Feature of Bristol coffee micro-roastery, Extract Coffee, focusing on head roaster David Faulkner's love of restoration.
"Restoring the roasters has furnished David with an exceptional knowledge about how they work, so he’s perfectly placed to maintain them. “We roast a hell of a lot of coffee on them,” he says, “and they’re 60 years old already, but they’ll probably still be going in another 100 years if they’re looked after and cared for.”
You can sense his love of these machines – one of the reasons why Extract has opted to stick with them rather than buy a more modern high tech roaster. “There’s still a craft and skill behind it,” David explains. “You have to be there, working the machine and understanding how it works and how coffee roasts. Roasting is about picking the point – a time and a roast where you think the coffee is right. We spend a long time looking for amazing coffee that we love, and then roasting each in a different manner to bring out particular flavours in the profile. It’s just finding the right profile for the right coffee; that’s where the skill is. You’ve got to learn how to do it, to train your palate.” And the Extract approach to this? “We do it as a team; we learn together, we educate each other, and practice is the biggest one.”"
Excerpt from Ernest Journal Issue 6, April 2017. Words and photographs.