{"id":501893,"date":"2026-10-20T06:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T06:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/501893\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T06:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T06:16:12","slug":"sacramento-roaster-named-finalist-for-micro-roaster-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/501893\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento roaster named finalist for micro-roaster award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters<\/a>, one of the most esteemed roasters in Sacramento\u2019s expansive coffee scene, has been tapped as a finalist in Roast Magazine\u2019s 23rd annual Micro Roaster of the Year awards<\/a> for 2027.<\/p>\n

The trade magazine, which describes itself as a \u201cbi-monthly technical trade journal dedicated to the success and growth of the specialty coffee industry,\u201d runs the awards each year. Micro roasters are those producing less than 100,000 pounds of beans per year, and macro roasters are those that produce above that.<\/p>\n

According to Maxx Leekley, Production Lead & Inventory Manager at Chocolate Fish, the application process involves more than just roasting up a good bean.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really about sustainable practices. They\u2019re about the business side of roasting, everything that happens before it even gets to the roastery, so trading with producers, actually talking to farmers and learning their stories,\u201d they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roast Magazine scores the applications based on a variety of criteria, including the company\u2019s mission, its commitment to sustainability, employee education, its diversity, inclusion and equity policies, its\u00a0involvement in the coffee industry and innovations in roasting, marketing and business practices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jasmine Jasmine Croco, of Chocolate Fish Coffee, loads roasted coffee to be bagged on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

Once the applicants\u2019 scores are tallied, the finalists are asked to submit roasts for evaluation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018all right, here are the three categories. One was just a production roast, so something that you\u2019re already doing within your production standard, what you\u2019re selling your customers. One is a blend that is not an espresso, and then the last one is a wild card, so just whatever you wanted to throw in there,\u2019\u201d Leekley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Working with their manager, Andrew Owen, the roaster\u2019s director of roastery and education, they made the selections. For the production roast, they submitted Purple Caturra, a natural cold process coffee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Andrew Andrew Owen, Nathan Gauthier, Maxx Leekley, Victoria Cedillo and Jasmine Croco, of Chocolate Fish Coffee, on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. The coffee roaster will be named as a Finalist in Roast Magazine’s 2027 Micro Roaster of the Year competition, missing the top position by “a small margin.” HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

In natural process, coffee beans are left with the cherry, or fruit pulp, intact to ferment and dry. For Purple Caturra, the whole cherries are first stored in a cold room for 72 hours to slow fermentation, a fairly experimental process. The resulting bean has notes of coconut and tropical fruit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very strange coffee in that it kind of tastes the same no matter how you brew it,\u201d Owen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chocolate Fish rarely does blends; most of their coffees are single-source. For the blend, Owen and Leekley chose a combination of Nicaraguan and Colombian beans, dubbing it the Tatari Blend. Tatari is Maori for filter, a nod to the company\u2019s New Zealander roots. The blend has become sufficiently popular that it is now one of their standard offerings in the shops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Roasted Roasted coffee is dropped at Chocolate Fish Coffee on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. The store will be named as a Finalist in Roast Magazine’s 2027 Micro Roaster of the Year competition, missing the top position by “a small margin.” HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

For the wild card, they went with another experimental bean, Pink Bourbon. This is a cold washed process bean, meaning the cherry pulp is washed away from the bean before it\u2019s put in cold storage for 72 hours and then dried.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one\u2019s just very floral. It\u2019s got like lemongrass notes, lychee notes, just a really interesting cup. I think it fit the wild card section perfectly,\u201d Leekley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately Michigan-based Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters<\/a> took the top spot. While Roast Magazine wouldn\u2019t disclose final scores, Chocolate Fish learned that they missed only by a very small margin. Non-winners are not ranked, so all are just listed as finalists.<\/p>\n

This is not Chocolate Fish\u2019s first time in the running. The roaster was also tapped as a finalist for the 2023 awards, when the company was under its original ownership. Founders Andy and Edie Baker sold the company to Ali Syed and Asif Alvi in July 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hadn\u2019t re-applied mainly because we were finding our feet under the new ownership. Obviously it was a huge change, so it took us some time to find that foundation and find out who we were under the new ownership,\u201d Owen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Coffee Coffee is roasted at Chocolate Fish Coffee on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

Then, Leekley ran into Connie Blumhart, publisher of Roast Magazine, at the World of Coffee trade show in April, and she encouraged them to resubmit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe specifically was like, \u2018hey, I haven\u2019t seen your guys\u2019 submission. We love chocolate fish, and I think you guys should apply again.\u2019 It just gave us a really nice confidence boost, because she was reminding us how there\u2019s hundreds of applications, and to get that finalist spot was a big deal. So we definitely are gonna keep pushing at it and try and get the gold,\u201d Leekley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Sean Timberlake<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Sean Timberlake is the food and dining reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He has been writing professionally about food for over 20 years.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters, one of the most esteemed roasters in Sacramento\u2019s expansive coffee scene, has been tapped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-501893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}