Spilling the Beans on our Coffee

If you’ve been to Ono’s Smoothie Bowls, you already know that our coffee is locally roasted. We love the coffee we get from Cafe Oro Verde. The owner, master roaster Wence Aguirre, knows more about coffee than we know about smoothies – and that’s quite a lot! With knowledge comes a deep passion and a commitment to the best coffee in the bay, something we’re happy to get behind. Wence is the head and heart of our very best blends at Ono’s.

Our Coffee Journey

The journey that those little beans take from the Sierra Madres just inland from Puerto Vallarta into your cup at Ono’s is actually pretty fascinating. Unlike money (unfortunately), coffee beans come from trees, grown from unprocessed beans. The trees usually take up to four years to yield any fruit, called coffee cherries (cherries and coffee – sign us up!). 

Once the cherries are ready, they can be picked by hand. Sounds pretty labor intensive, when we think about how many beans it takes to get us up in the morning. 100 pounds of cherries produce only about 20 pounds of beans. Seems pretty hard to be a cherry-picker after all!

When the cherries have been picked, processing needs to begin almost immediately, or the cherries will quickly spoil. Several weeks are needed to dry the beans adequately (about 11% moisture is left after the drying process). Once dry, the beans are ready to be milled, the outer husk removed. 

And that’s where our friend Wence comes in. Once he receives the beans, it’s his job to get them toasted and roasted. He has to do this carefully, allowing the fragrant oil, called caffeol, to emerge without burning the bean – only a master could get such a perfect roast!

Locally Roasted Coffee

Once the beans are roasted, they are quickly cooled, packaged, and sent over to us at Ono’s. Time to get our grind on to make sure you get the most flavor from those beautiful beans. The less time the coffee will be in contact with the water, the finer the grind should be. Our espresso drinks use a very fine grind, and of course that means you get a mighty fine coffee.

Try out the coffee menu at Ono’s, where a mocha frap will hit that sweet spot now that the weather is hot!