Ask the Roaster - Dusan from Goat Story
How was the Roastery founded, what was the inspiration?
Well, it’s a bit of a funny story actually … GOAT STORy is basically a coffee innovation company, we develop coffee gear and we have a really strong engineering team. Our most renowned product is GINA, a manual coffee brewer with an integrated scale and we’re developing quite a few new products to be introduced in the next months.
When I joined GOAT STORY three years ago, I asked the CEO when are we going to offer our own coffee. His answer was clear: “NEVER! We develop coffee gear.” But the desire to taste different coffees was big and after a couple of months trying coffees from roasteries around the world, we finally bought a small home roaster. Just for fun … After a year I had roasted over 200 different samples on that little machine and learned what it actually takes to roast a bean. Along with cuppings, profiling and what have you, we were talking with my boss over a cup of a lovely Indian coffee that I roasted and all of the sudden the idea sprung up that we actually NEED our own roastery. The timing was great - we were just about to move into a new office building that we renovated and were able to transform one conference room into a roastery. I did my research on roasters and found exactly what I needed. With one change - we upgraded from my choice of 2.5kg or 5kg straight to 12kg. As Anže, our CEO said - you need to think big ;)
In the meantime when we were setting up the roastery and waiting for our Diedrich roaster to arrive, I also took an SCA roasting course at London School of Coffee where I had the pleasure of working on the exact same machine we had planned for our roastery. I also got my SCA Roasting Intermediate certificate. That intensive course was great as when we started roasting I already knew the machine so I could immediately focus on creating profiles.
Well the rest is history (short one that is) … Our roastery is now running for just over a year and we grow faster than I would have imagined … • What’s your favourite part about working at the Roastery?
What's your favourite part about working at the Roastery?
My favourite activities are cupping lots of different origins, particularly when composed of less-known varietals or prepared with innovative processes and, then, develop custom roast profiles for them.
What's your proudest accomplishment?
Nope, no awards yet for me, I’m still a newbie in this world. I would say my two proudest accomplishments are (1) No one ever said the coffee tasted bad and (2) I managed to create good relationships with at least a couple of farms directly (even though we don’t buy coffee straight from the farm yet - we’re still a micro roastery).
What three words best describe your Roastery?
- STYLISH - (our roastery is located in the middle of an open office space behind a glass wall)
- DOWN TO EARTH - (We’re aware that you can only sell coffee that people enjoy … I’m not a fan of extremely light roasts as most people simply don’t like them; I rather find a profile for a coffee that gets the most flavour from the bean, even if that means I need to extend a roast a bit)
- FUN (We always have a great time roasting, packing, profiling, cupping)
What’s your favourite place to enjoy a coffee, and what coffee would that be?
Colombia La Marianela Natural microlot … the funkiest coffee ever! Sitting in front of my campervan on a weekend surf trip to the Croatian coast.
Finally, what Dog & Hat combination would you choose?
Pointer with a beanie. Yup, I own a pointer :)
