He describes his coffee playfully as "not third-wave-sour or italian-bitter. Geographically this fits as our little town Bad Kötzting is located somewhere between Oslo/Berlin and Naples", says Matthias in our conversation.
Machines:
Production roaster: Kirsch + Mausser UG22
Sample roasters: CoffeeTool R500, Ikawa V1
Capacity: 22 kg
Production volume: ~ 14 tons per year
Customer since: 2018
# of cafes: 1 shop where they also serve coffee beverages
Location: Bad Kötzting, Bavaria, Germany
Gscheid.Haferl's cafe and shop is only a few minutes from their roastery. Photo credit: Gscheid.Haferl
Matthias has always preferred to drink good coffee. This wasn't easy in the past as most of the roasteries were located quite far from his hometown. In 2015 he decided to try roasting himself. He bought a used home roaster (Quest M3) and some green coffee over the internet. His first roasts actually tasted quite good so the idea of opening his own roastery was born quickly.
From the start, Matthias was rather technical. As a qualified mechatronic engineer it was a given that he would build sensors into his next roast machine, a 2 kg CoffeeTech. He also recorded his roast curves with an open source tool right away. A few months after his first roasting experiences, Matthias quit his job and started his own business. Today, he owns his 7th roast machine, a Kirsch & Mausser UG22, and the demand for his coffee is increasing daily from both wholesale and individual clients.
His goal: Introduce an excellent cup of coffee to his region (note: the name gscheid.haferl literally means clever cup)
To achieve this goal, Matthias makes sure his green coffees have a very good quality. He also knows that it's his job to roast his coffees in a way that quality and consistency is maintained and that the way he roasts has a big influence on aroma and flavor. That's why he records all roast curves and compares them to improve the consistency of his coffees.
Photo credit: Gscheid.Haferl
The tool: Cropster can do a lot more than just track roast curves.
As said before, he was using an open source tool to track his roasts when he started out. Matthias justified: "When you're a roast beginner with almost no budget, you have to start somewhere. However, sooner or later you will hear other roasters talk about Cropster." At an event at his friend's roastery Wildkaffee in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the very south of Bavaria, he met someone from Cropster and soon realized that you can do so much more than just track your roast curves. "I found out that you can manage your green coffees in a simpler way and production planning looked so much easier as well. Plus, it's also a fantastic tool to compare all your profiles and evaluate which one is the best", Matthias adds.
Photo credit: Gscheid.Haferl
As mentioned above, Matthias aims to buy high-quality coffees. In his view, relationship coffee is important and he tries to personally meet all farmers that he has a partnership with. Thus, he does origin trips regularly and loves that he can keep an overview of his green coffee inventory no matter where in the world he is. He can just log into his Cropster account from his phone and check how much coffee is still available in the warehouses in Hamburg or his roastery in Bavaria.
Compared to pre-Cropster, I can now plan my green coffee buying much better. In the evenings, I can check my inventory from home to make sure were not below any thresholds. I know anywhere and at any time, how much green coffee of which lot is still available. I feel more relaxed and reassured.
Matthias has a faible for numbers and enjoys working with the production report in Cropster. With it, he can see how much they've produced in the last weeks or months. Together with the projection it helps him decide how much green coffee he needs to buy for the future. One day, he even ordered coffees while sitting in the back of a jeep during an origin trip in Colombia. Talk about efficiency!
Same goes for any other industry event or trade show where he is looking for new partners. "When I speak to my farmer from Brazil at World of Coffee in Europe about the next harvest, I can quickly check my yearly production of Brazilian coffee and the projection on my phone. With that information, we can plan ahead together", Matthias says enthusiastically. Quick expert tip: you can download the production report as a PDF-file easily and use it for tax and custom related reporting. Matthias and every other German roaster saves valuable time as the data is recorded automatically. Plus, it's prone to fewer errors and makes a manual bookkeeping of all roasts unnecessary.
Photo credit: Gscheid.Haferl
Moreover, Matthias thinks it's very practical that he can schedule his production multiple days in advance. Today, Matthias spends more time on managing his roastery and less time on roasting himself. His employee and roaster, also called Matthias, is doing most of the production now. :-) With Cropster, Matthias (the owner) can sit in his shop on a Saturday afternoon and create an efficient roast schedule for the next week on his tablet easily. Right away, he can check the coffee shelf to see which coffees are almost out and schedule the roast batches accordingly. Once the other Matthias (the roaster) starts up Roasting Intelligence on the computer in the roastery on Monday morning, he immediately sees how many batches he has to roast.
Finally, Matthias appreciates that he can simply update the roast schedule shortly before the production starts. Meaning, if he gets a bigger wholesale order via email in the evening, he can just add more roast batches to the schedule on his phone or tablet right away or quickly in the morning. Plus, with Order to roast in Cropster he doesn't have to compare his orders with the inventory anymore. Cropster automatically updates the green inventory with every roast completed and calculates the batches for him in no time. Cropster has made life as a business owner much easier for Matthias!
