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CIU Alumnus
Opens Roastery
By Bob Holmes
ook up the word roastery in the dictionary, and you won’t
find it. It’s too new. That puts Columbia International
University alumnus Beach Loveland on the cutting edge of the
coffee roastery industry.
Loveland, a 2009 CIU alumnus, and his wife Jessica (Hughes)
Loveland, a 2002 CIU graduate, founded Loveland Coffee with
a drive-thru kiosk in Columbia’s northwest suburb of Irmo in
2012. Business has been good, and now, the Loveland Coffee
brand has expanded to include a roastery, where Loveland is
able to control his brand beginning with the coffee beans that
are fair-trade and organic.
“I get to control the whole process. I get to pass along that
quality and assurance to my customers,” Loveland said. “I know
where this coffee came from, I roasted it. These are the steps
I’ve taken to make sure it is quality for you.”
Loveland reaches into a burlap bag to display a handful of
greenish colored coffee beans. The bags are stamped with
names of countries such as Brazil and Peru, carefully selected
by Loveland through a coffee broker. Loveland then funnels
them into the hand-crafted roaster where he carefully masters
the high-tech controls for 13 to 15 minutes of roasting.
“There are several key times during that period for adjusting
air speed and the amount of gas pressure we’re putting in
for a batch size of 25 pounds,” Loveland explains. “If I have
Guatemalan (beans), I have a set profile that I roast for. I have a
certain finish temperature that I’m shooting for (and) certain set
points during the roast to bring out the best flavor nuances.”
Beach Loveland with his wife Jessica, and children Ezra (being held
by Jessica), Zoe (in the gray dress) and Shiloh (in the Red Dress)
14
CIU Today
Spring 2017