What Makes Coffee Better? It Starts with Care—And Ends with Precision
At Smoking Gun Coffee Roasters, we believe great coffee doesn’t happen by accident. Sure, "vibes" help, but it's really all about the science - and experience. It’s the result of thousands of small, deliberate choices—starting on the farm and ending in your cup. When you buy a bag of our coffee, you’re tasting the work of dedicated farmers, rigorous quality testing, and a roasting process driven by both data and intuition.
It All Starts With Exceptional Green Coffee
Before we ever touch the roaster, our team carefully selects green coffee beans from producers who share our values. These farmers are deeply invested in quality—from how they harvest cherries to how they process, dry, and ship them. Some are certified organic or Fair Trade, but we also work with many small producers who, despite lacking formal certification, uphold equally high ethical and agricultural standards. Their work deserves respect, and the best way we can show that is by roasting their coffee with precision and care. You can read a bit about our sourcing practices here.
The Roasting Process: Where Science Meets Art
Roasting isn’t just about turning green coffee brown. It’s about unlocking the complex flavours hidden in each bean. At Smoking Gun, we use roast profiles—or “roast curves”—to develop every coffee in a way that highlights its origin characteristics, balance, and sweetness. These curves track temperature and time across the entire roast, letting us replicate results or make fine-tuned adjustments based on how the coffee is performing from batch to batch.
Every roast is carefully monitored, and we’re not afraid to roast a coffee dozens of different ways before we land on the ideal profile. We believe nuance matters—because our customers can taste it.
Precision Tools, Consistent Quality
One of the tools we rely on for consistency is the Agtron or colorimeter test, which measures roast development using a color scale. This ensures that every batch is roasted to the intended level—whether that’s a light roast for a bright, juicy Kenyan or a deeper roast for a rich, chocolatey blend. We log color readings on every production batch, because when you’re aiming for the best coffee in Canada, “close enough” just doesn’t cut it.
We also use Cropster, an industry-leading roast profiling and quality control software. Cropster allows us to track every detail of the roasting process in real time—from temperature curves and rate-of-rise to batch logs and cupping scores. It creates a digital fingerprint for each roast, helping us stay consistent, spot trends, and make data-informed adjustments. Whether we're dialing in a new single origin or keeping our blends true to flavour, Cropster helps us maintain the highest level of precision across every roast.
In addition to color and software tracking, we pay close attention to bean density, moisture content, and first crack development. Each data point gives us insight into how to approach a coffee’s unique potential. This technical side of roasting helps us bring out consistent flavour notes in each bag—something our customers have come to rely on, whether they’re brewing at home or serving it in a café.
Tasting and Feedback Loops
Quality control doesn’t stop when the roast ends. Every week, we cup our coffees—blind taste-testing them alongside control samples and previous roasts. We evaluate for clarity, balance, sweetness, and overall character. If something is off, we dig into why and make corrections. Our small batch size allows us to stay nimble, responsive, and dedicated to the highest standards.
In fact, it’s this obsessive attention to detail that has helped us earn praise from coffee lovers across the country. When people search for award-winning coffee in Canada or wonder what makes coffee better, we hope they find not just our coffee beans—but a taste that lives up to it.
Roasting With Integrity
We’re proud of the work we do—but we’re just one part of the coffee’s journey. Our job is to honour the work of the people who grow it, by roasting every batch with care, science, and a little bit of intuition. Whether you’re drinking a bright Ethiopian single origin or one of our signature blends, you can trust that it’s passed every test we have—both on the cupping table and in our hearts.
Explore our coffees today and taste the difference that thoughtful roasting makes. Check out our full line-up of whole bean specialty coffee here.