Celebrate The Dark Pleasure of French Roast
by Keith Tomlinson, Peace Coffee Head Roaster

Monday morning I was running late to work. And so it was around seven when I found myself headed west on Lake St., the sun barely making its way above the horizon warming my back enough to prod me along. Ahead of me was the moon dangling just above the Minneapolis downtown, large and yellow in that way that only occurs around a full moon as it is rising or setting. I wanted to stop pedaling and to exist in the photograph that lay before me, and freeze like the water that surrounded me. But, I was late to work and so I put my head down and into the wind and let the icicles take their place upon my beard.

When the cold starts getting to the center of me, I start liking my coffee darker.

The French Roast at Peace Coffee recently switched from Mexican beans to Peruvian ones. We get our Peruvian beans from Cenfrocafe and Pangoa. Currently, we are roasting the beans from Cenfrocafe.

Cenfrocafe is a coop member of a larger second level marketing umbrella organization known as Cepicafe.

Cenfrocafe was founded in 1999 with 220 small-scale coffee farmers in 11 community-based organizations. Today Cenfrocafe serves 1,480 farmers in 52 organizations. Cenfrocafe families own on average 3 hectares of land, of which half might be under coffee cultivation. The region spans the lush hillsides of Jaen and San Ignacio provinces with growing altitudes ranging from 1,300 to 1,800 meters. But despite the hard work that has gone into coffee in this prime productive region, farmers continue live under the most rudimentary conditions.

Nevertheless, as Cenfrocafe founding member and current president of the producer Board of Directors, Anselmo Huaman Moreto explains: "A huge difference in our lives is that now our children can actually go to school, our coffee is being recognized in the market for the quality we produce, and our members can be proud again to be farmers."

There is a balancing act with darker roasts between bringing to a coffee, through the roasting process, all of the smooth and rich flavors yet not loosing the inherit regional qualities of the coffee bean itself.

The French Roast we end up with from these Peruvian beans is sweet and mellow, with bold almond and chocolate flavors.

It helps melt the icicles from my beard, motivates me to enjoy this spectacular gift of winter and, hopefully, helps me to get to work on time.

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