“I wanted something really authentic and kind of intimate to start off, and then to very organically build the brand.” “It’s sustainable, small and personal,” he said. With his garage now a fully operational roasting house, Boscana delights in walking out of his back door to work each day. Right now is the heart of the Central American and East African seasons, meaning the coffee has been harvested, shipped and just landed.īoscana said he plans to be “as seasonal as I can be,” because fresh coffee creates a “totally different sensation in your mouth” versus crops that have been sitting. The coffee crop is seasonal, and Máquina’s menu will change four or five times per year with no more than six coffees available at a given time. His favorite beans are from Ethiopia, “the birthplace of coffee,” which he said “taste like no other coffee on the planet,” as well as those from Kenya. And then I roast.”īoscana said his role as a roaster is preserving the quality of the coffee shipped to him from all over the world. Just clean coffee.” He buys well above 80. “No mold, no debris, no defects in processing, no fermentation. “Anything above 80 points means it has no defects,” Boscana explained. Specialty coffee’s quality is rated upon a grading system. He roasts and cups small samples to decide what to buy. What Boscana buys is specialty green coffee, which follows the standards of the Specialty Coffee Association and is imported from origin. His second major business expense is the coffee itself. “It’s not fancy by any means, but it serves its purpose.” “It’s very basic production,” Boscana explained.
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Packing equipment, heat sealer, pallet carrier, packing tables, shelving units and a new concrete floor followed. His is relatively small at 5 kilos, able to roast about 10 lbs at a time. He said the old German machine is the gold standard of specialty coffee roasting. “He found it,” Boscana said, of the Probat roaster now in his garage. He looked for some time before a friend at Acre Coffee in California contacted him. Putting It Togetherīoscana’s “first and biggest step” was buying a roaster.
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Instead, he said, “We kind of fell in love very, very quickly with Chester County.”īoscana believed the area was ripe for craft coffee with its educated and discerning populace, focus on land stewardship and conservancy and booming culinary scene: “All the things that you need for a specialty coffee company to thrive,” he said. “I thought we’d move to Philadelphia,” Boscana explained. With the birth of their daughter and a desire to begin roasting himself, Boscana and his wife returned to the East Coast, settling into what was to be a temporary living situation right outside of West Chester. Intelligentsia is known for pioneering coffee’s Third Wave, a craft movement marked by devotion to product over marketing, independent ownership direct trade and sustainable practice, all essential characteristics of Máquina. He ultimately landed a role as National Roasting Manager for Intelligentsia Coffee, where he bought directly from coffee farms and traveled to locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago to ensure product consistency.
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The two then moved to the Bay Area, where Boscana said he “learned the ritual” of coffee, including how to roast. He began his career at Gimme! Coffee in Ithaca, NY, which is also where he met his wife.
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A Craft Coffee LifeĪfter nearly two decades of coffee industry experience ranging from work as a barista to a buyer, Boscana knows the trade like few do. We chatted with Boscana to find out a little more about how his powerful-yet-unassuming business came to be. He’s now roasting 300 lbs of coffee beans a week. Inside his garage.īoscana’s beans are generating a buzz in the world of coffee geekdom and orders arrive steadily from individual subscribers and market-driven cafes and restaurants across the country. A little more than a year ago, Boscana launched his one-man specialty coffee roasting operation. Gabriel Boscana of Máquina Coffee Roasters is an artisan’s artisan.