Roasterie Tour

It's time to be a tourist again.  But this time in my own city.  Kansas City has a lot to offer.  It's finally time to get out of the house and explore the city that I call home.

The first adventure was to Southwest Boulevard to The Roasterie.  The Roasterie is a coffee roaster here in KC.  Instead of the classic barrel roasters, think barrel driers, they use air and heat.  Kind of like an air popcorn popper.   They are one of the few Air Roasters from around the country and probably the only one in KC.  Kinda cool.

The tour started with a short video about the history of the Roasterie, where they get their beans from and how their process works.  From there it was into the cupping room.  This is where the tasters check out the sample beans from the growers to decide to buy and check the current day's batches.  Our tour guide showed us how the tasters slurp the drinks to hit as many taste buds on their tongue.  A little difficult with hot coffee.

 Our tour continued in the warehouse/roasting space.  The warehouse holds the beans that are ready to be roasted.  Most of their stock is not held on site but in a humidity controlled warehouse in California.  I love those coffee bags.  I have one from Hawaii from two years ago that I still need to make something out of. 

The next stop was at the roasters themselves.  You can't see to much outside of a couple beans popping towards the top.  They were only running one roaster but from what I can remember they have 4 different size roasters.  And I started on of them.  How exciting!

One more stop around the floor to the bagging area.  They vacuum pack each bag as to reduce the oxygen level to practically nothing.  And I learned something.  The vent on the coffee bags are to let the gasses that come off after the bagging to be released.  Good to know.  Finally they stamp their coffee as bagged/roasted on instead of a use by.  

 At the end of the tour you return to the Coffee Shop.  They should give you a sample like they do a Boulevard.  Maybe more people would come, only 5 people on my tour where Boulevard tours are often full.  Anyways when we were waiting for our drinks I checked in.   It prints out a little boarding pass.  A great continuance of the retro plane theme

I went back today to The Roasterie Cafe in Leawood.  The White Chocolate Macadamia Nut latte was so delicious.  Why go to Starbucks when you can go to a local company with much better coffee!