Tasters a key cog in coffee pleasure

July 17, 2005

By Bruce Edwards Staff Writer

BURLINGTON — Taste, swish, spit.

Not a very appetizing thought perhaps, but taste testing is a critical component in how your morning cup of coffee gets from the coffee plantation to the breakfast table or your local convenience store.

And a small Burlington business is the gatekeeper for a number of clients, including Dunkin' Donuts, to ensure the coffee meets the highest quality standards.

Tucked away in a small building on College Street, Coffee Analysts does the sample testing for all Dunkin' Donuts' coffee in the United States and abroad, which is a whole lot of beans — 30 cups of coffee a second, 2.8 million cups a day or 1 billion cups a year are sold by Dunkin' Donuts worldwide.

To ensure their coffee meets the highest quality standards, Massachusetts-based Dunkin' Donuts hired Coffee Analysts to test a sample of every shipment of coffee before it reaches the consumer.

The 13-year-old Burlington company has approximately 160 clients, ranging from individual roasters to large coffee companies like Dunkin' Donuts.

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