Coffee Nomad

Brian and Bruce Bergeson (brothers) own Bergie’s Coffee Roast House (“Bergie” is Brian Bergeson’s nickname). According to Brian, they would like to concentrate on the roasting aspect of the coffee biz, but running a coffee shop comes as a natural consequence to running a small roaster. In case your interested, Bergie’s offers custom roasting.

Bergie’s Coffee Roast House is located on Gilbert Road (in Gilbert, AZ) on the east side of the road between Guadalupe and Elliot. Look for the sign in the picture above, since the building is practically invisable behind all the greenery.

A sack of green coffee beans from Bolivia:

I learned a few important things about coffee roasting while chatting with Brian, such as, for example, the shelf life of un-roasted, green coffee beans is about 15 months whereas the ideal shelf life of roasted beans is more like 15 days.

Brian also shared some insight into espresso roasting, such as the fact that beans used for espresso don’t have to be super dark (almost burnt). As a matter of fact, to get more caffeine bang for your buck, you might try grinding a lighter roast for use in an espresso machine.

He used a Bolivian blend for the espresso I sampled below, which had more personality than most other espresso shots I can remember trying.

Some views of Bergie’s lobby, which was very clean, very tasteful.



The garden plaza out front:


The Menu, including specialty drinks:

The building containing Bergie’s used to be an English tea house among other things. The house is 80 years old.

Overall I was very impressed with Bergie’s Coffee Roast House, especially with Brian Bergeson whose goal is to delivery high quality, fresh out of the roaster coffee.