Café Cuzcatlan: Roasting Coffee Beans

Café Cuzcatlan: Roasting Coffee Beans

Cuzcatlan Coffee $25,000 Turkish Roaster

Yesterday, I dropped by a café on St-Hubert where the owner roasts his own Arabica beans, which come directly to Canada from El Salvador. Owner Erick de la O was kind enough to show me the Cuzcatlan coffee roaster and talk to me a little about the art of roasting coffee beans. By the way, Cuzcatlan is the indigenous name for El Salvador before the Spanish conquest.

In the picture below you`ll see the three distinct colours of beans. Erick showed me the light, medium and dark beans he uses to make Colombian, French espresso, Italian espresso and the house special, Cuzcatlan espresso. The ratio of light to dark beans in these blends (apart from the Cuzcatlan espresso) is apparently an industry standard. Good to know. Obviously, espresso requires a higher concentration of dark beans. However, here`s a little fact that you probably didn`t know. The lightest beans have the highest caffeine content. (To read more about coffee roasting click here.)

Dark, Medium and Light Roasted Beans

I was offered a cup of the light roast coffee, to which I added a little milk. It tasted like a weak cup of coffee that you might have at the office. Then the owner told me to try it without milk, and it made a world of difference. It was a very smooth cup of coffee.

Café Cuzcatlan serves filtered coffee and cappuccino and espresso on the premises, or you can purchase the Colombian, French espresso, Italian espresso or Cuzcatlan espresso ground blends or just the beans. Erick supplies coffee to many neighbourhood restaurants, and it can also be found in a number of the smaller Villeray grocery stores.

Either way, it`s nice to know that you can buy coffee that is roasted just a few streets away and handled by just one person.

Café Cuzcatlan
7585 St-Hubert
Tel: 514-807-3754

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