Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/1237674
18 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 2, 2020 (April / May) Q&A Q A By Kim Westerman STiR: What's your coffee story? Meza: I started drinking coffee at 13, introduced really by my parents' subscription to Gevalia. I was very attracted to the many places coffee was grown and how they all tasted different and was curious to understand better why they tasted different. After visiting Seattle in the mid-90s and experiencing cafés there, I started frequenting cafés near me and applied at the local shop once I turned 16, once a week for several weeks until they finally hired me. From that point on, I knew I wanted to work in coffee. I had read in books about coffee cuppers and buyers tasting hundreds of coffees and traveling to origins to secure supply. That's what I wanted to do, as well as learn to roast coffee. There weren't many jobs available for coffee roasters or training or knowledge being shared back then. To get into all of those things, I started Paradise Coffee Roasters in 2002 with my family. I was 19 and began learning to roast and buy coffee from trial and error. STiR: You're a farmer, a green buyer, and a roaster. How do these three different roles play out in your company, Paradise Coffee Roasters? Meza: Well, I wouldn't really call myself a farmer. I help to manage a couple of small farms, but my experience in this area is quite limited. I mostly focus on the post-harvest aspect of coffee, the handling of coffee from cherry to its roasted stage. I process cherry from farms I help manage and a couple others I source from on the Big Island on a small mill to sell exclusively through Paradise. I also spend a good amount of time working with producers in Thailand, Taiwan, and Ecua- dor, teaching them what I've learned from processing here in Hawaii to make coffees for us and for their local and export specialty coffee markets. I do the production roasting for now at our Hawaii facility and then advise remotely on roasting at our Minneapolis roastery. Our machine is setup on Cropster, and I receive production-roasted samples weekly, along with samples we are considering for purchase. Lots of cupping to be done for all three roles. STiR: As a green buyer, what do you look for in a specialty coffee? Meza: First and foremost, cleanliness, freshness, and balance in the cup. If a coffee cups great but is several months old already or has a lot of physical defects, high moisture content, or inconsistent cups, it's not something I'm likely to purchase no matter how impressive in the cup. From living and working at origin over the past 12 years, I'm very sensitive to aging in coffee and, as a result, also try to source coffees as fresh from harvest as possible. Ideally, I don't want to be roasting most coffees more than 6-9 month from harvest. When a coffee was harvested is always a question I have before purchase. Miguel Meza is a highly regarded green buyer, a re- nowned cupper, and an award-winning roaster. He founded Paradise Coffee Roasters, based in Min- nesota, with his family in 2002. Since 2008, he has been living in Hawaii working with coffee at the farm level to better understand coffee quality and using this experience to help growers around the world improve their coffee. He also founded Isla Custom Coffees, based in Pahala, Hawaii, which provides specialty Hawaiian and international coffees to roasters world- wide. Miguel travels to several countries each year to source and develop coffees for Paradise as well as manages Black Rock Farm in Kona and Hawaiian Ko- pelani Paradise Farm and mill in Puna, Hawaii. Miguel Meza Miguel Meza at Miranda Farms in Ka'u on the Big Island of Hawaii