Journey in Coffee

As a youngster in the streets of Zeeland with quaint little coffee shops dotting the street, I found myself always returning to the smell and aroma of a freshly brewed coffee.
The bicycle couldn’t carry any, and I was too young to add caffeine to my existence at the time. But craved the smell. It was only later when I fell head over heels in love with my first love Coffee. 
Beautiful, rich, fresh, deep with character and taste, a cup of homemade Dutch coffee. I knew I needed to know more. I knew that in the core of me something this pure, simple and sophisticated was a taste I would crave forever. In our home we had a filter pot with its filter papers, a bubbling pot of coffee that served the whole family.
Life advanced so fast, time ran away with me, the dream of becoming a coffee specialist were soon forgotten. I grew up, had the dog, the chickens ,the kids, the white picket fence, the budgie the rabbit and the fancy car, the fastest bike, it was perfect.
One important thing I never had though, a grinder, the single most important piece of equipment to make myself (with the help of amazing beans) my ultimate drink, coffee!
I would scoot around on my Kawasaki ZX1400 endlessly through the streets of Johannesburg to find ‘Ground’ coffee, good ground coffee. Missing the mark of exactly what I needed. Just enough punch… less acidity, a great balanced pure coffee that could satisfy the need.
As with everything in life the more you get to understand the purpose and experience of it, the more selective you become.
I was fortunate that some of the Masters of coffee that I met at selective coffee roasteries were humble and interested enough to guide and teach me more about my extraction at home and about beans.
I learned about the real way of making coffee in a Moka pot, letting a steady stream flow up and through the spout, submerging the coffee grounds and trickle its way into the cup, not the explosion that I eagerly awaited every morning. Up until here we had the Moka pot 4 cup bubbling away on stove top,  trying out all the different blends and origins in ground 250gr bags, purchased in various places in Johannesburg. 
Somehow I missed the information that you will gain more flavour and control from the extraction of your beans, should you purchase them freshly roasted and grind them on demand. My girlfriend (now wife, who already had been in love with coffee for long) bought me my first grinder and introduced me to the burrs concept. Burrs is just the name for the way that the internal grinding element is made and how it operates resulting in a fine even grind. I could now buy a bigger selection of coffee on a single day, have them fresh and sealed as beans, grind them in different particle sizes and experience something completely new from the same beans I have bought so many times before.
This got me thinking... If coarseness and on demand grinding could change the way I had my morning cup, imagine the possibilities when I introduce different extraction methods to the same beans and fineness ? 
Needless to say, we started spending all our free time and money on extraction, on grinding, on beans, on driving to every known coffee roaster for a new experience.
The more we learned, the more we wanted to know. Wow! We fell so hard in love with coffee that my wife and I moved house to the Eastern Cape. We gave up our security and stepped in faith into the unknown and the world of coffee. With one purpose...to roast our own, to roast and blend and extract and experience coffee with 100% dedication the way it was intended.
We sold the ZX1400 bike for a coffee roaster and imported him from Turkey and named him “RED ROOSTER”. We sold our cars, purchased equipment and opened for business from an 1820 building off the coast of Port Alfred which is now known as Earthen Coffee Roastery.
Earthen Coffee Roastery has gone the extra mile in understanding the bean and the brew in depth. We have tried and tested each bean, learnt about each region and each extraction method (almost all known to man). We have gathered and included these years of research, knowledge and moulding of a product into a brand that is filled with quality and distinction. 
We continue to research, learn, strive for perfection and grow and have relocated to Gauteng.
Coffee is a fruit, a fruit is affected by seasons, by weather, the altitude it grows at and the crops.
We thank the farmers that are involved.
Coffee teaches us daily, it guides us as artisans and it makes us more alert.
We love coffee, we love to share our love of coffee with you.
Dear Friends we look forward to hearing from you and sharing your journey, feedback and experience in the alchemy of coffee.
Frederick and Sumari