Brian Freire brings a hand-crafted nature to the nuances of roasting.

The act of roasting coffee can be incredibly meditative. It’s not always a clock in, clock out type of job, although it is what you make of it. Coffee can be, and often is, roasted on autopilot without much consideration for unique flavour profiles or origin specifics. For some folks though, roasting is a complex journey that takes a certain amount of rhythm and a significant amount of knowledge to execute excellently. Keeping in mind the larger operation, a roaster must move and shake along with the flow of production to manage the timing of coffee output. They have to back up their technical skills with a stockpile of information for each coffee. This level of nuance shows itself in the cup. A discerning palate can pick an expertly roasted coffee out of a lineup, noting the careful attention paid to that particular batch. Few people in the specialty coffee industry embody this holistic view of roasting, but Brian Freire is certainly one of them.

While his early barista experience led to being a young coffee expert, he remained curious about the techniques of fellow American latte art aficionados.

Before becoming a genuine man of the world, living in Spain, Colombia and Italy, Brian started in the coffee industry in Iowa City, Iowa where he spent his formative years while his father worked on his PhD. He started his coffee career at a company called Java House in 1995, just a year after they opened. His adventurous spirit soon took him to other jobs, but he didn’t find them nearly as interesting. He satisfied the itch to go back into coffee, so he returned to Java House in 2002 as a barista trainer. Brian’s patient, understanding nature worked well for this role and it was the sort of work that kept him engaged in the industry enough to settle into a longer-term career.

In 2005, the popularity of latte art competitions was on the rise thanks to the fairly new concept of online image sharing. In short, Brian had exceptional latte art skills and was excited to showcase his talent in a creative way.  His barista experience and years of training employees set him up to do well in these competitions. As a regular participant, he also began meeting people in the US coffee scene from all around the country. He’s always been interested in how different people from all over bring their own twist to their niche of the industry. When those niches are shared, they offer opportunities to learn from one another and encourage industry members to stay engaged.

A continued pursuit of his coffee-making and hiking dreams led Brian on a round trip of exploration, with the Pacific Northwest calling his name.

By 2006, Brian’s adventurous side craved a change of scenery. His brother was living in Rome, so he decided to move there. He started working as a bartender, soaking up how cultural and geographical differences affected the service work he was so intimately familiar with in the United States. Bars in Rome are equipped with espresso machines and Brian enjoyed showing off his latte art skills while making cappuccinos and macchiatos. Then, most Romans had never seen latte art in their beverages, so it was easy for him to wow his customers and keep his skills honed.

While living in Italy he began developing an interest in hiking and set a goal to hike Grande Traversata delle Alpi through the Italian Alps with his brother. This newfound interest drew him back to the US to hike the Pacific Coast Trail through Washington, Oregon and California; even undertaking an ultra-distance hike. Upon his return in 2008, Brian also reconnected with his (now) wife and decided to stay in the US with her. Together they looked for an interesting place to live on the west coast, fell in love with Portland and decided to stay. He wanted to get back in the coffee industry, so he applied to every reputable coffee company in the city before finally landing a job at a coffee bar called Barista in 2009.

Being a positively disruptive innovator and a humble learner became the ideal formula in becoming a coffee community leader with a global perspective.

Being back in the US working in the industry he loved was a great step in channelling his various coffee experiences into a promising career path. Brian has always loved crafting sensory experiences for people. He started to become a staple in the Pacific Northwestern specialty coffee community due to his incredible skill and affable personality. He relished the opportunity to share his passion for coffee with his community, even with people who may not be ready to hear it. 

Brian reminisced on a specific experience of carting a hand grinder, a scale and delicious coffee all the way to visit family in Colombia only to have them not appreciate it. It was a humbling experience, but it gave him a challenge to overcome in finding new and different ways to get people excited about coffee. Drawing from his curiosity to understand how people from different cultural backgrounds live, he was able to find ways to share his passion for crafting drinks for people.

Brian’s love for nuanced specialty coffee and international adventure has landed him at Coava Coffee where he still calls home.

In 2012, he was able to dive further into the craft and began roasting coffee with Coava Coffee. This role is where he feels most at home. He roasts on both small and large scale––the former while he’s vetting coffees before buying them in large quantities; the latter to fulfill Coava’s wholesale and retail needs. He balances this role with his quality control work. His fluency in Spanish has also paid dividends by affording him opportunities to head up coffee sourcing in Central America. He’s now able to marry his interests in crafting sensory experiences for people with the meditative act of roasting. The trajectory of his career has landed him at Coava for now. Here, he can focus his attention on the details of a single coffee and introduce that coffee and all its nuance to his community. He can share his love of adventure through the coffees he sources, the stories those coffees hold and the diligence it takes to display those coffees well. The rhythm of this work is good and necessary, and Brian is a true example of just how well it can be done.