We’re thrilled to announce the first batch of Roast Masters™ contenders who will be competing at The New York Coffee Festival. Before they take the stage in October, get to know the roasters below.
ABOUT THE CONTENDERS
BLACK OAK COFFEE ROASTERS
REPRESENTING: California, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Steve Cuevas
Black Oak is an award winning roastery, located in Ukiah California, two hours north of San Francisco. We use a 1950s Probat UG15 for production. Our roasting style is best described as the meeting of feel, skill, and science. We also like to put a heavy emphasis on the cupping table, this is where the fine tuning happens.
BOLT COFFEE
REPRESENTING: Rhode Island, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Justin Enis and Michael Dantowitz
After more than four years years as a multiroaster, Bolt Coffee has now been in the roasting game for two years. Bolt Coffee aims to highlight specialty coffees inherent complexities and sweetness. They aim to find every coffee’s sweet spot and pride ourselves on approachable cups of light roasted coffee.
BONLIFE COFFEE
REPRESENTING: Tennessee, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Cord Rawls, Kade Broersma, Jeremy Moore
Sustainability and quality focused specialty roaster, always looking to improve lives and taste while having more fun than errbody. (Yes, that’s how we spell it.)
BROOKLYN ROASTING COMPANY
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Sylwia Padiasek
The Brooklyn Roasting Company sources and serves superb and sustainable coffees from the world’s most renowned growing regions. They celebrate the strong local character of Brooklyn and its rich coffee-roasting heritage. We love looking at coffees through colors. Colors of coffee. We roast each coffee differently to make sure we get the best out of each cup.
BYGOOD COFFEE
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Darrell Garner
ByGood Coffee roast coffee on a Buckeye coffee roaster BC-5 double wall stainless steel drum. Their roasting technique is rather old school where we use hand data lot entry to roast coffee. Our goal is very simple, to roast specialty coffee in small batches to consistently ensure the freshest roast, so our customers will enjoy every cup.
CAFÉ INTEGRAL
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Chris Bugnacki, Daniel Powers, César Vega
Café Integral is an importer and roaster focusing on their producers — they approach their coffees with a deep knowledge of their origin and aim to roast them in a way that their best expression is achieved.
COFFEE EXPRESS ROASTING COMPANY
REPRESENTING: Michigan, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Tom Isaia and Jordan Pruett
Coffee Express roasts wholesale and serves a variety of coffeehouses in Michigan. They have four machines of varying batch sizes, allowing them to roast many origins according to how much they need on any given day. Their two production roast masters operate each batch manually, letting experience dictate.
COGNOSCENTI COFFEE
REPRESENTING: California, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Yeekai Lim and Malvina Segura
Cogcoffee Roastery started about five years ago in the backyard and opened a roastery in DTLA about three years ago. They roast on a Probat UG15 as well as a Proaster 1.5kg and try to roast with maximum sweetness and tend towards sourcing coffees with high acidity and fruit.
EAST ONE COFFEE ROASTERS
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Selina Ullrich and Emily Wendorff
East One is a small roastery focused on sourcing and roasting resonant, dimensional, full spectrum coffees. Through roasting, we endeavor to highlight the truly special and individual nature of each coffee we source, developing the coffee only so much as is necessary to bring out the sweetness and bright light inherent in finely produced coffee.
ELIXR COFFEE
REPRESENTING: Pennsylvania, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Evan Inatome and Rodrigo Vargas
Elixr Coffee was established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2010. They try to find unique and special coffees, and roast them to maximize sweetness and character.
HARKEN COFFEE
REPRESENTING: British Columbia, Canada
COMPETING ROASTERS: Stacey Lynden
Harken Coffee focuses on clean, bright coffees that are full of flavor, while placing just as much emphasis on the mouth feel and overall experience of the coffees they roast. Their coffees are chosen and roasted by focusing on body, brightness, viscosity, aroma and finish. They hope to create a whole sensory experience with every coffee they serve.
INTELLIGENTSIA COFFEE
REPRESENTING: Various, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Sam Sabori
Intelligentsia Coffee has been working with some of the same producers for over 15 years and in that time they have tweaked profiles to maximize sweetness, clarity, and fruit acids.
JOE COFFEE COMPANY
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Roberta Duarte and Suphisara Panmai
Joe Coffee Company works in the shared roasting space called Pulley Collective located in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Within two and a half days, they produce around 10,000lbs/week. Because of restricted time and high volume, they roast larger batches to increase efficiency.
MAD LAB COFFEE
REPRESENTING: California, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Andrew Sinclair and Kyle VanDevender
Based in Downtown Los Angeles, Mad Lab wants to create new ways of enjoying coffee and innovative processes that enhance the beverage that has served as a catalyst for sleepless nights and for restless souls. Mad Lab is in the business of creating a better addiction.
NGUYEN COFFEE SUPPLY
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Brendan Cheong
The first U.S. importer & roaster dedicated to specialty Vietnamese coffees, Nguyen Coffee Supply imports single origin arabica and fine robusta from Da Lat, Vietnam, and roast in Brooklyn, NY. Their roasting technique is low and slow, so as to not shock the bean. Every session is so different with all of the environmental factors, they focus heavily on sensory connection to our beans’ development.
OCEANA COFFEE ROASTERS
REPRESENTING: Florida, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Scott Angelo, Amy Duell, Amy Angelo
What started as a selfish passion for great coffee has become an award winning coffee roasting business. Oceana Coffee Roasters focus is all about education and sharing with everyone, everything that is specialty coffee. They roast to highlight the unique features and flavors of each farmer’s coffee.
PARTNERS COFFEE
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Sam Klein and Cary Wong
Our story began in 2012 with an unwavering commitment to sourcing and roasting quality coffee. Our methods rely on the discovery of producers who share our values and are already producing stellar coffee. We work directly with them, on the ground, season after season, year after year, ensuring perpetual improvements in quality and a reliable supply chain that grows the operation and quality of life for everyone.
POP COFFEE WORKS
REPRESENTING: Ontario, Canada
COMPETING ROASTERS: Abe Chen and Rambert Sin
Inspired by many, Abe Chen started the roastery about two years ago in Toronto. His technique is using his senses to make decision for controlling the roast’s RoR (rate of rise) to hit the targeted temp in time and finish a roast.
RED ROOSTER COFFEE
REPRESENTING: Virginia, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Haden Polseno-Hensley and Grace McCutchan
Established in 2010 in downtown Floyd, VA (population 432), Red Rooster was created with the simple notion of roasting excellent coffee for the owner’s existing coffee house. Today, they employ 30 people while roasting some of the best coffee in the world. While they’ve won numerous awards and accolades for our coffee quality, their true passion is in making a positive social impact both at home and abroad at the coffee’s origin. Their approach to roasting is to use airflow control and heat application to develop coffee that is accessible to all customers.
ROSSO SPECIALITY COFFEE
REPRESENTING: Florida, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Karen Blankenzee
Located in Longwood Florida, Rosso Speciality Coffee’s goal is to capture natural flavors with a smooth mouth feel.
ROUND K
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Ockhyeon Byeon, Daniel Lee
Round K has been roasting coffee beans from around the globe in New York since 2015. The root of their philosophy is incorporating space, atmosphere, mood, and flavor into the making of coffee. Each coffee bean is different and so is the roasting process.
SPECTRUM COFFEES
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Joe Wieczorek and Jeremy Varner
Spectrum Coffees develops their roasts to preserve what each coffee has to offer —they can’t make the coffees any better than they already are. Complexity dies in darkness.
SWEETLEAF COFFEE ROASTERS
REPRESENTING: New York, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Rich Nieto and Nick Wagstaff
Sweetleaf Coffee Roasters believes in creating the perfect blend of art and science. The art comes through tasting coffees on the cupping table and adjusting to what they taste. The science comes through the recording of all data possible and applying of systems to replicate the coffee profiles they like best.
RED WHALE COFFEE ROASTERS
REPRESENTING: California, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Sean Boyd
Red Whale Coffee was first and foremost founded on quality and then I worked backwards from there. I literally look for and source coffees from a wide swath for not only my pallet but the pallet of almost every guest that walks through our doors. This is not easy to do. Red Whale Coffee has always been a leader and a champion for our environment and for our coffee communities. We want our guests to have an incredible experience and come back and say “Red Whale Coffee you have ruined us!” We strive for perfection and diversity in every cup, everyday.
3 BARISTAS COFFEE ROASTERS
REPRESENTING: Florida, United States
COMPETING ROASTERS: Dimitar Blangev
3 Baristas Coffee Roasters roasts small batch single origin coffees daily and 30 different coffees weekly including both popular and rare beans.