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January Part 1: Rozali, Berlin

January Part 1: Rozali, Berlin

David Rozali, was born in Yogyakarta (Central Java) and grew up in a small town on the eastern side of Indonesia, called Kupang. With the many turns that life takes, David ended up falling in love with specialty-coffee, and enthusiastically pursuing it. 

With a past engrained in specialty-coffee, from becoming a Q-grader, to being Head Roaster at one of Berlin's most famous roasteries The Barn, David had a yearning to open up his own roastery.  

Thankful that he did, as otherwise we would not have gotten the chance the taste his incredible coffee nor get to know him. 

Get to know Rozali, and the featured coffee below. :)

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Hej David, first and foremost, thank you so much for being a part of our subscription. We are truly delighted!
Rozali is quite new, how did you make the leap to start your own roastery?

- Rozali Coffee is started in December 2020 to offer unique and rare coffees to coffee lovers. I have friends and families who love coffee, but unfortunately haven’t heard of the specialty coffee. It makes me sad to know that many people haven’t try what coffee is should taste like and that there are so many amazing coffees. I believe people deserve the best in life and it should include coffee.

I have been working in the coffee industry a few years, with my last employment as the head roaster and production at the Barn. I think this is the time to start my coffee project and doing what I believe is important.
 
You have some interesting background in coffee, could you tell us more about it?
- I started working with coffee as a weekend barista while studying at the university in Sydney, Australia. Back then I also started a position as a tax accountant because it was my career. As an international student, I wasn’t entitled to the government subsidy for education, so I had to do the barista job for an extra income to pay for the university fee. It was a full on.

I like coffee not only for it’s taste but it brings people together in every culture–friends, family, romance. Since then I have always wanted to start a café as a place for people to have a good time with the loved ones. So after graduating I keep my barista job and took one day-week job at a coffee roastery. The rest of the week I’m still doing tax accountant work.

A couple of years after, I decided to quit my tax accounting job to work full time at the roastery. I took Q-Grader exam and passed it. Having had a Q-Grader licence was an advantage in my coffee career. In 2015 I moved to Germany, and found an employment at the Barn Coffee roastery. I was hired a barista and then got the opportunity to lead the roastery in 2016.
 
What was the most important thing you learned from your past experience when starting your own roastery?
There are a four biggest lessons that I learnt:
  1. Doing sales: pick up the phone and start calling; door knocking.
  2. Not to over think or plan. Doing will get more things done than planning. There will be a mistake along the way where the plan can be adjusted
  3. It’s about personal connection.
  4. I need to really love what I’m doing to start a business. It’s a hard work and if I don’t love what I’m doing, I will be hating it.
What are some of the challenges you came across?
- The biggest challenge is to do sales. Doing sales is very uncomfortable. There will be many rejections and brushed-off, but this is the only way to promoting the reach out for buyers.
 
You have some quite unique coffees, how do you source your coffees? 
- I’m working directly with coffee producers from Colombia. Coffee from other regions are sourced through trusted green buyers.
 
Can you tell us more about the coffee that we chose for the subscription? 
- It’s a unique coffee natural processed El Salvador. The variety is SL-28 with was developed in Kenya. It has beautiful winey acidity of blueberry and kiwi fruit. Smooth milk chocolate sweetness, medium body and buttery mouthfeel.

IGNACIO GUTIERREZ

Country: El Salvador

Region: San Ignacio, Chalatenango

Altitude: 1500 masl

Producer: Finca Loz Pozos

Process: Natural

Variety: SL-28

This coffee is grown in Finca Los Pozos in the Chalatenango region, in the northern part of El Salvador. This region is home to many well-known coffee producers and is known for regularly producing 90+ score coffees.

Finca Los Pozos is located in the municipality San Ignacio, at an altitude of 1,500 masl right in the foothills of the mountains. Finca Los Pozos belongs to Ignacio Gutiérrez, a passionate coffee grower who had successfully won two times the first place in the Cup of Excellence coffee competition in 2011 and 2013. It is not surprising Ignacio Gutiérrez produces high-quality coffee year after year.

For him, coffee is a great way of improving life and livelihood, and to have financial stability.

Ignacio Gutiérrez has years of experience in farming. He started to plant coffee in 2000, with only 500 coffee trees. As the popularity of his coffees grew, his farm steadily increased to about 54,000 trees, mostly Pacas, Pacamara, and SL-28 varieties. Like many producers in this area, his farm has struggled with coffee-leaf rust.

Ignacio uses different methods to process his coffees: Washed, Honey, and Natural, and he dries his coffee on both patios and raised beds, depending on the process and the climate.

 

How to brew it?

As a filter coffee 

As an espresso: I would recommended a long shot with 1:2,5 ratio, in around 28 seconds brew time for a bright cup profile and 32 seconds brew time for a balance and sweet cup.

 

We truly wish David all the best with Rozali, enjoy his coffee and don't forget to follow Rozali on their social media.

 

Moving on to the second featured roaster, Tane Coffee Collective from Leuven in Belgium.