When he was 20, he took a job at the then-new Peet's Coffee & Tea to deliver coffee in Berkeley, California, and by summer's end he was asked if he wanted to learn how to roast coffee. Weaver's parents thought finishing his degree was a priority, but he had fallen in love with the bean, and his timing could not have been more perfect. He was able to learn directly from the premier coffee master himself, Alfred Peet.

After teaching me the basics of roasting, Mr. Peet invited me to taste the end product with him at the tasting table, Weaver recalls. He would ask me about coffees I had roasted, "What did you do to this coffee?" and that's how I quickly learned to pay attention to every detail in the roasting process. He taught me the Peet dicta to (1) roast to taste, (2) use all my senses and, of course, (3) buy good green coffee in the first place, often a challenge because even the most beautiful green beans don’t always come through in the cup," Weaver said.

When Mr. Peet retired, Sal Bonavita continued the teaching, and Weaver learned his lessons so well he became the acknowledged master of his craft. Now he is 48 and deep into a 24/7 existence growing his own independent coffee business, Weaver's Coffee & Tea.

Part of that fun for Weaver is experimenting with different roasting machines and settling on what he believes to be the Stradivarius of the coffee roasting industry, the German-made Probat, which is a mechanical (as opposed to automatic or electronic) roaster machine that Weaver enjoys for its top wheel airflow control and easy navigation for heat response that is instantaneous (no lag time, no change for over roasting.) "I've created a new style of roasting," he said. "It's different than any other way I roasted before, and the end result is a coffee that is "juicier, with a fuller mouth feel," the culmination of all I've learned from the masters and my own experiments with the bean.

Currently, his number one seller is The Blend, an unusual combination of seven different coffees that are not roasted in the same way but with three different roasts bring out the best in fragrance, body, and taste of the African, Latin American, and Indonesian beans used. Thirteen coffees including espressos, decafs, organics, and regular beans, plus four coffee gift sets, are available nationwide at www.weaverscoffeee.com.

The newest launch is a 100% certified organic and Fair Trade line that even includes a 100% organic decaf made with a meticulous water process that Weaver avers tastes like a regular coffee. "We're not riding the coat tails of a trend, we think organics and Fair Trade coffees are here to stay, and we know from talking to consumers that they have educated themselves about the value of both."

The slow food movement is thoroughly entrenched on both coasts and quickly moving toward the heartland, he added. And, after all, quality is the only sustainable element in food or beverages. Organics today are as good, if not better than, conventionally grown coffees. Ironically, some of the best coffees in the world are not labeled organic, but they certainly are because those areas cannot afford pesticides, nor can they afford the costs of certification. All our coffees are, however fair trade certified and organic.

Weaver is carrying "sustainable" one step further in his effort to make every step, from grower to consumer, a positive one and makes a contribution to www.coffeekids.org and its own eco+program which supports CSUEB University and Tipping Point Community in the Bay Area of Northern California.