Dan Yee and Shoji Sasa are hands-on in every aspect of their coffee roasting business. They each have more than 15 years of experience in the coffee industry, and together they’ve attempted almost everything. From competing in coffee competitions to judging them, selecting beans from farms to equipment consulting with high-end machinery, the duo behind Artificer Coffee has covered all the bases.
Nine years into business, Yee and Sasa have made a fair amount of coffee, and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. They are involved in every step of the process, from choosing the beans to brewing the coffee. This total control means the duo can ensure they’re making consistent roasts with flavour profiles they enjoy.
Keeping a hand on all aspects of the roasting process means Artificer Coffee will always remain small-scale. Yee and Sasa are aware this might seem like a limitation, however, they’ve witnessed the epic rise and fall of businesses seemingly on a mission to take over the world, and are happy doing what they love, and doing it exceptionally well.
Their specialty coffee bar is truly what it claims to be, and only serves coffee. Sticking to what they know and love means the entire Artificer team is able to manage a good work/life balance and keep a healthy mindset around working, something that positively impacts their coffee production.
“If we're in a good headspace with health balances, so is our product. We've seen in this industry so much burnout and hustling to ill results and we just don't want that,” said Yee.
The Artificer Coffee team focus mostly on high-quality coffees for everyday drinking, but they still make time to experiment with different processing methods and flavour profiles. Yee and Sasa are highly aware that the output of a roast is only going to be as good as what goes in. The key comes down to choosing excellent beans with a good depth of flavour.
“You can have all the technology and monitoring equipment in a specific roaster but still have below-par coffee. Alternatively, you can have a relatively humble roasting setup and by putting in high-grade coffee, have surprisingly good results,” said Yee.
In an effort to do their bit for the environment, Artificer Coffee struck a deal with a local farmer. The spent coffee beans from the roastery and coffee bar are sent to a farm a few hours outside of Sydney where they get added to the compost heap and turned into fertiliser. The farmer then does a weekly vegetable drop-off, giving some of the crops grown with the coffee fertiliser over to the team at Artificer Coffee.
Yee and Sasa’s advice for people interested in the coffee industry was to give it a try. The community is welcoming and knowledgeable, however, like every profession, not everything is perfect. There will inevitably be challenges along the way, but being able to work in an industry you love is the opportunity of a lifetime.
Photography by Elize Strydom.
