Californian biz pedals bike-roasted coffee

I’ve heard of pedal powered fruit smoothie blending and can imagine somebody somewhere would grind their coffee beans by bike, but I’ve never heard of any business using a bike to roast coffee beans.

Until now.

“A sustainable, bike-powered coffee business starts operation,” reports The Californian Aggie.

A company founded three years ago by…Alex Roth initially roasted peppers, hence the name, but this year converted to coffee bean roasting and delivery.

The Pepper Peddler is trying to make an impact in the coffee industry by using unconventional and sustainable methods in a town that is conducive to both.

In the spirit of sustainability, the Pepper Peddler buys fair trade organic beans from Honduras and roasts them in a bike-powered apparatus Roth designed, built and adapted from what he created to roast peppers.

It’s the whole Davis concept of bikes everywhere and pedal power, Roth said. Why use a motor if you can use a bike?

Although we still use propane burners to do the roasting, the mechanical motion of the cooling is derived from the bike, he said. It’s actually a feasible thing and it’s one less resource needing to be consumed.

If you were interested in only making money you wouldn’t do a lot of things we do, Lorber said. We’re committed to sustainability and we’re doing what we can to make an example and modestly push forward to make the world a better place.

Get it fresh from here.