With the end of the ski season quickly approaching I began to realize that a full-on opening day for Double Decker Coffee Roasting was unlikely. Critical issues such as a lack of potable water still needed to be addressed and the Callaghan Valley would quickly be void of skiers in a few weeks. Once I recognized the amount of work that needed to be completed in order to obtain an operating permit from Vancouver Coastal Health, I decided to take a short cut. Instead of fully opening Double Decker for the remainder of the ski season, I would simply do a “Soft Open” with a limited menu but a simple statement, that the weird double decker bus that has been under renovations all season is in-fact a coffee roastery and cafe. By opening for just one weekend, I would be able to file as a special event, similar to what is needed for a BBQ at a kids soccer tournament. Under a special event permit all that is required is a clean area, a hand washing station, and potable water which can be brought in by bulk jugs. Although I would not be able to offer value added coffees from the espresso  machine under such a permit, it would still give me the ability to get my fresh roasted coffee into the hands of local skiers before the season ended. With the decision to move ahead with a Temporary Food Permit, I needed to button down all the loose details in the bus, pack up the tools, clean up the sawdust, and start moving in the café equipment.

​The day starts around 6am plowing the previous night’s snowfall from the parking lot. Once the parkinglot is clear I fire up the snowcat and begin to manicure the Alexander Falls Ski Touring Center. Once the parkinglot and base area is cleared of snow and ready for customer traffic I set off in the snowcat to resurface and build out Callaghan Country’s Nordic trail network. Due to the volume of seemingly endless snowfall this season, the snowcat is burning considerably more fuel than normal, and the day’s work plan differs largely from a regular season. In a usual winter season the snow falls in manageable increments, allowing me to slowly build out the trail network. Incremental snowfall also allows for the trail to properly settle, firm up and transform into a great foundation for the rest of the winter. This season differs in that the snow fell continuously, so I had to keep packing hoping it would eventually consolidate. Without a solid snow base to build off, the snowcat would swim through the snow rather than drive on top of it resulting in poor fuel economy, slow progression building trails and ultimately more wear and tear on the machine. During these storm cycles the day’s workload is based entirely on how much fuel the cat has on board and how much I can get done before I need to return to base for a refuel, usually resulting in a stressful gaslight ride home. By the time I return to the Alexander Falls Ski Touring Center (where my home and bus is) to start work on the bus for the evening, it is around 8 pm. A quick granola bar and apple seems to give me enough energy to work on the bus till midnight, where I force myself to stop work and go to bed. After all, it starts all over again in just six hours!

It’s the first week of December and it has yet to snow in the Callaghan Valley. The first guests for Callaghan Country’s Journeyman Lodge arrive mid-December, and there is yet to be any recognizable ski product on the landscape. Although the lack of snow is stressful on the Callaghan Country front, as far as Double Decker Coffee Roasting goes it is a blessing. I have completely blown out my opening day goal of December 1st, with huge portions of the build still needing to take place. 

If I remember correctly, The windows that had blown out in transit had finally been replaced (at a ridiculous cost).  I was still working on roof eves and soffits, a job I had been putting off due to the constant rain. Eventually I realized the rain wasn't going to stop so I just committed to the misery and worked under the eve all day in the coastal rain.  In the interior of the bus, huge portions still needed to be demo-ed before I could even start  building frames  for countertops and finalizing equipment locations in order for plumbing and electrical work to continue.

The bus itself still needed to jacked up onto blocks to get the weight off the tires and better stabilize its footing. Although jacking the bus up was an intimidating task given that I don't have any proper equipment, I was able to slowly work my way up. With two simple bottle jacks from Canadian tire I was able to pick the bus up millimetre by millimetre till I eventually had it entirely off the ground. I then slid four huge wood beams underneath to rest the frame of the bus on. After that, I pushed gravel back up around the tires to give the illusion it was still drivable. 

Throughout the build I had done a decent job at cleaning the work site at the end of each day, maintaining tools and keeping things together. However, as we got deeper into fall and the build timeline began to run out things started to get messy. By the time December rolled around the surrounding worksite of the bus had plywood, tools, scaffolding absolutely everywhere on the ground. Anytime I had previously been using to keep a clean and organized job site was now being used to push through the build as quick as I could as I knew it was the final days before the snow came. 

​One would assume that somebody starting a coffee roastery and café would be fairly involved in coffee, likely spending years in the trade growing their skill set, knowledge, and overall understanding of the industry. My coffee background differs entirely in that it is not only limited but also truly lies at the bottom end of quality regarding consumption. The majority of coffee I have enjoyed has been poured from a gas station, bush camp, or fast-food franchise. I have never worked in a café or coffee roastery and have really only been drinking coffee for a few years. So what is my motive for pursuing a coffee company? Well simply put, I figure that if I can be this passionate about the bad coffee I have consumed over the years, think of what I could do with GREAT coffee! 
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​Due to my overall lack of experience in pretty well all aspects of this line of work, I decided it would behove me to take some courses and get educated. However, due to my already tight build timeline for the bus, I would not be able to take all the courses I’d like to at once or even in the same year. So, I decided to start with three-day Diedrich Coffee Profiling Course offered right there at the Diedrich Roasters production facility in Sandpoint, Idaho. Luckily the course lined up perfectly with when my IR 2.5 Diedrich Roaster would be available, so I could save a little on shipping and drive my roaster over the boarder myself. ​

​When I arrived in Sandpoint one thing became very apparent, people LOVE coffee there. The number of independent coffee shops and complete lack of franchise coffee absolutely blew me away. I could not believe that just a few hours south of the boarder there could be such a dramatic change in coffee culture. One resident of Sandpoint told me there was 50 independent coffee shops in and around Sandpoint, a resort town of just 7,000 permanent residents. Compare that to Whistler, Canada’s premier resort town with 12,000 residents that has less than 20 coffee shops total, the majority of which are Tim Hortons and Starbucks locations. Needless to say, taking a coffee profiling course in a town with such a strong coffee culture really solidified the experience. 

​As far as Diedrich’s Coffee Profile Course went, I couldn’t think of a better way to enter the industry. Everybody at the company was so inviting and supportive on all aspects from coffee roasting itself to overall entrepreneurship and running a small business. The first day of the course really starts with a wide scope covering everything about green coffee and understanding all its variables, working with an exporter/importer, heat transfer in a Diedrich Roaster, and sample theory. The second day the focus is on profiling, roasting to multiple colours, choosing a colour then changing the amount of time to get to that end colour. The second day also hosts a plant tour of the Diedrich facility itself, allowing you to see how the roasters are built from the ground up and the care that goes into them. I found the plant tour to be extremely beneficial in quenching my curiosities as large portions of the roaster you never see inside, and to be able to see their production gives a better understanding of what exactly is going on inside the roaster. On day three the focus is on how and when heat is applied to the roast, and what the outcome of these different applications are. 

Throughout the three days you are continuously cupping the coffee you roasted to identify the differences and improvements throughout the day to day advancements. Although you do a lot of cupping in the course, it is a serious skill, one that I will need to continue to pursue to pick up sodalities in flavour. However, even at my novice level I was able to decipher that this cup does taste different or better than that cup. Although cupping can be quite frustrating at times due huge amount of caffeine ingested by the process, it is really the wake up call that the same coffee bean roasted in different manners can taste hugely different. Prior to taking the Profiling Course I had an idea that you could alter the flavour through the roast process, but I had no idea the degree of control you have over the end products flavour if you have the right education and skill set.

​With the Profiling course completed I headed back to Canada to install my new roaster, and see what aspects of the course stuck and which will need to be reinforced! In the future I will need to seek out opportunities to sit in on other roaster's processes, take some more cupping specific courses, and at some point take some basic business courses cause at this point I am simply winging it!