The new 30-kilo Oriks coffee roaster installed at Cafe De Arts in Waukesha, Wisconsin. All images courtesy of Cafe De Arts.
Waukesha, Wisconsin-based coffee company Cafe De Arts Roastery recently expanded its capacity with the installation of a customized 30-kilogram-capacity machine from Turkish company Oriks Coffee Roasters.
The company is using the machine not only to provide fresh roasts for patrons of De Arts, but to highlight the roasting equipment, which is made in Turkey by mechanical engineer Özenç Özdemir.
Cafe De Arts Owner Ayhan Munzur and is currently acting as a representative of Oriks in the United States.
At the Waukesha roastery cafe, the customized Oriks IRD 30 roasting machine joins two existing 10-kilo Toper machines, which were also made in Turkey.
“We tried to work with both [Toper] roasters and our wholesale business grew a lot, so we decided to get a bigger roaster. Now we have three roasters,” Munzur told Daily Coffee News. “We wanted this custom-made machine because it has a triple heat system, the loader has a scale, it’s fully automatic, it has Artisan software, double wall cast iron drum, custom paint and custom logo.”
At the Cafe De Arts in Waukesha.
Munzur, who founded Cafe De Arts with his wife Gulten Munzur in 2009, said one of the Topers will be sold and the other will remain installed as a backup.
While the 30-kilo is a step up in size from the 10-kilo Topers, Ayhan Munzur’s career in coffee has involved substantially bigger machines. The Munzurs founded a company called Cool Beans in Istanbul in 2001, inspired by the success of the first Starbucks location there.
“Before that, most people drank Turkish coffee, tea or instant coffee,” said Munzur. “We saw the potential of how we could create a business, and we opened a coffee shop with a roastery in 2001.”
Within a few years Cool Beans grew to include three cafes, all of which the company sold to invest in a 120-kilo Toper roaster for a new wholesale roasting business and training center.
Soon after, the Munzurs changed courses again, moving to the United States with ambitions to open a coffee shop chain. Their first stop was in Nashua, New Hampshire, where in 2005 they opened a business now known as Riverwalk Bakery, serving fresh baked goods along with coffees roasted in-house on a 10-kilo Toper.
A few years later, the Munzurs sold the business and moved again, establishing Cafe De Arts in a different small space in Waukesha before moving into their currently 3,000-square-foot building.
The cafe itself serves familiar espresso and filter coffee drinks, including blended and flavored drinks and smoothies. Gulten Munzur leads the bakery program, which provides the basis for breakfast and lunch sandwiches and panini, as well as baklava and other Turkish treats.
As a wholesale company, Cafe De Arts also offers clients products by commercial brands including Bunn, Victoria Arduino and La Spaziale. Oriks Coffee Roasters is now prominently added to that list of brands, with Ayhan Munzur as the primary U.S. representative.
“I met with [Özdemir], he’s really nice and doing a great job and he’s trustable,” Munzur. “Ever since the machine got here he has called to check in, if I have any questions or anything, they are really responsible.”
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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