Operations manager von Lonski tries a spoonful of hand-filtered coffee from the roastery at Remscheid Prison. Photos: Oliver Auster/dpa
Rick pulls a small sample scoop out of the roasting machine and smells the light brown beans: Not done yet."Coffee used to be just a luxury item for me," says the 33-year-old. "Now I roast it. It's exactly my thing."
But Rick did not discover his caffeine craving at some overpriced boutique cafe, but behind bars.
He roasts at the Remscheid Prison. Coffee has been produced there since the beginning of May – a first for the state of North Rhine Westphalia, Germany's largest. The prison is pretty sure it's the only coffee roaster behind bars in the country.
The project took two years – from the first query from the state's Justice Ministry as to whether the prison wanted to roast coffee – to the first package of "prison beans". The black packaging is labelled with a slogan that roughly means securely packaged from Remscheid Prison.
'Tax warehouse'
Rick has been imprisoned here for four years and has a total of 11 years to serve. He doesn't want to talk about his crime. But at the roasting machine, he can at least smell the scent of freedom every day: the raw beans come from as far away as Colombia, Costa Rica or Vietnam.
A delivery from Brazil is currently in the drum. Depending on how long Rick roasts the beans, the result is the basis for filter coffee (lighter) or espresso (darker).
The inmate has a clipboard in his hand and a tablet computer in view. When he talks about the "first crack" and the "rate of rise", he sounds like a coffee professor. Rick was specifically chosen for the complex roasting job. Other prisoners sit one floor above, sifting the raw beans. Small stones, twigs, broken pieces – everything has to come out.
Rick stands in front of one of the two roasting machines in Remscheid. "We integrate the prisoners with simple tasks. There are only a few who have manual skills. We start small with most of them," he said.
The prison roaster has created eight jobs with a 39-hour week. The prisoners can spend their small wages on things like chocolate or cigarettes in the prison shop. The prison's own coffee is not yet available there.
This is actually part of quality control: the inmates should know whether and how their product tastes. A coffee kitchen has also been installed in Hall 3 for this purpose. There is even an espresso machine and a coffee grinder.
The prison has invested heavily in this project. The two electronic roasting machines alone cost US$43,640 (RM203,895) each.
To select the beans, operations manager von Lonski travelled to major importers in Hamburg and received training. Customs then had to approve the roasting plant, as taxes are levied on coffee in Germany. So the Remscheid roastery is now considered a "tax warehouse". As soon as the beans leave the hall fully packaged, they are taxable.
Initially, the "prison beans" (250g cost around US$5/RM23) are sold within the prison. They will then also be available to outside customers at the prison's traditional Christmas bazaar. In the last three weeks, the roasters have produced 300kg of coffee via five daily roasts.
Done according to the law
If something were to go wrong and a batch were to burn, for example, customs would have to come and destroy the beans.
"Very mild and balanced," says prison manager Andreas Schuller. He is "mega proud" of his team.
"It shows what the prison can do."
Incidentally, the 500 or so men in the prison are also allowed to have a coffee machine in their cells.
"But I only have a hand filter attachment," says Rick.
But he needs to quickly return to the roaster.
The beans will be ready soon. – dpa
