Many coffee shops in Vancouver claim to make the freshest cups of joe — but one east side coffee shop may have them beat.
For the past few years, Laughing Bean Coffee has grown and harvested coffee beans from a plant that grows in the corner of the shop.
This week, the berries were roasted and employees finally got a taste of the hyper-local brew.
“This is the best coffee I’ve ever had,” said Wayne Bertrand, co-owner of Laughing Bean.
The coffee was roasted at JJ Bean, a supplier and business partner of Laughing Bean.
Staff gathered at the JJ Bean Cafe at Main Street and 14th Avenue on Wednesday for the tasting, with samplers saying the flavor profile featured notes of cinnamon, popcorn and wood.
“We’ve never tasted coffee that was grown in Canada before. It’s one of a kind for us,” said Grady Buhler, JJ Bean’s Coffee Quality Leader.
“It’s not specialty coffee by any means, but it doesn’t have any blemishes or flaws,” Buehler said.
One of the rare cups of hyper-local coffee, pictured at the recent staff tasting at JJ Bean. The beans come from a coffee plant grown at Laughing Bean Coffee. (Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC)
Coffee is not generally grown in Canada because the plants require constant heat. But Bertrand says he was able to grow the coffee by meticulously tending to the plant and drying the fruit as he picked each batch.
New life for a neglected plant
The plant was gifted to the East Hastings Street cafe by a customer when it first opened 19 years ago.
“For quite a few years it just sat there in the corner without me taking care of it, looking kind of sick,” Bertrand said.
In 2015, Bertrand decided it was time to start taking care of the plant. He repotted it, gave it better soil and started watering and pruning it regularly.
Unripe coffee cherries on the Laughing Bean Coffee plant. They will turn red in a few months and be ready to harvest. (Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC)
“Boy, he loved that. It just took off,” Bertrand said.
In 2018, Bertrand left for the winter on a temporary job at Big White Ski Resort. When he returned in the spring, he was shocked to find the plant had a “burst of beautiful white flowers.”
He did not think it possible for a coffee plant to flourish in Canada.
After a few months, the flowers have grown into brown fruits known as cherries. Once they ripen and turn red, they are ready to harvest.
“I was crushed [the beans] from the cherries, put them on a plate and let them dry,” said Bertrand.
A jar of beans. (Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC)
It took two harvests over two years to produce a pound of beans, with the harvest yielding about eight cups of coffee and a jar of beans left over for future batches.
This means that growing coffee will not be a commercial activity for Laughing Bean. But Bertrand says he wants to keep harvesting and try different processes.
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