Head Roaster at Altezano Brothers, Logan Collins has ten years experience in the coffee industry.
His first barista job introduced him to coffee culture and drew him into learning more about the aspects that go into making a great coffee, particularly roasting. At the time, Collins was in a successful band and touring took priority. When the band was put on pause, Collins began working at Altezano Brothers to learn and seriously pursue coffee roasting.
Collins began his roasting career in Auckland, before moving to Melbourne and roasting as part of a small team of three. Upon his move back to Auckland, the roaster went straight back to Altezano Brothers, where in the years since he has been the business’ head roaster.
“I loved working in Melbourne and learned a lot over there, but becoming head roaster here at Altezano Brothers - where I initially started my roasting career - is definitely an achievement I’m proud of.”
Altezano Brothers has a great team, who enjoy collaborating and work together on every coffee they create. The business roasts daily in Mt Eden, and has a handful of espresso bars around central Auckland. To Collins, one of the most rewarding aspects of his job is having the freedom to select which origins he roasts and to develop their best profile.
He loves sourcing and roasting interesting new single origins, which they use for their featured filter coffee. These coffees are really special, and score very high with interesting flavours. The experience of roasting them is unique and challenging every time.
The roaster’s favourite origin is Ethiopia.
“While Geishas or anaerobic coffees get the limelight, it’s very hard to beat a good Ethiopian natural.”
A great roast is about unlocking the flavour potential of whichever coffee he is working with and each origin and process can produce uniquely different flavours. Highlighting these flavours for people to enjoy is ultimately the main goal. Personally, Collins believes the real key to achieving this is to focus on a consistently falling rate of rise.
Significant innovation in technological development has seen an increased use in roasting software and electronic roasting profiles and in a roaster’s ability to directly communicate with their growers. Profiles help map roasts in real time, driving constant refinements. At Altezano Brothers, the team develops roast profiles on an Ikawa sample roaster, and then uses this information to achieve better results on the main roaster. Growers and exporters can send recommended profiles for a coffee sample, allowing roasters here to use it and make better and informed purchasing decisions.
Altezano Brothers have always held sustainability as a key value in the business - starting with sustainable prices for growers. The roastery also uses sustainable preparation methods and makes sustainable choices around equipment, packaging and distribution. Altezano Brothers current coffee bags can be composted at home, with upcoming bags made from mono-material that can be recycled. The business also made a decision to roast sugar cane processed decaf instead of Swiss Water Process. From this, their decaf is better than it has ever been and doesn’t get shipped to British Columbia to have the caffeine removed.
The fantastic coffee scene on offer in New Zealand is something that Collins knows could be easy to take for granted. The industry has been around for a long time, and has recently been spreading out of the main cities and all over the country. With so many roasteries producing great coffee, expansion is inevitable and the Altezano Brothers head roaster hopes this will encourage the development of big format electric coffee roasters and more sustainability gains.
Despite how great Aotearoa has it, if he could travel anywhere for the coffee scene, Collins would love to visit the USA.
“There is a lot of innovation, and some great niche roasteries all over the country there - you just have to search them out.”
When not roasting, Collins still enjoys New Zealand music scenes, socialising over coffee and tunes.
altezanobrothers.co.nz
