Do not confuse this with the coffee being weak; it's just very clean to the pallet. Add a little more coffee to the brew if your pallet requires
    .
    We recommend using a paper filter rather than reusing a permanent metal filter due to trace oils that may contaminate the flavor of the coffee.
  • Always use good quality water for this is the most important. Brewed coffee is approximately 98.5% water and 1.5% soluble solids. Use fresh water as free of impurities and alkalines as possible.