The Beginning

Opening our first stores in 2003, we revolutionized the way the community thought about coffee . While most coffee drinkers were accustomed to mass produced drum roasted burnt coffee, the fresh air roasted coffee taught Americans how to experience quality and taste in gourmet coffees.

While the coffee shops introduce great coffees, we understand that convenience and costs keep many Americans brewing at home and in the comfort of their offices. In order to efficiently provide coffee to our coffee followers around the world, we created ABCReserve.com. With the same coffees that we use in our stores, we are helping everyone brew a better cup in their own coffee makers.

Our Sustainability

In the last 10 years, the number of consumers of coffee in the United States has grown to over 143,500,000 people. This is over 18.8 BILLION dollars. Imagine that one dollar from every 10 lbs of coffee sold is given to charity. That would be... $14,848,000.

This statistic is just a part of what we do. Every time you brew a pot of coffee, you are helping ministries, feeding homeless children, and cleaning water for those in need.

The Reserve is the largest dedicated direct seller of specialty coffee in the U.S. providing only the freshest quality coffee possible to each of our customers. Our goal is to shorten the supply chain of our coffee to ensure you the best product and price possible while providing generously for the farmers of our coffees and the people of the world.

The Roasting

Coffee roasting is the art of unlocking the quality and flavor within each coffee bean. The most important rule in roasting is that the roasting process cannot create quality, it can only reveal quality. This is the reason why America’s Best has some of the highest standards in the industry for its green coffee buying, transportation and storage. This is also the reason why America’s Best employs Master Roasters who utilize air-roasting equipment to roast all our coffee, because nothing ruins good coffee quicker than bad roasting.

Air Roasting

Our air-roasting process begins with beans suspended and roasted on a bed of hot air called the fluid bed. The fluid bed creates a vortex within the roasting chamber. This vortex roasts each coffee bean at the same rate from all directions. There’s no better way to roast more accurately or consistently.

As the beans pop, crack and caramelize during the roasting process, they shed their skin, called the chaff, and the hot air blows the chaff into a separate chamber. The smoke this chamber creates is quickly evacuated from the roasting chamber, preventing our coffee from literally smoking itself as it roasts.

We prefer air roasting to drum roasting because it fits the consistent, flavorful and smooth style of coffee we love. Air roasting helps preserve the origin flavor while unlocking the best of the bean, meaning we don’t sacrifice origin character for a smoky roast character. Air roasting also keeps your coffee fresh and flavorful so you get a tasty cup all year round.

The Cupping

Coffee tasting, called Cupping, is the art and skill of exploring the aroma, flavor, mouth feel and overall quality of a coffee. Cupping coffee is a daily ritual at America’s Best. It helps us maintain consistency among our award-winning lineup of coffees, gives us an opportunity to sample potential new blends and keeps us energized, excited and totally engaged with our product. It’s also a great excuse to have a cup of coffee.

Cupping is a fairly regimented and structured process, practiced identically by professional Cuppers across the entire coffee industry. It’s akin to an Organoleptic tasting an aged brandy or a Sommelier discerning the components of a fine wine; however, cupping depends upon many controlled variables built into the process.

Each sample is cupped exactly the same way:

1. Fragrance analysis of the dry, freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee.
2. Five ounces of hot water, between 195°F and 205°F, is added to 8.25 grams of coarsely ground coffee. Course is a standard of coffee grind, a uniform 1000 micron particle size.
3. Aroma analysis for one to two minutes.
4. Breaking of the “crust” of floating coffee grounds with a preheated spoon and additional aroma analysis as the spoon is pushed to the bottom of the cup.
5. After the coffee has cooled slightly, the spoon is used to scoop out enough coffee for sampling. The coffee is quickly and quite literally slurped off the spoon and aspirated over the entire tongue.
6. After the coffee has cooled more thoroughly, the slurp and aspirate are repeated.
7. The coffee is critiqued for a dozen characteristics including its fragrance, aroma, flavor, acidity, aftertaste and body.

Cupping isn’t easy. Cupping requires a fair amount of training and experience for the brain to discern and categorize the signals from the eyes, nose and tongue.

Next time you pour a cup of America’s Best, skip the cream and sugar and try your tongue at cupping a bit of your brew. Just remember: Trust yourself by practicing regularly, and be open to learning from cupping veterans.