Huaska Coffee Roasters
Sample roasters, Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia.
History
Pereira is the capital of Risaralda, at the center of the Eje Cafetero, the three departments that account for most of Colombian coffee growing. The company has its address there on South Avenue, carrera 17 number 30-92. It is registered as Huaska Coffee Roasters SAS, a simplified joint-stock company under Colombian law. It declares itself founded in 2016 on its own LinkedIn page, that is, by itself. The initial choice governs everything else. It does not build a production roaster, but the laboratory machine and the custom machine. The reason lies in the country. At origin, the purchase decision is made on the spot, at the exporter's and at the cooperative's. It requires roasting a sample before the lot leaves. The range follows this reasoning, then goes beyond it. In March 2023, the site presented only two laboratory machines, of 120 grams. The June 2025 catalog adds two, and rises to six kilos per batch. The company remains small: in March 2023, its site named only four people, two cofounders, Esteban Botero and Alejandro Soto, a production technician and an accountant. In the meantime, the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia reevaluated it for fiscal year 2021 and gave it 5.00. This score places it in the highest band of the grid, called highly reliable. The letter exists because the Federation is ISO 9001 certified, a standard that obliges it to record the evaluation of its suppliers. It judges four things: product conformity, meeting deadlines, quality of communication and follow-up after delivery.
What it makes
A single principle, in four sizes: the horizontal drum heated by gas, propane or city gas. On the T-1 and T-6, the catalog specifies an atmospheric burner. That means the gas jet draws its own combustion air, without a fan. Power therefore follows the supply pressure. No automatic flame regulation is documented, on any of the four models. On these same two machines, two controls are added. Drum speed varies from 52 to 75 revolutions per minute. Air extraction is adjustable from 20 to 100 percent. These two settings shift the balance between conduction, the bean touching hot metal, and convection, the hot air passing through it. All four machines carry a separator cyclone, a cone where the air spins and deposits at the bottom the chaff detached from the bean. The catalog states it as conical and integrated only on the T-1 and T-6. Integrated means mounted on the machine, with no duct or housing to add around it. On the two laboratory models, the transmission is by contact, without lubrication. The company claims Colombian engineering. The formula refers to design and assembly, not to every part. The motors of the laboratory machines are Japanese, Oriental Motor, and their thermometer German.
The models
Four machines in the June 2025 catalog. The MT.01, a one-drum laboratory machine, 38 kilos empty, roast of 6 to 12 minutes, wired for 110 volts. It measures through a German dial of 2.5 inches, graduated from 0 to 300 degrees. The site announces it at 120 grams, the catalog at 150 grams. But the catalog writes “maximum capacity” and the weight has not changed since 2023: it is the same machine, described twice. The MT.02, same family, carries two drums of 150 grams each and weighs 56 kilos. That one really did change: in March 2023, it announced only 120 grams per drum for 42 kilos. The T-1 moves up to commercial scale: from 200 grams to 1.3 kilo per batch, 7.5 batches per hour, 68 kilos, 110 volts. It carries two temperature probes, one in the bean and one in the air, and a USB 2.0 output. The T-6 loads 1 to 6 kilos and weighs 420 kilos empty. It runs on 220 volts, with a cooling tray with an agitator and a chaff collector of 25 liters. Neither the T-1 nor the T-6 existed in March 2023.
What you gain
The MT.02 roasts two samples at the same time, in the same machine and within the same minute. Two successive roasts, by contrast, differ in preheating, in the wear of the fire, in the time of day. What separates the two cups therefore comes from the coffee, not from the moment it was roasted. The T-1 covers 200 grams to 1.3 kilo and announces 7.5 batches per hour. That is enough to work through a day's arrivals without changing station. Its drum speed and its extraction are adjustable separately. One therefore chooses the conduction-convection balance instead of enduring it. On the T-1 and T-6, cooling is independent of the drum. The next batch starts while the previous one cools.
What you lose
The two laboratory models measure only with the dial, 2.5 inches for a span of 300 degrees. Reading is accurate to within a few degrees, and the needle lags behind the bean. Yet it is the rate of rise that is judged on a sample. On these two machines, recording the curve remains an optional accessory. No automatic flame regulation is documented. Any heat correction therefore goes through the hand, while the bean keeps climbing. The MT.01, MT.02 and T-1 are wired for 110 volts. Wherever the mains is at 220 or 230 volts, Europe for example, a transformer must be added. Finally nothing exceeds six kilos per batch. And the T-6, which reaches this ceiling, already weighs 420 kilos empty.