The Host of the Roast

A chance phone call may have saved Christopher Pitotti’s business.

Pitotti is founder and “steward” of Pitotti Coffee Roasters, a wholesaler and retailer based in Spokane. The year was 2020. The pandemic was raging and the equipment the company had been using to roast its beans suddenly became unavailable.

Pitotti placed a frantic phone call to The Green Room, an Auburn company that was warehousing his product. Nobody was around, but the manager of an affiliated business, Roasterworks, answered the phone. Pitotti had never heard of a company like Roasterworks, a shared roasting facility that provides equipment needed to roast, package and sell coffee.

Problem solved.

“It is extremely unique,” says Pitotti, whose company roasts up to 600 pounds of coffee beans at a time. “We were in a panic. Without (Roasterworks) we think it would have been tragic for our business.”

Roasterworks is the brainchild of Daniel Ray, longtime chief executive officer of The Green Room, a third-party logistics provider offering order fulfillment, co-packing, assembly and bulk mailing for roasted and green coffee. Approximately half of the Seattle market’s green coffee beans sift through The Green Room’s Auburn warehouse, making it second to none, including Starbucks. At any given time, 26 million to 28 million pounds of beans from 100 importers and 35 countries, naked and stacked in 150-pound burlap bags, await the roasting oven. 

Three years ago, Ray launched Roasterworks, a 40,000-square-foot space tucked into The Green Room’s 200,000-square-foot facility, in part to stir Seattle’s coffee pot. Its business plan is embedded in its motto: “You Roast. We Host.” He believes Roasterworks is the only shared roasting facility in the region. Besides equipment, it provides space and classes to roast, package and sell coffee.

“It’s a cool environment and offers an easy way for people to gain access to coffee roasters and a community of people who are interested in collaborating,” says Ray, who calls Seattle the world’s coffee capital. “The coffee industry in Seattle is pretty non-inclusive, and the feedback I’ve gotten is people wish they knew about this business sooner.” 

Coffee roasting has become a mature science and refined art, and has evolved significantly during the past several centuries. Earlier methods included a perforated flat metal pan (good) and later a rotatable cylinder (better). The next significant leap in roasting technology was the invention of an automated contraption that allowed for uninterrupted batch loading and unloading. 

Today, much of the process is digitized. Roasterworks offers its clients a variety of options, including single-shot roasters for taste test labs, including a cupping laboratory that helps develop new roast profiles.

In its simplest form, roasting coffee isn’t much more complicated than baking cookies, and requires roughly the same amount of oven time. Many batches can be produced in a few hours by commercial clients. The devil is in the details. There are many variables that can be tweaked, including flavoring, fermenting, drying time, technique, and roasting time and temperature. Cinnamon and bourbon are trending as additives, as is storing the roasted bean in whisky or wine barrels. 

“I love the fact that even though coffee is an ancient industry that operates around the world, we’re still coming up with a lot of neat innovations,” says Ray, who came to The Green Room 20 years ago after working as a business process engineer at Providence Health & Services and as an industrial engineer at The Boeing Co.

The most important decisions roasters make involve sourcing. Coffee grading is complex, and there are many countries and points of origin. Roasterworks’ classes include extensive tutoring on the subject. Green beans can be safely stored for up to a year, while roasted beans begin to decline after 15 to 20 days. 

Roasterworks’ clients include grocery store owners, café operators and other industry professionals who want to save money and/or exert more control over the product they sell. Others are aspiring baristas in training, entrepreneurs just getting started and individuals who want to learn how to make great coffee. 

Companies sometimes rent the facility to hold events or fun getaways. Weddings and other social gatherings are also held there.

“I’m surprised at the amount of people who have found us by accident,” says Ray, who also has his own coffee line called White Rhino. A lot of people are just looking for something fun and unique. “It’s just a hobby, really. It’s something I have a passion for.” 

Coffee with Daniel Ray

Favorite drink: Double-shot espresso 

Preferred bean: Single-origin natural Ethiopian Yirgacheffe 

Best trivia: Coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world, behind oil. 

Pet peeve: So-called great restaurants that don’t serve great coffee 

Tool he would take to a deserted isle: AeroPress Go Travel Coffee Maker ($31.95) 

Most transcendental habit: Espresso at Café Vida, followed by a walk around the Seattle Center neighborhood