The Hayes' Coffee Processing Method Raw, unroasted coffees are referred to as "greens". Greens, shipped in burlap bags, arrive at U.S. ports of entry from around the world. Upon arrival, they are filthy with dirt and dust. While still at the port of entry, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture bombards the loosely woven burlap with very strong pesticides, fumigants, and other strong chemicals to protect American crops from contamination. The greens are then brought to warehouses to later be sold to brokers and roasters. All the while, filth builds up on the greens along with warehouse dirt and grime. When roasters buy greens they're on pallets, which are shipped by train or truck to the roasting facility. Big coffee companies use what are called "rotary roasters". Similar to ovens, these are cylindrical roasters that bake greens rather than truly roasting them. This is acceptable for low-cost mass production. We won't accept this sacrifice of quality. The big coffee companies dump the bags of greens into these rotary roasters and bake the greens until they're brown. Baking in rotary roasters produces strong tars by quite literally baking the chemical pesticides, fumigants, filth, dust, and dirt right onto the coffee beans. As with cigarettes, it's the tar, not the nicotine, that causes cancer. Our process is different. Before roasting our greens we quite literally wash the greens in mild, ecologically friendly detergent. We then rinse the greens 3 times in cold water, and dry completely in strainers. We are the only roasters in the entire trade who wash greens before roasting. It may take longer and reduce the profit margin, but the result is an astoundingly clean, sweet taste in your coffee cup. The clean, clear coffee taste is worth the extra effort. You wash your fresh fruit and fresh vegetables before you cook or eat them. We wash our raw green coffees before we roast. We are the only roasters who do this. We use our own custom-made hot air fluid bed roasters and actually roast coffee. 440° heat is blown up at the green coffee beans with a force so strong the beans are continuously in motion. They spout about in the roaster in an on-going fluid motion roasting, rather than baking, the beans. The beans are perfectly roasted as the chafe is blown up and out of the roaster. When the beans are perfectly brown we simply switch off the heat and leave on the strong blowers, cooling the beans slowly. This unique process renders absolutely tar-free beans, resulting in clean, sweet tasting coffee. These are the absolute finest tasting coffees that money can buy. We slow roast to bring out the very maximum aroma, we dry roast to bring out the maximum flavor... clean, clear, tar-free, and deliciously flavorful.