Met Kuma Coffee Roaster, Bellevue WA

This morning a group of us from the Coffee Club of Seattle meetup (www.meetup.com/seattle-coffee-club/) met with Mark Barany, the proprieter/roast of Kuma Coffee. The roasting location is in a little industrial area off of 520 in Bellevue. Mark started home roasting coffee and selling to co-workers back in 2006. At that time he was roasting 5 pounds a month. When the holidays hit, the need grew to 40 pounds a month. But now he's selling to a variety of markets and cafes in the Seattle and roasting more than 1000 pounds a month.

The roaster he uses is a roaster formally used by both Cafe Appassionato and Zoka, when they started their roasting business.

Kuma Coffee specializes in sourcing high end coffees and prefers coffee beans roasted medium roasted, before they produce oil, resulting in a more complex flavored, more acidic, higher caffeinated coffee than a darker roasted coffee.

We sampled various coffees, including Kuma's popular Guatamalen Elinjerto coffee and our favorite, Kenyan roast as well as their new Holiday roast, soon to hit the market.

Kuma Coffee can be found at various coffee places and markets throughout the Seattle area as well as Kuma Coffee Cafe in Wallingford. Additionally, it can be purchased directly through their website- http://www.kumacoffee.com/, which also lists locations where Kuma Coffee can be found.