Food & Drink: Relevant Coffee roasters rise to challenge

At this year’s Cascadia Roaster’s Competition, Montgomery and Clemens competed against 49 other roasters from Washington, Oregon and California. The majority of these roasters had years of experience and came from well-known coffee shops, such as Water Avenue and Barista.

For a $75 entry fee, each competitor gets 20 pounds of green coffee beans without any information about the beans. They are given three weeks to experiment with the beans and then submit three pounds of roasted beans for competition. In the spirit of community, proceeds went to coffee-related nonprofits International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) and p:ear barista school.

Once they got their mystery green beans, Montgomery and Clemens headed to Montgomery’s house to use his sample roaster to roast small batches of coffee, cup them, take notes and then repeat the process. (Cupping is a process that coffee professionals use to evaluate coffee beans. Ground coffee is placed in a small cup and covered with hot water in order to examine aromas and flavor notes.)

Montgomery chivalrously roasted his beans first to help get a bit more information about the beans. They tried several profiles and had everyone at Relevant cup the various roasts and comment.

“As a novice, I just asked everyone questions,” Clemens said of his process. “There are two roasters in southeast Portland who were competing, and I asked them, ‘What do you think this coffee is? What are you doing with it?’ As I sat at their coffee shop, I tried an Aero Press of it.”

Clemens spent his three weeks with the green beans, trying different profiles and cupping an ungodly amount of coffee until he found just the right roast.

On Nov. 3, the event was held at Buckman Coffee Factory, complete with food trucks, cider, beer and lots of coffee. The Cascadia Roaster’s Competition has two levels of judging occurring at the same time. There’s a panel of judges (esteemed roasters and coffee shop owners) to pick a Judge’s Choice, and then there’s a People’s Choice competition, which is judged by whomever is at the event.

This year, it was pared down to two congenial but competitive hours (last year’s gathering lasted nearly four hours). The roasted beans were judged for flavor, clarity, acidity, body, sweetness and overall balance. During the event, the competition was slowly whittled down to 25, then six. The excitement gradually built until the Judge’s Choice and People’s Choice winners were announced.

Clemens placed first in the Judge’s Choice competition, and Montgomery placed third in the People’s Choice competition. Weeks later, Montgomery and Clemens were still giddy recounting Clemens’ win.

Clemens isn’t Montgomery’s first student who has won coffee roasting competitions. Montgomery told me that he has three students, including Clemens, who have gone on to roasting victory. Nonetheless, Clemens’ amazing growth as a roaster in one year comes from his persistence, hard work and passion for roasting.

The two roasters that took first place in the Judge’s and People’s Choice competitions also had one year of roasting experience. Their uncertainty, lack of experience and raw hunger for knowledge may have been an advantage.

“Brian really put the work in by looking at his profiles and evaluating them,” Montgomery said. “He took it really seriously. I think seasoned roasters have a bias to not take it as seriously as someone who just started.”

I’m sure both of these winning roasters from Relevant will be competing at next year’s Cascadia Roaster’s Competition. Given Montgomery’s passion for teaching, they may be joined by another one of his Padawan roasters. A limited amount of Clemens’ winning roast will be available Dec. 14 at Relevant’s coffee shop.

Rachel Pinsky can be emailed at couveeats@gmail.com. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @couveeats.