Uncle Paul’s Coffee---the power of the bean
| Business |
By LeRae Haynes
Uncle Paul’s Coffee is a local business that brings in coffee beans from around the world, fresh-roasts it and delivers the coffee beans, whole or ground, to local businesses, offices and restaurants.
Ken Dubielew and Della Rauch bought Uncle Paul’s Coffee in 2008 and moved the business to the office area of Ken’s truck shop on Mackenzie Avenue.
(Photo: Ken Dubielew and Della Rauch are the owners of Uncle Paul’s Coffee, and are committed to providing a fresh-roasted, high-quality product in the community and beyond.)
Uncle Paul’s is a small business with big ideas, and is celebrating 10 years in Williams Lake. “We got involved with this business because of Paul,” Della explained. “I started volunteering at the Medieval Market and used his coffee, and when I started my own food business three years ago I used his coffee. I went to pick up some coffee from him one time and he told me that he wanted to sell, that he thought I should buy it, and offered to teach us how to run the business.”
She said that, with the forest industry going the way it was, this was a good way for Ken to diversify, and in a year they have tripled the volume of Uncle Paul’s Coffee.
“Paul’s dream was to have fresh-roasted coffee in the Cariboo and we're sustaining that vision,” Della stated.
The beans at Uncle Paul’s are from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Kenya, Tanzania, Columbia, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, New Guinea, Indonesia, Brazil and Peru.
“We order beans from all these different places because there is so much variety in the flavours, and also because the growing seasons differ from place to place and we can get the coffee beans all year,” Ken explained.
“Ethiopian coffee is the strongest, but with no strong aftertaste, for example, and Guatemalan and Sumatran are a lighter coffee.”
Bags of Uncle Paul’s gourmet blend coffee are for sale at Red Shreds, Margetts Meats, Beeothcheese Bistro, Jolt of Java and the Station House Gallery.
“Both the Gecko Tree and Beeotcheese serve their own special blend Uncle Paul’s coffee, and you can enjoy it at the BoHo Grove, TRU Food services and in various businesses and offices in town,” Della continued, adding that Uncle Paul’s prices have stayed the same for the past 10 years.
Ken said that the beans expand to 2 1/2 times their original size as they roast. “They ‘pop’ twice while they’re roasting while the moisture and the oils escape---their moisture content is about 10%”, he said. “They change from a non-descript green or tan colour to a cinnamon colour to a deep, dark rich-coloured bean.”
Ken said that for the first two months using the coffee roaster he didn’t get any sleep. “I discovered that the caffeine was absorbed through the skin on my hands---I started using gloves and it’s better now.”
Coffee is the only natural energy drink, according to Ken. “This is organic, and it goes from ‘green to steam’ in an hour,” he continued. “It doesn’t sit on a shelf or in a truck or in a warehouse for days or for weeks: it’s fresh, real coffee.”
For more information about Uncle Paul’s Coffee, phone 250-398-6195 or visit their website at www.unclepaulscoffee.com
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
