We are Invalsa Coffee's sister company and we dedicate ourselves to roasting organic and Fair Trade coffees.  We specialize in roasting Bolivian Coffee.  Because Bolivian coffee has sweet, delicate flavor nuances that get lost with over-roasting, we only use fluid-bed coffee roasters. We roast our beans lightly (even for Espresso!), unlike the big name Specialty roasters of today -Starbucks and Peet's.  Because we are New Englanders, we also want to re-vive the classical New England Roast -light to medium brown, dry surface, with its full-flavor, bold taste that is not bitter nor ashy.  The most remarkable quality of our Bolivian coffee roasts is that they have no aftertaste. 

Eleni, Susie and Nelson in front of an orange tree in Claremont, CA. Colleges & Universities are one of our target markets.

Nico, Javier & Diego. No, that is not a fluid-bed coffee roaster but it makes wonderful bread. pizza & roasts.

The drum roaster that uses convection-heat has been around since the 18th century,  while the fluid-bed roaster is a 20th century invention. It uses forced hot air to roast the beans, as opposed to a hot radiant metal drum. The stream of hot air simultaneously roasts and tumbles the beans. The  beans seethe like a fluid, hence the name, fluid-bed roaster.  The rapidly moving air allows a lower roast temperature and a faster roast, driving off fewer flavor oils.  If  you still have trouble visualizing a fluid-bed roaster, just take a look at your hot air corn popper!

An over-roasted coffee (very dark, oily surface) hides defects (ferment, mold, sourness), but provides "body" (like the difference between whole and skim milk). Acidity (what makes coffee taste like, er, coffee) is dramatically dulled with over-roasting. It is replaced by a thick, bittersweet, heavy bodied caramel taste.  Some people, especially in the Northwest, prefer very-dark-roast coffee.  Our roasted coffee is what one calls Full Flavor.  In our opinion, roasting coffee is like cooking beef.  Full Flavor is to coffee as what medium-rare is to beef.  Not all beef can be cooked medium-rare, and not all coffee can be roasted Full Flavor.  Full Flavor coffee requires the ripest, or most naturally sweet, and the highest quality coffee beans.  Bolivian coffee fits the bill perfectly!

We are coffee fanatics. Even though we drank it since we were young, it was not until a 2004, when we were looking for a business that would help the poor farmers in Bolivia, that we realized that fine coffee is like fine wine....but so much less expensive! It is indeed one of the few poor-man's affordable luxuries.  We are talking about high-quality, hand selected, artisan-roasted coffee; not the commercial, commodity product that is sold in most stores. Who ever said a little obsession over coffee was a bad thing?

Our green coffee beans come exclusively from Invalsa Coffee. Even though their green coffee has already built a outstanding reputation, we cup all coffee beans before roasting.  Everything we sell we have drank first ourselves.  Only then, are we comfortable putting our name on the products we sell.  So take the time, find a little passion to enjoy a satisfying cup of coffee and send us some feedback.  We love to talk about Full Flavor coffee!

-The folks at Cafe Valverde