Checking out Barkeater Coffee Roasters

Not too long ago while swiping around on Instagram, I noticed an account for a coffee roaster in East Greenbush. After a few emails, I headed across the river to East Greenbush to check out Barkeater Coffee Roasters.

Barkeater Coffee Roasters is ran by Steven Pivonka out of a workshop on on his property. The whole operation is tucked into a corner, with the roaster, green coffee, scales, buckets and packaging equipment all present.

While I was visiting, Steven roasted up a five pound batch of Ethiopian East Harrar. It was fun to be able to watch the entire roasting process from start to finish, including warming up the roaster itself. The roasting process goes quicker than one would imagine and seems like some sort of witchcraft. Stephen fired up the roaster, dumped in a bucket of green coffee beans, and let em spin around for a little bit in the roaster. He checked on them a few times, listened in to hear the first crack and soon after dumped the beans into the cooling bin.

We took a bit of this coffee inside and brewed it through a Hario V60. I’ve definitely had some fresh coffee before, but not like this. The brewed coffee was great, and had all the notes you’d expect from an Ethiopian coffee. It was light, sweet and had a distinct berry taste. Steven also brewed some of Barkeater’s other current offering, Bali Blue Moon. This coffee is an interesting cup, as I am not a big Sumatra drinker, but this coffee was a great companion to the Ethiopian. The Bali Blue Moon was a little roasty, earthy and had a big body to it.

It was crazy to be able to drink coffee that had been roasted minutes earlier. I’m definitely excited to have another local coffee roaster in our area. A few short years ago the coffee situation in Albany was really lackluster and now there’s a ton of options.

You can get Barkeater Coffee through their web store, Our Daily Bread in Chatam or at Honest Weight Food Co-op. Steven will be doing a tasting on December 7 from 11a-2pm at HWF; go try some!