MAY/JUNE 2015
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tent product. If a particular roast doesn’t
meet their standards, it doesn’t go to mar-
ket.
In the early days, creating the perfect roast
worthy of the 23 Degrees Roastery label
took a lot of trial and error. “We drank quite
a bit of coffee,”Yu said, laughing. “Creating
a great coffee and creating a great roast is
not key here; the key is repeating it.”
ROASTING BEANS IS A SCIENCE
The roasting process is a highly scientific
one, requiring humidity-monitoring sen-
sors throughout the warehouse, air flow
control, and hand sorting to ensure that
no foreign debris mingles with the beans.
And then there’s the roast-to-order time-
line, which guarantees that the beans go
from green to roasted in one week.
“We like to think that our roasting process
is slightly different. We pride ourselves on
never over-roasting or burning the bean,”
Yu explained. “We do have a slower roast
process where we draw the flavours out.
I believe that every roaster is going to be
slightly different but it’s creating blends
and profiles that other people will never be
able to do.”
Though the business is still young, Yu is
keenly aware of the importance of con-
trolled expansion. After their first year,
they doubled the size of their location
and jumped up from a five- to 30-kilogram
roaster. They’ve slowly spread their distri-
bution from Ontario to parts of Quebec
and Manitoba, and also offer their prod-
ucts online. The next move could see 23
Degrees Roastery coffee on the shelves in
the Vancouver area.
“It’s 24/7 work. We sacrifice everything
for it. Anything that we make from this
company we put right back into it,”Yu said.
“We’re very heavy into demos. We’re out
every weekend demoing the product, go-
ing into the stores and giving away free
coffee. We do it all ourselves.”
