As Bobby Grover opened his roasting drum, the smell of fresh coffee permeated the warehouse on Southeast Wilson Avenue.

Hundreds of brown beans, some still crackling, flooded into the cooling bin.

Grover, who co-owns Thump Coffee and 11 Roasters, hopes to show more people his roasting process by bringing his equipment to a location next to Thump, in downtown Bend on Northwest Minnesota Avenue. He also plans to open a second Thump location in Denver this summer.

Grover is one of at least eight coffee roasters in Central Oregon. Eachuses his or her own roasting and brewing technique. And the variety of tastes they create in their coffees and the atmospheres in their cafes attract different customers.

Some roasters prioritize the culinary art of coffee, from the taste to the way it’s served. Others place their focus on their relationship with coffee growers. And others emphasize being organic.

The coffee roasters provide the beans for brewing coffee sold in their own cafes, but they also sell to grocery stores, offices and to other cafes and restaurants to help generate revenue.

But while the number of roasters in the region provides multiple options for consumers, it also dilutes the amount of business for each roaster, some said. And with new coffee companies constantly coming on the scene, several of the veterans worry the market might become saturated.

Grover, of Thump, said his strategy is to woo coffee aficionados with quality.

It starts with finding the perfect coffee beans. He purchases his coffees through brokers around the world who buy from growers.

“I sample thousands of roasts a year, trying to find that one coffee,” he said.

Once he has the beans, the roasting science begins.

He takes 130-150-pound bags of green coffee beans, weighs out 30-pound portions and pours them into the roasting drum, where they spend 10 to 16 minutes.

Depending on the beans, he said, the length of time and the way they are roasted differ, so individual nuances of flavor can be brought out.

“We document every roast we do, and we profile the roast we like the best,” he said.

He also tastes each batch.

“I like to be able to control it from start to finish,” he said. “From the importing to the baristas … everything has to be perfect.”

Richard Steffensen, president of Strictly Organic Coffee Co., also sees roasting as a science. But instead of using a drum roaster, he uses an air roaster.

“Air roasting is a very good way to roast because the beans circulate on a bed of air,” he said. “They don’t sit on anything or even sit on each other. Heat is transferred evenly to the whole batch and batches are easy to duplicate.”

Steffensen believes air roasting is more consistent. He said he only roasts 21 pounds at a time to have control over the beans, even though the company sells more than 7,000 pounds a month.

“We are pretty no-nonsense,” he said, noting Strictly Organic only sells organic and fair-trade certified coffees.

“Our customers like coffee. For the most part, they want to be able to drink it black or drink a doppio (double shot of espresso) without sugar.”

Stewart Fritchman, owner of Bellatazza in both Bend and Sunriver, said quality and taste are important, but his coffee business is more about his mission and the relationships he makes.

“It’s a first-world problem to worry about how much lemon pops up in your cup. And I get it; we’re in the first world. Heck yeah that matters,” he said. “But I have all the other layers, all the way down, literally to the dirt of it.

“It’s about relationships and everyone in the chain. The person sipping it and the person that grew it.”

Fritchman buys his coffee directly from plantations. Instead of going through coffee brokers, he chooses to go through a plantation owner who represents his own and his neighbors’ farms.

Fritchman said he goes to Guatemala by himself and sleeps on the patio where the coffee beans dry. And in the mornings, he traipses through the coffee plantations with the Mayas who grow the coffee.

“For me, I am so tied to the plantations and to Guatemala,” he said. “These people are phenomenal … and I like to know this bean that I’m selling to you helps that family. Not just somebody somewhere made a dollar. No, I know who they are because I’m helping the 3-year-old speak English.”

Dave Beach, co-owner of Backporch Coffee Roasters, also strives to buy his coffee directly from plantations and has traveled to El Salvador and Costa Rica to form relationships with farmers.

“It makes it easier to connect to the customers,” he said. “We get to show them pictures of the farms and the people who truck the coffee down the hill.”

When Fritchman opened Bellatazza in 2003, Bend had, maybe, one or two other roasters, he said, and Sisters Coffee Co. was also roasting. But he was the only one doing a lighter roasting style.

“I was the light (roast), and they were the dark,” he said.

Now, he said, there are six coffee roasters in Bend, a city of about 77,000 people.

“There are great coffee roasters in Bend,” he said. “And I believe people are really caught up in the cool beer community that we have, but they don’t quite understand how unreal it is what we have here in Bend in the coffee world. It’s quite unusual.”

But more roasters means competition, which makes the profits smaller for each roaster, he said. And every time a new coffee house opens, he said the established businesses lose a portion of their customers.

“This, to me, is unfortunate in such close quarters … because it doesn’t mean that anybody can really have a hugely successful business and then give back even more to the community,” he said.

More than 80 percent of Americans say they drink coffee, according to the National Coffee Association of the USA.

Fritchman said the majority of coffee drinkers buy their coffee from grocery stores.

Of those who get their coffee from cafes or drive-thrus, he said, customers usually favor corporate-owned or independently owned cafes like his. And the “indie coffee drinkers” choose the coffee house whose niche resonates best with them.

“Coffee houses are like a club,” he said. “I love these people. I love this product. I love this politic. I love this lifestyle. This is my club. And you stick to it. That’s your place.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7818, rrees@bendbulletin.com