From humble beginnings...    Oregon Coffee Roaster is 25! 

1985

Oregon Coffee Roaster is launched in the rural hills of North Plains, OR.  Our small 2000 square foot warehouse houses one small roaster, about a dozen single origin coffees, a modest selection of bulk teas and a few flavored coffees.  The newsletter is one page, typed, featuring a regular coffee, flavored coffee and a tea. 

1988

Breakfast Blend is our newest coffee blend.  Today it is number five on our best seller list.  Newsletters are one to two pages on colored paper!  A selection of candies have been added to the offerings and the business has grown considerably! 

1990

The business has expanded to 4000 square feet.  A tenant in the building has a fire which destroys our inventory.  OCR is restocked and roasting in five days, thanks to the terrific support of vendors, some local roasting companies and most of all, our terrific customers. 

Marketing tips are included in the newsletters.  For example:

   Put the core area with the fastest moving inventory at the center of the store near the entrance.

   Create breaks in your merchandise, making areas of your store look different from the others.

   Always create walk-through areas, never dead end paths. 

Specialty coffees have grown from 3.5% of the coffee market in 1983 to 10% in 1990.  Today they are about double that. 

1993

Newsletters are now four to six pages in full color.  Our Christmas coffee lineup includes five coffees (today it's twenty!).  The always addicting Chocolate Covered Dried Cherries have joined the candy offerings.  They are still wildly popular.  Coffees arrive in our warehouse from 15 countries.  Major retention plans are being drawn up by producing countries to force prices up.  Three girls in the warehouse all expecting babies within a month of each other!  Do you think it’s the coffee? 

1995

OCR has been settled into a full 6000 square feet for awhile now.  The original coffee roaster is still in service along with a newer roaster that has twice the capacity.  Brazil, the world's number one producer of specialty coffees is experiencing lower crop yield while recovering from a damaging frost, pushing coffee prices higher.  Our line has expanded to 17 varietal coffees, 43 flavors, 38 teas, candies, paper products, equipment and flavored syrups.  We now have our first email address: mugs3@aol.com (we still have it). 

1998

Oh how times have changed. We have a website!  The look has changed since then but the site name is still www.OregonCoffee.com Espresso retailers now make up a large portion of OCR's sales.  Whole bean stores are closing as people discover the convenience of drive-through espresso drinks.  We've added a number of new packaging options to help retailers market their coffee.  A fun little tidbit: a coffee maker and coffee beans were sent to a South African leader just prior to a visit by (then Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat.  The mysterious package was blown up by the bomb squad.  Needless to say, the coffee wound up as a dark roast. 

2001

Fruit smoothies are a big hit this summer.  The world of specialty coffee drinks continues to expand as creative vendors offer new and different things.  Coffee retention plans from organizing countries has yielded little.  Prices remain stable and low.  That's good for today but robs growers of a livable wage and forces them to replace coffee trees with other crops, eventually forcing prices up. 

2004

The health benefits of tea are often in the news.  Over 50 bulk are available to our retailers with information to educate their customers.  Tea and coffee terminology is a regular part of the newsletter.  For instance "dull" tea refers to a leaf that has been improperly processed and the resulting brew from it.  "Defects" in coffee grading include husks, pods, rocks, sticks and broken or insect-damaged beans.   

2009

OCR introduces their own Super Cool Smoothie line.  A wide variety of flavors with fun names like "Where'd My Mango" and "I'm A Fan-a Banana" make smoothies fun, easy and profitable.  Each jug uses a pump for easy dispensing and mixing of flavors.  The flexibility of the mix allows it to be blended with ice cream, tea, yogurt or just ice and water.  Best of all, they never have to be refrigerated, even after they're open. 

2010

Can't believe it's been 25 years but here we are, still roasting delicious coffee and selling it to happy customers across the U.S.  Some have been with us since the 1980's.  Some are brand new but all remain OCR's most valuable asset.  Without you, we wouldn't be celebrating this exciting milestone.  Thank you!

Our Guestbook  if you’d like to share some thoughts or ideas, visit our guestbook at www.OregonCoffee.com or become a fan on our Facebook page at Oregon Coffee Roaster on Facebook.

Coffee Roasting Glossary

Cinnamon Roast Coffee beans roasted to a light brown color, developing a nutty flavor with the highest acidity. The oil remains in the bean when fresh but seeps out as the beans age.

American Roast Coffee beans roasted to a darker brown than Cinnamon Roast but still a light roast profile with a carmelish flavor.
City Roast Coffee beans roasted to a medium dark roast, slightly darker than American Roast.

Full City Roast A roast that is slightly heavier than a City Roast. The beans are roasted to their full flavor development with no traces of oil on the bean surface when freshly roasted.

Vienna Roast Coffee beans roasted to dark brown color with a small amount of oils on the bean surface. Coffee roasted to a Vienna Roast has noticeable smoky undertones.

Italian Roast Coffee beans roasted at high enough temperatures to bring the natural oil of the coffee to the surface. The smoky overtones are predominant.

French Roast Coffee beans roasted darker than Italian Roast (West Coast). On the East Coast and in Europe, French and Italian roast terminology are the opposite of the West Coast terms. French Roast is sometimes known as "New Orleans Roast" and is characterized by a large amount of oil on the bean surface, heavy smoky overtones and a pronounced bittersweet flavor.

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