So you want to know a little more about us-

Fountain City Coffee began as a coffeehouse in
Downtown Columbus Ga. (More information about the early days can be found on the
Our Coffee Shop Page.) Soon after opening we decided we would like to roast our
own coffee. So we directed all our energy to learning as much about coffee
roasting as we could. Kevin joined the Roasters Guild of America and read every
book on the subject he could find. We purchased a 15 kilo roaster and that’s
when the real fun began.

The first trick to roasting great coffee is
starting with great green coffee. Green coffee beans come in two varieties -
Arabica and Robusta. We buy only the highest quality, 100% Arabica "specialty"
grade green coffee beans directly from the most experienced importers in the
business. A coffee that is considered specialty grade has been carefully sorted
to minimize any defects. So the better the beans you start with the better
roasted beans you end up with, if you roast it correctly. That’s where roast
profiling comes in.

Roast profiling is basically like creating a
roast recipe. The process goes like this- we roast the beans, taste the results,
adjust our roast parameters, roast, taste the results, etc. until we reach the
optimum profile for each bean.  The profile is a record of temperature over
time, what temperature do you want the beans to be at a certain time and what
temperature/time do you want to stop roasting the beans. This a little
simplified but enough to get the gist of it. The crucial thing is to record
exactly all the parameters so that when you find that perfect profile you can
repeat it. Luckily technology can help in this regard. When we are developing
our profiles our roaster’s computer system can record all the parameters so that
repeating a perfect roast profile is no problem.

At Fountain City, we roast with the great
attention paid to quality control. We roast in small batches, which provides a
great deal of control. Coffee is a delicate product best brewed within one month
of roasting. For this reason we roast as the orders come in. This ensures that
you when you’re ready to brew, it’s the freshest most delicious coffee possible.

Our flavored coffees are a little different than
most on the market. We believe that an added flavor should compliment the flavor
of a coffee not overpower it. Just as you wouldn’t (hopefully) take a perfectly
grilled filet mignon and drowned it in steak sauce, we feel that if we over
power the coffee with flavor syrup it might as well be flavored low quality
Robusta and that is not we are about. We think that you will enjoy having a
great coffee taste mixed with your favorite flavor.

We take great joy and pride in taking raw green
beans and turning them into a roasted coffee ready to become the delicious cup
of coffee that helps you start your day, keeps you going through the afternoon
or helps finish a great meal in the evening. We hope you let us become a part of
your day.

If you have any questions about our roasting
procedures or coffee in general, please contact Roastmaster Kevin Welch at kevin@fountaincitycoffee.com.