In Boston’s Hotel Statler this week, newsmen watched swarthy Inventor August S. Torres, 45, dump a sack of green coffee beans into a machine which looked something like a soft-drink dispenser. Torres pushed a button, and one minute later the machine poured out a pound of fresh-roasted coffee, ready for grinding.
Torres, who grew up on a coffee plantation in his native Colombia, knew that fresh-roasted coffee was far superior to any other. After twelve years’ work, he found a way to roast it quickly by infrared rays. He got Boston’s New Enterprises, Inc. (a venture capital group which finances new inventions), to back him in manufacturing his machine. This week his Infra Roast, Inc. was planning to open a chain of shops where infra-roasted coffee will be sold by the cup and by the bag.
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