About Our Hazelnuts

We roast our own hazelnuts for you! Our hazelnuts taste better because they are freshly roasted. Since we roast twice each week, your hazelnuts will reach you one to three days after roasting. We don't let the nuts sit on the shelf - we send them straight from the roaster to you.

Inspection

Bringing you the best quality hazelnuts is a long process, and it begins with a careful inspection of the raw crop. Our helpers, Peyton and Amy, sort through every pound of raw hazelnuts to make sure our customers get only the top quality nuts. Once these raw nuts have passed inspection, they are ready for roasting!

The Roasting Process

Our specialized roaster, imported from Italy, toasts small batches of hazelnuts. The roaster applies dry heat to the hazelnuts while constantly moving them to make sure the nuts are evenly toasted. The roasting process is complex and must be carefully monitored to ensure top quality. A list of variables that affect the flavor of the finished product includes the amount of moisture in the raw nuts, the size of the nut, the volume of nuts in the roaster, the temperature in the roaster, the level of vibration in the roaster, and time. As Barb says, "Thirty seconds of variation makes the difference between perfect roasted nuts and overdone nuts."

Barb places a few pounds of raw nuts at a time in the roaster, then monitors the roasting time and temperature carefully. No other ingredients are added to our hazelnuts during roasting - no salt, no oil, nada. Finally, she removes the nuts from the roaster and inspects them one last time to ensure perfection. The nuts are packaged and placed in temperature-controlled cold storage.

Roasted vs. Raw

Raw hazelnuts are slightly chewy, with a subtle sweet flavor. Roasting the nuts makes them crunchy and draws out a deeper nutty flavor. Additionally, roasted hazelnuts naturally shed a portion of their "skin" - the darker brown, papery surface of the nut.

The bowl is full of raw hazelnuts, and the scoop contains roasted hazelnuts. You can see the lighter color of the roasted hazelnuts.