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Ninefold Coffee roasters, Adelaide’s inner west

Roasts every Tuesday from 07:00

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Twelve minutes, every Tuesday.

We buy green coffee directly from the people who grow it, roast it once a week in Adelaide’s inner west and post it the same afternoon. Below is one batch, from charge to drop: each column of this page is one minute of it.each column is two minutes of it.

Illustrative model · drag the yellow square

Omni roast Colombia, washed

Red apple, panela, milk chocolate.

First crack
09:36 196.0 °C
Drop
12:00 208.2 °C
Development
2:24 · DTR 20.0
Turning point
01:36 85.7 °C

Sweet up front, clean at the finish; good black or with milk.

Drag the yellow square

One batch from charge to drop: the bean temperature falls to the turning point, climbs through drying and browning to first crack at 196 °C, and is dropped at 12 minutes; the black band below shows how fast it rises.

Six countries, one belt.

Coffee grows between the tropics, high up, where days are warm and nights are cool. This season’s six come from Africa, the Americas and New Guinea.

Map of the six origins, all between the tropics: Ethiopia and Rwanda in Africa; Colombia, Honduras and Brazil in the Americas; Papua New Guinea.
Land and country outlines: Natural Earth 1:110m, public domain. Drawn to show where the coffee grows, not to mark any boundary.

Six origins · choose one to set it in the curve

  • ETH Ethiopia · washed · 1,800–2,200 m
  • RWA Rwanda · washed · 1,500–2,000 m
  • COL Colombia · washed · 1,400–2,000 m
  • HND Honduras · washed · 1,200–1,700 m
  • BRA Brazil · natural · 900–1,300 m
  • PNG Papua New Guinea · washed · 1,400–1,900 m

Bought directly, by the bag

We buy green coffee from the people who grow it, by the bag. We don’t print prices or farm names here; ask about a coffee and we’ll tell you what we know about it.

  1. 01Samples arrive and are roasted small on a Monday.
  2. 02We cup them side by side and choose by taste.
  3. 03We buy by the bag and pay for it before it ships.
Raw green coffee beans spread edge to edge in window light.

A roast is heat over time.

We log two lines for every batch: the temperature of the beans and how fast it is rising. The shape of them tells you most of what ends up in the cup. Here is the batch at the top of the page, one phase at a time.

  1. Charge and turning point

    00:00–01:36 · 200 → 86 °C

    Green coffee drops into a drum at about 200 °C. The probe reads the hot air around the beans first, so the line falls. At the turning point the beans have taken on enough heat for the probe to read them, and the line climbs from there.

  2. Drying

    01:36–05:42 · to 150 °C

    Water leaves the bean. It turns from green to straw and smells of cut hay.

  3. Browning

    05:42–09:36 · 150–196 °C

    Sugars and proteins react and brown. Most of the sweetness is made here, and nearly all the colour.

  4. First crack

    09:36 · 196 °C

    Steam splits the bean along its crease with a crack you can hear, like popcorn in the next room. Everything after it is development.

  5. Development

    09:36–12:00 · 196–208 °C

    Keep it short and the coffee stays bright: citrus, stone fruit, flowers. Let it run and it turns to caramel, cocoa and roasted nuts. At 12:00 the batch drops into the cooling tray.

  6. Rate of rise

    °C a minute

    The black band: how many degrees the beans gain each minute. It should fall steadily. A dip just after first crack is normal. If it stalls the cup tastes flat; if it climbs again at the end it tastes scorched.

The same Colombian coffee, three ways.

Filter roast

FC 10:36 · Drop 201.5 °C · Dev 1:24 · DTR 11.7

Red apple, lime, cane sugar.

Light and quick, with a clean, tart finish. Best in a pour-over.

Omni roast

FC 09:36 · Drop 208.2 °C · Dev 2:24 · DTR 20.0

Red apple, panela, milk chocolate.

Sweet up front, clean at the finish; good black or with milk.

Dark espresso roast

FC 08:36 · Drop 217.7 °C · Dev 3:24 · DTR 28.3

Caramel, cocoa, roasted almond.

Heavy and low in acid, with the roast in front. Made for milk.

The model is a sketch for this page. Real batches are roasted by numbers and by ear.

Half the week’s work happens on Tuesday.

One roast day keeps the coffee fresh and the list short. Tuesday takes six of the twelve columns below because it does half the work.

Mon

Green

Tue 06:00–18:00

  1. 06:00 Roaster on. About 40 minutes to settle at 200 °C.

  2. 07:00 First batch. Light roasts first, dark last.

  3. 13:00 Packed. Every bag sealed, valved and dated.

  4. 15:00 Posted. Cafes in metro Adelaide delivered by 17:00.

Wed

Cup

Thu

Rest

Fri

Rest

Sat

Rest

Sun

Orders

Mon
Green coffee weighed for Tuesday. Samples roasted and cupped.
Wed
Every Tuesday batch cupped and written up.
Thu · Fri · Sat
Resting, in the post and on your shelf.
Sun
Orders close 23:59 for Tuesday.
Freshly roasted beans turning in a roaster’s round steel cooling tray.

Let it rest

Roasted coffee gives off carbon dioxide for a week or so; that is what the one-way valve on the bag is for. Give it a few days before you open it: four for filter, seven for espresso. The bag is dated, so you can count.

Rest

Filter
From day 4
Espresso
From day 7
Roasted
Tuesdays

Six coffees on the table this week.

Each is roasted on Tuesday to the roast in its row. Choose one to set it in the curve at the top of the page.

This week’s six coffees
CoffeeProcessVarietiesGrown atHarvestRoast, first crackNotes at that roast
ETH EthiopiaWashedLocal landraces1,800–2,200 mOct–JanOmni, 10:12Jasmine, bergamot, lemon
RWA RwandaWashedJackson, Mibirizi1,500–2,000 mMar–JulOmni, 09:42Plum, black tea, brown sugar
COL ColombiaWashedCastillo, Caturra1,400–2,000 mApr–Jun, Oct–JanOmni, 09:36Red apple, panela, milk chocolate
HND HondurasWashedCatuai, Parainema1,200–1,700 mNov–AprEspresso, 09:30Peach, honey, milk chocolate
BRA BrazilNaturalYellow Catuai, Mundo Novo900–1,300 mMay–SepEspresso, 09:00Dark chocolate, roasted hazelnut, treacle
PNG Papua New GuineaWashedTypica, Arusha1,400–1,900 mApr–SepEspresso, 09:30Papaya, cane sugar, cocoa nib

An illustrative list.

Words on the bag

Washed
The fruit is taken off before the bean dries, for a clean, clear cup.
Natural
The bean dries inside the whole cherry, for a heavier, fruitier one.
Landrace
A coffee plant grown from local seed rather than a named variety.
Omni roast
One roast that works for both filter and espresso.
First crack
The audible split at about 196 °C, where development begins.
DTR
Development time as a share of the whole batch, in per cent.
Rest
The days between roasting and opening the bag.
One-way valve
It lets carbon dioxide out and keeps air from getting in.
A cupping table: rows of white bowls of ground coffee and three silver spoons.

Making it at home, by weight.

  • Pour-over

    Ratio 1:16

    15 g of coffee to 240 g of water at 94 °C. Pour in three goes; done by 3:00 to 3:30.

  • Plunger

    Ratio 1:15

    30 g to 450 g of water just off the boil. Four minutes, stir the crust, then press.

  • Espresso

    Ratio 1:2

    18 g in the basket, 36 g in the cup, in 27 to 32 seconds.

  • Stovetop

    Fill

    The basket level without pressing, the base with hot water to just under the valve. Medium heat; off the heat when it starts to splutter.

A bag on Tuesday, as often as you like.

Choose the coffee, the size, the grind and how often. The receipt works out the price and the dates in your browser.

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Ninefold · subscription

250 g $17.00 · 500 g $31.00 · 1 kg $56.00 a bag (illustrative)

Roasted and posted every Tuesday

Orders close Sunday 23:59

Tuesday’s packing bench: plain white coffee bags, mailer boxes and a scale.

Roasted on Tuesday, at your cafe that afternoon.

Wholesale for cafes in metro Adelaide: a house espresso, a filter coffee that changes with the harvests, and the numbers for every batch. We come and set the grinder with you when you start, and again whenever the coffee changes.

  • A house espresso.

    An Omni or espresso roast, kept the same through the year as far as the harvests allow. Roasted every Tuesday.

  • A filter coffee that rotates.

    One of the six on the table, changed as new harvests arrive. We tell you a week ahead.

  • Delivered the day it is roasted.

    Tuesday afternoon, every bag dated, so it can rest on your own shelf: a week for espresso.

  • A batch sheet with every delivery.

    Your batch’s curve, printed like the top of this page: first crack, drop, development and DTR.

A cafe worker’s hands levelling ground coffee in a portafilter under the grinder.

Ask about wholesale

Interested in

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One key for the whole page.

  • White: fact. What we do and how it works.

  • Black: data. Tables, readouts, the rate of rise.

  • Blue: water. On the map, and nowhere else.

  • Yellow: live. What you have set, and the time now.

Why Ninefold

Espresso is made at about nine atmospheres: nine times the pressure of the air around us. We took the number and folded it into the name.

Set in Chivo and Fragment Mono. Land and country outlines from Natural Earth, public domain. The roast model, the coffee list and the prices are illustrative.

Ripe red coffee cherries on a branch against a red ground.

Ninefold · Adelaide’s inner west · Roasting on Tuesdays