This small roaster, soon to be turning into a full cafe, is located on La Jolla Blvd. just north of Pacific Beach. Chuck, who started the business in 2001 after leaving his job as a college English professor, imports only organic or socially responsible beans from the major coffee-growing regions of the world- Africa and South America mostly. Most of the bean are certified organically grown, sustainably farmed, and fair trade certified. He also goes out of his way to support specific programs such as Bicycles for Rwanda, which buys modified mountain bikes for the coffee growers so that they don't have to transport the beans by foot. Not only does this specialty operation actively look to do business in socially responsible ways, but the final product is not much more expensive than other non-organic coffees, and each bag is entirely compostable via paper, corn linings, and soy inks used in the packaging. The cute label doesn't hurt either!

There are two ways to process coffee beans- the wet process (typically done in South America) and the dry process (typically done in Africa). Wet processed raw beans have a more greenish color, while dry processed raw beans are more yellowish. A more brownish color usually indicate decaffeinated beans, which have been soaked in water. In general, dry processed beans will make better espresso.

Beans could be grown here in San Diego, but wouldn't be very high-quality due to our lack of strong heat and more importantly, the high elevations that tend to produce good ones.

The coffee roaster Chuck uses can process 25lb batches of roasted beans at a time, and they typically will produce 10-12 batches per day. He likes to roast most of the beans to a medium level, which maximizes the complexity of flavors, while darker roasts tend to taste burnt and lose the flavor of the beans (sort of like any food being over cooked).

You can contact Chuck at Bird Rock Coffee Roasters.