LAMILL Coffee in Silver Lake makes some of my absolute favorite coffee. So when I got the very cool chance to check out how the magic happens with a tour at the LAMILL Coffee Roastery, I jumped at the chance! Along with some other food bloggers and journalists, I went on a media tour of the roastery, led by John Martin, LAMILL’s Director of Coffee (how cool is that job title?). In addition to the Silverlake spot, LAMILL Coffee is distributed to clients like Sprinkles Cupcakes, Aria Las Vegas, and Dear Valley.
On the tour, we got to see what raw coffee looks like — a green bean! — and then how it all gets roasted. “It starts green, but the chlorophyll burns off in roasting process,” Martin explained. “Once brown, it’ll still have texture, then that smooths out.”
While other places do automatic roasting, all LAMILL Coffee batches are done manually, with proper heat adjustments. Roasting typically takes from 12-15 minutes. “There are so many hands in each cup of coffee and when everything goes right, we get some delicious coffee,” Martin said. “Coffee is an agricultural product and it’s actually a fruit.” Once roasted, he suggested that the coffee should be consumed within three weeks.
Then, we got to do some cupping and try some of the coffee for ourselves! We tried the Colombian, Brazilian, Black Onyx Dark roast from Guatemala. But we didn’t sip it — we slurped it, because that’s how proper cupping is done. Slupring, while also making funny noises, helps spread the coffee around the taste buds and cools it off in the mouth.
Check out the photos below.
