hints of burnt sugars with a slight malty floral background

escape the confines of Roast House, a small Spokane Coffee

Roasting company. In the midst of cooking up small batches of

beans, coffee roaster Aaron Rogers diligently scoops up

green coffee beans from burlap bags and dumps them into a

roasting convection oven one-bucket load at a time. By

offering ONLY 100 percent organic coffees that are fairly

traded and sustainably grown, Roast house has created a niche

for itself in the Spokane coffee market that only they populate,

coffees that owner Deborah Di Bernardo characterizes as

ethical sustainable and delicious!

(Deborah Di Bernardo) Besides dealing in

fairly traded sustainably grown coffees,

coffee, soy, cotton, sugars are a major cause of Third World

deforestation and coffee being the heaviest traded commodity of

those contributes significantly to that so one of the tenants of

the business is, can we share that model and how many people

can we share it with, so using the company as a sustainable

model for food production and using that, that's one of the

goals. We're just delighted that recently we have been asked to

speak of it and I believe part of that is because of the good

food awards.

>>The annual Good Food awards held in San Francisco,

is a premiere competition for some of the best new

artisanal boutique products nation wide. Ten different

categories of goods compete for a best

of award in their respective groups.

(Di Bernardo) We entered it with no thought to

actually winning we just hoped to be critiqued and then use

that critique to kick up our game. What the parameters are

for the award is the product has to be transparent, you have to

be able to clearly define where it came from, who produced it,

it has to be fairly traded and it has to be grown sustainably.

And since all of our products on the floor are sustainable and

fairly traded it was fairly easy for us to compete we just one

day after roasting scooped some coffee out of the bin and sent

it and won it very much to our surprise.

(Aaron Jordan) I was shocked

- there were several nominees and then finalists I

respect every single one of them I've had most of the coffees I

was just kind of honored to be up there next to them so if

anything it was kind of a humbling experience for me it

was really exciting it was cool that something that we are doing

on a small scale in a small town Spokane was being recognized by

guys that I think are changing the world of coffee, guys that I

respect and love what they do and so to be up on a stage with

them so to speak was pretty cool. The coffee that we

submitted - from Guatemala - Batzchocola, When you buy that

coffee in the grocery store that's the exact same coffee

that was entered into the competition so it's cool to get

that pat on the back I guess.

>>That pat on the back was a direct result of

Deborah and Roast House deciding to bring on

a young aspiring 19-year-old coffee roaster, with a penchant

for roasting very small batches for his friends at school. Aaron

Rogers, now 21 years of age, began apprenticing with Dave

Reier, Roast Houses' original coffee roaster., and after

spending 9 months under his tutelage, Deborah decided to

give Aaron the reins after Reier left the business.

(Di Bernardo) Oh my goodness he's one of

those young hipster boys that wants to roast everything

super light he was to bring out the citrus

notes loves African coffees that are very fruity very citrusy

very lightly roasted I think he's come to understand that 80%

of our customers like those medium dark coffees so the

relationship is sweet enough that he's open he's receptive we

butt heads at times but we've also allowed him to create a

whole line of coffees that he feels the younger people will

really enjoy and were calling that our 20%.

(Jordan) I tend to gravitate

towards the lighter spectrum of roasting because I

find that there's a lot more transparency in the flavors

darker roasts you can taste more of the roaster, you can taste

more of the roasting process the smoke the kind of burnt sugars

it's almost borderline bitter but in a positive way it's my

job to produce something that people enjoy darker roasts are

what people enjoy we're always striving to create something

that's extraordinary.

>>Extraordinary organic fair trade sustainably grown

coffees start with extraordinary beans and Roast House

has committed their business model to support the farmers

and communities that produce these products.

(Di Bernardo) The coffee we buy that one percent is less than

1% is all that's left of natural coffee production so everything

else is grown in the clear-cut environment heavy chemicals. So

I think more importantly to me is that coffee has to be grown

sustainably it has to be grown without chemicals it can't be

mucking up the water systems in these countries, it has to be

something that can go on and can be continued for generations to

come we need to be more sustainable in everything we do

especially when it comes to food production.