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. |