Master roaster visits organic farm
Not all coffee is the same. Joshua Gnoth knows this very well. The 26-year-old from Papenburg is the operations manager and master roaster at the Kanne roastery in Heede – a unique job in the northern Emsland region. Around 50 tons of coffee have been roasted at Kanne every year since 2015.
“We mainly use organic coffee that is also fairly traded,” says Gnoth in an interview with our editorial team. The coffee beans come to Heede from small organic farms all over the world, so to speak. They are directly imported green coffees from Central and South America (Mexico, Peru) as well as from Africa (Tanzania) and Asia (Papua New Guinea). According to Gnoth, the Kanne company supplies mainly (around 70 percent) to hospital restaurants in Germany. The rest is produced for the Kannelloni restaurant, supplied to restaurateurs in the region and beyond and sold via an online store.
At the foot of Kilimanjaro
“We buy specifically from selected farms. This means that we know exactly which farms our coffees come from,” says Gnoth. The company built up the network via a coffee trader in Hamburg. Gnoth himself recently spent a week in Tanzania, more precisely on a coffee farm at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain massif at 5895 meters in the north-east of the country. Gnoth says that he not only gained a personal impression of the production process there, from growing the coffee plant to harvesting the beans. He also wanted to get a feel and a different appreciation for coffee. “I also saw how much work goes into it.” Because, as he discovered, every production step is manual work. “Only the transportation of the beans from the field is done with a tractor.”
Getting flavor out of every bean
Gnoth explains his own passion for coffee, which goes far beyond working with the bean, with the variety of flavors. “Coffee can have twice as many flavors as wine,” he says. The natural product tastes different depending on the region and weather conditions. “Working and playing with it is what makes it so fascinating.” His employer confirms that Gnoth knows exactly how to get the best taste out of every single bean. He is certified as a coffee sommelier by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
In addition to roasting, the Papenburger’s main tasks include purchasing the raw coffee beans and checking whether the flavor profile is fulfilled. For example, he has to determine whether the beans may be infested with insects or stored too damp.
However, the green bean does not indicate the taste. “It smells more grassy,” says Gnoth and explains that the bean is the core of the coffee cherry. The taste only develops during the roasting process. Beans for espresso, for example, are roasted at 220 degrees Celsius for around 20 minutes.
Germination in river gravel
During his visit to the farm in Tanzania, he watched how the bean of a coffee plant germinates in river gravel and, after about two months, is potted up for a year and continues to grow under shade nets. It is then planted in a field at an altitude of around 1600 meters directly below Kilimanjaro National Park. “It takes about three years for a plant to bear fruit for the first time,” says Gnoth. The harvest is done by hand. According to him, the pickers receive 2000 Tanzanian shillings per bucket. That is the equivalent of 80 euro cents. One picker delivers between three and four buckets per day.
According to Gnoth, sorting the harvested coffee beans is also done by hand. The parchment skin is later removed by machine and the beans are filled into 60-kilo jute bags and shipped.
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Picture: Gerd Schade/Joshua Gnoth / Emszeitung 29.08.2017
