Santa Rosa’s Redwood Gospel Mission trains coffee roasters, sells to churches

Santa Rosa’s Redwood Gospel Mission is roasting coffee as both a job training program and a business whose artisanal product is being purchased by area churches.

Sixteen Sonoma County churches this spring began buying the mission’s roasted whole bean and ground coffees. This summer, the organization plans to sell bags of coffee to churchgoers via a subscription service.

The roasting program resonated with leaders at Mark West Neighborhood Church near Windsor, said Pastor Nick Ratiani.

“To top it all off, the coffee’s really good,” Ratiani said. The church first served the mission’s coffee on Easter and received “a very positive response.” Several church members came up afterward and asked how they could buy the coffee to make at home.

Jeff Gilman, the mission’s executive director, said he wants to provide opportunities for meaningful employment to clients in the mission’s New Life rehabilitation program, which serves those who have been homeless or addicted to drugs or alcohol. The coffee sales will help make the training possible.

“We want it to be a profitable business, but we want it to be a business that has the focus of providing training first and is socially responsible,” he said.

Trainees will spend three months in the coffee program. They will learn the roasting process and how to grade and taste coffee, said Max Bretzke, the program’s director.

“You have to develop a palate and vocabulary to describe what you taste,” said Bretzke, who spent eight years as a coffee barista, head roaster, coffee buyer and trainer of baristas.

Bretzke, who is also an elder at Refuge Christian Fellowship in Santa Rosa, said the coffee business definitely has job opportunities.

The mission program can help trainees one day advance beyond barista positions to better-paying jobs in roasting and quality control.

Gilman and Bretzke want the business to grow to the point where missionaries abroad help put them in touch with coffee farmers to build relationships that can benefit all involved.

“We really want to invest in a community rather than just get coffee,” Bretzke said.

On Wednesday, Bretzke and his first two trainees, Derek Bessire and Christian Crossland, roasted 40 pounds of coffee at a cooperative roasting facility in Berkeley.

Bessire said the training already has opened his eyes to the many ways the roasting process can be tweaked to change the flavor of the final product.

“It’s more of an art form than throwing something in a machine and hitting some buttons,” he said.

Crossland said he hopes to work in the coffee business and to one day open his own coffee shop. The training, he said, will give him experience and insight “so I know what I’ll need to do to work toward that goal.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit.