Coffee beans straight from Antigua, Guatemala are now roasting at the North Fork Roasting Company in Southold — and owners Jess Dunne and Jennilee Morris helped pick the beans themselves during a weeklong trip earlier this year.
“Probably half the beans in those bags, my hands have touched,” said Dunne, referring to the 150-pound bags of coffee beans they received last week. “That’s just the coolest thing, to me.”
Dunne and Morris traveled to Guatemala and spent a week living on a coffee farm in February to help harvest coffee through a co-op program created to help Guatemalan farmers combine forces to sell their product.
There, they spent their time immersed in the daily life of a Guatemalan coffee farm, getting acquainted with each step of the laborious coffee-harvesting process. Their general manager Brianna Paige went as well, and spent an entire month on the farm.
“It was incredible, to learn where the beans come from and all the work that goes into them. It was extremely special, roasting the beans for the first time,” Dunne said. “It’s a really amazing way to bring yourself back to the experiences we had there.”
Coffee beans are contained in red and green berries called “cherries.” After the cherries are picked, the beans are typically removed from the cherry and dried. The beans are then milled and processed.
“We have two bags of what’s called a ‘natural process,’ where two of the farmers were trying something different this year and left the berry on during the drying process,” Dunne explained. “It’s really great, it smells extremely fruity when roasting. I had it iced today, actually, and it was really great.”
They received 12 total bags of beans.
“I’m not sure how long it’s going to last us, since this is the height of our season,” Dunne said. “But it’s still pretty great.”
The duo threw a party — with invites that aptly titled it a “Fiesta” — to celebrate the arrival of the beans at the Southold coffee shop.
“It’s been a few months since we went and didn’t even know when the beans were going to come,” Morris said. “It was worth the wait. We found out about a week before that they were on their way and we knew we had to throw a party.”
Some attendees decked out in Guatemalan attire and received a free bag of the Guatemalan beans. And while some made a quick trip to Party City before the event for their costumes, one woman had several items that were a little more authentic.
Thirlby, who frequents the coffee shop, was excited when she heard about the beans from Guatemala. “It’s a cool to have a little taste of where I’ve been. I’m hoping to get to go back, now that we’ve retired.”
The event featured a mariachi band, an authentic handmade tortilla station and a full taco bar.
Dunne and Morris hope to return to Guatemala next year.
“We’d really like to go back, stay with the same people we did before, since we loved them,” Dunne said. “And hopefully this will open up many more opportunities for direct trade,” she said, adding she would like to eventually connect with a coffee farm in Columbia.
“Out here on the North Fork, everything is about farm to table, and we’d like this to be just another continuation of that,” she said. “It’s a great start.”
