Man Sampling Coffee at a Drum Roaster — Photographic Print from an H and H–Adjacent Stack
A black-and-white photographic print, date and photographer not yet confirmed, showing a silver-haired middle-aged man in a light work shirt with the sleeves rolled up — a tattoo visible on his right forearm, a wedding band on his left hand, and a white crew-neck t-shirt showing at the collar — standing in front of a large, heavily used commercial drum coffee roaster. In his left hand he steadies a sample pan of freshly roasted beans; his right hand extends toward a second figure only partly visible at the right edge of the frame, apparently offering the beans for inspection. Behind him the roaster shows raised cast lettering on its front panel reading “ROASTER” and, below it, “PAT.” followed by a patent number, with what appears to be the tail of another cast word ending in “STER” on a second panel below. A spoked cast hand-wheel is bolted to the feed door at the upper left, and a glimpse of whole beans in the feed hopper is visible above it. The print itself is resting on top of a stack of other yellow-tone photographic prints.
The print was documented as part of a stack that also held H and H Coffee–branded photographs on the adjoining sheets, which is why it belongs in the reference gallery: the association is archival — this print was kept alongside H and H material — rather than visually on the frame. Without an H and H mark in the frame itself we can’t say the photograph was taken inside the Hoffmann-Hayman plant, only that it was kept with the rest of an H and H–adjacent archive.
The companion piece already in the reference gallery is the Gus P. Menger and Albert Menger cupping-table photograph from the UTSA San Antonio Light collection. Both images document the same basic act — a man evaluating a sample of roast coffee — but that one is shot at a cupping table in front of the H and H silos and is clearly identified; this one is at the drum roaster itself and is not.
This post will be updated with the operator’s identity, the roaster’s manufacturer and patent details, the archive credit line, and the original print date once those are confirmed.
