Backporch Coffee Roasters: Beans Touched With Loveliness
As is common knowledge, many of the best things in life begin in small, cramped cafes, and so it began for Backporch Coffee Roasters, “a small coffee roasting company in the heart of the west side of Bend, Oregon.”
Founded by Dave and Majell Beach in 2006, Backporch isn’t a huge operation, but the entire team there has put the non-proverbial blood, sweat and tears into making direct connections with coffee growers and serving the Bend community quality, fresh-roasted coffee–something which they’re not alone in doing, says Backporch’s Tony Querio, who we spoke with over the phone recently.
“I believe there are a total of six roasters here in Bend, one with two labels,” says Querio. “We get a lot of people from Seattle, Portland and San Francisco vacationing here, so they have a level of expectation we work hard to meet.
“Bend is also, I believe, one of the cities with the highest number of breweries per capita,” he continues. “It’s a beverage-focused community with lots of appreciation for the palate.”
Coffee fits right into Bend, an outdoor sport-driven community where cycling reigns large among local sports. Backporch gets in on the action by supporting two local cycling teams and serving coffee at the races in town.
Back To Cramped Cafes
As mentioned above, Backporch was founded six years ago (this October, actually). A year-and-a-half ago, they opened up a second location, a cafe with shorter hours and a smaller staff; it’s predominantly a production facility. “You walk past the roaster to go to the bathroom,” says Querio. “The open floor plan allows us to feature the roaster.”
Then, in September, 2011, Backporch moved the original location across the street, expanding into what now could be called their predominant cafe. Like Querio said, the roasterie-bearing location is more production-focused and shares speace with both a winery and brewery–known as a plus-plus. “There’s definitely a cool artisan thing going on in that building,” says Querio.
Expansion Comes & Into The Wormhole
We’re proud to say that we are Backporch’s first guest account and Querio had some kind words to say about why they approached us about working together: “We pursued it because you see so much battling within the coffee world, trash talking, competition and stuff,” says Querio. “We see the coffee industry going forward only if people combine resources, help each other.
“The Wormhole, when they have a guest roaster, writes about them and promotes them and generally gives a lot of attention to their providers. That connected with us, the respect they have for roasters, we wanted to be part of that.” Thanks for the kind words; glad to have you on board.
Getting Involved; Staying Involved
Specialty roasters these days are obviously interested in the entire life of the beans they’ll eventually craft into coffee, but it’s hard to do that and make it count for more moderately-sized roasters, but Backporch has proven that it can be done.
“For us, we have huge respect for the entire supply chain that ends in roasting,” says Querio. “The way we look at coffee is that it is in its purest form perfectly ripe on the tree and everyone who touches it on the way down has the potential to best represent that perfection and ideally not ruin it.
“There’s a fine line between representing the coffee and not doing anything to it, but everybody who plays a role has intrinsic value,” he continues. “A coffee plant takes five years to produce a crop, then it’s growing season, harvesting, shipping and all those things can take so long. I put it in my roaster for 15 minutes, a barista works with it for five minutes. It’s a small role, but also very big in that it’s the final step as it goes to the customer.”
Again, Backporch proves small companies can do big things by focusing on relationships. “We’re a small roaster in the grand scheme of things, but we have amazing relationships with our producers,” says Querio, noting that part of that success hinges on the fact that even new employees go on origin trips as soon as they’re hired.
“Being there, you learn so much more and a lot of our employees switch from, ‘I’m doing coffee as something to get me through until I get another job, this is a real thing.’ After the origin trip, it’s like, ‘I’m not just selling someone a beverage, I’m selling a product from these certain producers, who I’ve met.’
“We recognize we’re a really small company still and we don’t have the resources of larger coffee roasters, but we really want to use the power that we have as best we can,” says Querio. “We buy as many coffees direct as we can and have the closest relationship possible with each coffee we roast.”
Querio roasts at Backporch, along with founder, Dave Beach. Come by The Wormhole and try their beans while you can. We’re positive you will enjoy.
Now, a cute animal photo with the product we’re hawking because we hear that’s what moves traffic on the Interwebz. Speaking of, you can purchase Backporch Coffee Roasters online; more about their roasting philosophy; and where to find Backporch Coffee Roasters HQ. Now, that cute animal photo:
