Two Colorado Coffee Shops Won Major Awards For Roasting

Photo by Lucy Beaugard

 

In 2017, local roaster Dragonfly Coffee received the number one spot on Coffee Reviews Top 30 Coffees. The team behind this Boulder company did that by producing exquisite coffee. From the crop to the cup, this award-winning roaster proved that it takes pride in attention to detail by going the extra mile. And that unique effort just won the roaster a huge award.

 READ: Award-Winning Coffee Roasters Open New Tasting Room In Boulder

Dragonfly. Photo by Amanda Piela

Roast magazine just announced the 2019 Roaster of the Year winners — Dragonfly Coffee Roasters from Boulder, Colorado and Peerless Coffee, in Oakland, California. The awards recognize national companies that roast coffees of superior quality and exemplify a dedication to sustainability, demonstrate a strong commitment to the coffee industry, among other criteria. The bi-monthly magazine awards top honors in two categories — micro-roaster of the year (for companies roasting fewer than 100,000 pounds of coffee each year) and macro-roaster of the year  (for companies roasting more than 100,000 pounds annually.) 

Dragonfly was selected as the 2019 micro-roaster of the year, roasting a total of 87,500 pounds annually. The company earned top honors for its commitment to environmental sustainability, support for coffee-producing communities in emerging origins such as Myanmar, Yemen and Timor-Leste, generous employment practices and outstanding coffee quality. And this commitment to something bigger than coffee can even be seen in the companies product packaging. From their iconic Dragonfly, representing agility, success, prosperity, resilience, adaptation and advancement to the sourcing information and five stars to represent quality, the team at Dragonfly is cutting no corners.

This can also be said for Denver’s own Pablo’s Coffee, as the local shop just took home four medals at Golden Bean North America, the world’s largest global roasters competition. They competed against over 900 coffee submissions from more than 500 roasters and came out on top for three of their espresso roasts and one drip roast.

READ: Pablo’s Coffee Is Opening its Third Location Tomorrow – And it Has WiFi

Photo by Brittany Werges

“I’m particularly proud of the honey processed coffees’ medals, as they were very challenging to develop a roast profile. The end result mitigated some the inherent faults in the green coffee while showing off the positive attributes,” said Pablo’s Coffee head roaster Brian Gerhard. “It took quite a bit of R&D to develop the roast curves and recipes.”

For those looking for a solid new bag of beans the winning roasts included the Costa Rica Dota Co-Op Yellow Honey Process  (silver medal in single origin espresso category), Costa Rica Dota Co-Op Yellow and Red Honey Process Blend (won silver medal in the drip coffee category), Little Jem Espresso (won bronze medal in espresso category) and Espresso Blend (won bronze medal in espresso category).

You can experience these award-winning roasters for yourself either in Boulder for Dragonfly or one of several of Pablo’s locations in Denver.

Dragonfly is located at 1501 Lee Hill Dr. #22, Boulder, is open between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. Private tastings can be scheduled by email or phone, both available on the website. For more information on the team’s story, coffee education, hours, purchasable coffee and more check them out here.  Pablo’s has various locations

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