‘I am glad of it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically on the counterpane. ‘They are fine fellows—very fine fellows; with judgments matured by observation and reflection; and tastes refined by reading and study. I am very glad of it.’

The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens (1836-37).

Fine Fellows Coffee has been a long time brewing—pardon the pun—ever since a 2002 trip to Germany that eventually took a slight detour through Italy. Was it a coffee of Danesi Caffe in Rome or of Italmoka in Naples that started it all? It’s hard to say now.

Officially, we started in 2013. Our modest aspiration: to sell cups of coffee using a retro 3-group lever machine from Naples. Our idea was to run it on gas, so as to be mobile, a one of a kind. While it took us a bit to get it through compliance, the upshot was we were indeed original in our area. And it never let us down over the next four years of building up a small following of devotees at various farmers markets around Brisbane.

It’s in every one of us I assume, a creative urge, if only it is allowed. And it seemed so obvious that we should start roasting our own coffee. After all, satisfaction will never be found left in the hands of another. And seeing I’d had experience working for various roasters in Melbourne, both at roasting and selling, what should be the trouble?

Well, it turns out money is always the trouble. It costs a small fortune to start up a coffee roastery, especially if one has an aversion to borrowing, as so clearly I do. We considered the usual suspects—Probat, Giesen, Joper—and there was no escaping the fact we just couldn’t afford these luxurious roasting machines from Europe, and the American ones were no less expensive. My perfectionism, however, didn’t want anything less either, that is, in terms of roasting ability. Then my romanticism got the better of me (my tendency to go back in time, knowing that with progress often quality is sacrificed in the name of convenience) and I started to think about using wood as a source of heat rather than gas. 

In the coffee industry every person will defend vehemently their choice of coffee roaster from the standpoint of its technical prowess. But if we are honest, there is no way out of it. Once committed most of us have little chance of changing our minds and opting for a different roaster, so what choice does one have but to take a stance. For who has another spare fifty thousand lying around?  So what I say next may carry little weight for most. At any rate, let us just say this, roasting coffee with wood, if all else is equal, offers something a little more to the artisan, something unattainable with gas no matter the amount of money that goes into the roaster and its computer profiling. It’s in one way the hands on approach (for one has to know wood and the beans, and how they interact, and then manually work with both) but mostly it’s the taste.

You see, wood fire generates a heat that is moister than that of gas and much moister than of electricity. This means it’s gentler, one could say, allowing the heat to fully penetrate the bean without searing or baking. This is quite evident considering we can roast up to 50 minutes and still have a coffee fully developed, unlike gas driven roasters, with which, at such times, the beans would be rendered flat and lifeless. This gentle roasting seems to enhance coffee body (a desirable characteristic), perfect for darker roasted espresso blends, and so makes them richer, but it also maintains, if it does not improve, sweetness and acidity at lighter roasts. In short, wood fire tends to retain more flavour in the coffee bean.

With all this said, mind you, it’s important to note that at Fine Fellows Coffee we are not tied to any particular roasting doctrine. Rather it’s the search for continual improvement, the pursuit of something special that we hold dear. At the moment roasting with wood just seems to fit, and we can’t see that changing any time soon. The same holds true for our  use of lever machines (although the brewing of coffee is undergoing a revolution and better machines may be more readily available in the future).

I guess our ethos is really wrapped up in that quote by Dickens at the beginning. And if we can continue to do just this, always reflecting on efforts, striving for something better, from an authentic perspective, as reflected above in our search for a better roast, then what can I say: we have done our job.