Perkolator is Roasting!

Friends, fans and neighbors, we are excited to share with you that we have reached another huge milestone in our company history this past week when we installed a coffee roaster in the adjacent storefront to the café. That’s right…

Perkolator Coffee now roasts our own coffee in house! We couldn’t be more excited to bring this kind of venture to our awesome corner of the city. 

Aside from the fact that Joe has been working for a really, really long time towards this goal, there are several reasons why it is super exciting for us to finally

be roasting our own coffee:

• Things are always better when they’re made closer to home.Our coffee will now be roasted right here in Portage Park! We will continue to keep our partnerships with existing roasters while we transition fully to roasting 100% in-store. New blends roasted in house will be available starting next week, and the current coffees you love won’t be going anywhere soon!

• We can now offer you coffees that previously were unable to us, because we can now source directly from importers (and even farmers, themselves!) in almost any quantity we want. So while it might not make sense for a larger roaster to bring in 50 lbs. of some really interesting Ethiopian coffee for our customers, now we can do it ourselves for you!

• A chance for our community and our team to learn more about this magnificent beverage we often take for granted via education modules online and (eventually) in-person tastings and coffee education classes in our workshop. Education makes us all better people, and it’s fun to learn about where your food comes from. There’s an entire world connected through coffee, and we look forward to taking you on this incredible journey!

 

• Continue doing as much as possible with the lowest possible impact on the environment. Our roaster is a state of the art, fully electric, and completely ventless zero-emissions machine that is capable of roasting a full day shift using approximately 85 cents worth of electricity.

• Move even closer to producing 100% of what we make in house. This is by far our biggest and boldest advancement towards that initiative, and we couldn’t be more excited to share that hand-crafted quality with our neighborhood!

• Remain a viable community institution through careful use of our space and thoughtful use of our resources. We have weathered a storm, and the subscription delivery service continues to be the main driver of income for our business. By keeping more of the revenue in the neighborhood, this asset will help us remain able to serve you for years to come!

We are expecting over 1,000 lbs of green coffee to arrive over the course of the next week, and in the meantime, are learning the intricacies of our new machine, and training our bean team for the future. We have an exciting plan for an Inaugural Blend, which will be in LIMITED SUPPLY, so you will definitely not want to miss out! We will of course keep you posted on social media and in future blogs and subscription newsletters.

             Thank you for your continued support!

             With coffee, Joe