Many Vancouver cafes claim to make the coolest joe cups, but an Eastern cafe could have them all.
Over the past few years, Laughing Bean Coffee has grown and harvested coffee berries from a plant that grows in the corner of the store.
This week, the berries have been toasted and the staff has finally been able to taste the hyperlocal beer.
“It’s the best coffee I’ve ever had,” said Wayne Bertrand, co-owner of Laughing Bean.
The coffee was roasted at JJ Bean, a supplier and business partner of Laughing Bean.
Staff gathered at the JJ Bean Cafe on Main Street and 14th Avenue Wednesday for tasting, and participants said the flavor profile contained touches of cinnamon, popcorn and wood.
“We’ve never tasted a coffee that was grown in Canada before. It’s unique to us,” said Grady Buhler, coffee quality leader at JJ Bean.
“It’s by no means a special coffee, but it has no blemishes or flaws,” Buhler said.
One of the rare cups of hyperlocal coffee, in the photo of the staff’s recent tasting at JJ Bean. The beans came from a coffee plant grown in Laughing Bean Coffee. (Gian Paolo Mendoza / CBC)
Coffee is not normally grown in Canada, as the plants require constant heat. But Bertrand says he was able to grow the coffee by meticulously caring for the plant and drying the berries as he harvested each batch.
New life for an abandoned plant
The plant was donated to the East Hastings Street cafe by a customer when it opened 19 years ago.
“For a few years he sat in the corner and I didn’t take care of him, looking a little sick,” Bertrand said.
In 2015, Bertrand decided it was time to start taking care of the plant. He put it back in the pot, gave it better soil, and began watering it and pruning it regularly.
Green coffee cherries on the floor at Laughing Bean Coffee. They will turn red in a few months and be ready for harvest. (Gian Paolo Mendoza / CBC)
“Boy, he loved that. He just fired,” Bertrand said.
In 2018, Bertrand left in the winter to look for a temporary job at the Big White Ski Resort. When he returned in the spring, he was surprised to find that the plant had “a burst of beautiful white flowers.”
He did not believe that it was possible for a coffee plant to flourish in Canada.
After a few months, the flowers turned into coffee berries, properly known as cherries. Once they ripened and turned red, they were ready for harvest.
“I crushed [the beans] of the cherries, put them on a plate and let them dry, ”said Bertrand.
A jar of beans. (Gian Paolo Mendoza / CBC)
It took two harvests over two years to get a pound of beans, with the crop producing about eight cups of coffee and a jar of leftover beans for future batches.
This means that growing coffee will not be a commercial activity for Laughing Bean. But Bertrand says he wants to continue harvesting and trying different processes.