Our Story
After a full day of touring Quebec City, our highlight the rushing roar of towering Montmorency Falls, Denise and I returned to our hotel for a romantic evening beside the hotel’s outdoor hearth. Before long, a server drifted by and we ordered two cups of coffee. Within our first sips we realized it was the most extraordinarily rich coffee we’d ever experienced. We theorized its virtues were the result of some rare, ethereal bean brewed with the purest Canadian snowmelt. Laughing cordially, our server explained the hotel imported freshly roasted beans from a small boutique coffee roaster in the States. We jotted down the name on a napkin. Once home, we began ordering our coffee from this same roaster and soon discovered other such aficionados across the country. Thus began our love affair with that most delicious of beans, the coffee bean. The year was 1982.
Many Javas and Joes have passed our lips since then, and we’ve refined our palates with countless coffee tastings, coffee festivals, and experimental roasts that filled our kitchen with smoke. Our first roasting experience involved a hot-air popcorn popper. This contraption worked well, but our desire for perfection quickly pushed us passed the limits of the kitchen counter. The more we learned, the more we wanted to know. Our new passion was taking us into unknown territories.
In the early 1990’s, having become so enthralled with roasting the various coffees of the world, I attended a coffee roasting school in San Francisco. Soon after, I was roasting on and off with friends who did so commercially for coffee shops and retail stores. I traveled the country, studying the craft of roaster virtuosos, acquiring techniques necessary for roasting my own masterpieces. The dream of Adventure Coffee Roasting was born.
In 2004, I fulfilled my dream by purchasing a 5lb San Franciscan coffee roaster. Although I was still working full-time in the software industry, I dedicated myself to roasting coffee each evening during the week and to hauling my roaster to a local Farmers’ Market every weekend. I mounted it on the bed of my pickup and roasted right there at the Market, drawing a crowd with the roaster’s striking image — that of a scarlet-colored, miniature steam engine — and the inviting aroma of fresh-roasted coffee.
Beginning in 2006, I left my career in software and, joined by my son, Josh, we kicked into high-gear roasting seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day to fill demand from our growing business.
Since those days at the Saturday morning Farmers’ Market, we have expanded our business significantly. We now visit up to seven Farmers’ Markets a week, still roasting on the San Franciscan, and have a growing relationship with various restaurants, coffee shops, and retail stores around the Southwest. In April 2007, in order to meet growing demand, we opened a Roastery and installed a 25lb Diedrich roaster with the latest coffee roasting technology.
At Adventure Coffee Roasting we believe strongly in supporting our partners in the coffee growing regions of the world by encouraging sustainable pesticide-free farming and by paying a greater price for there green coffee so they may earn a livable wage. We roast only certified organically grown coffee in small batches, assuring product freshness and consistency. And, when available as such, all of our beans are Fair Trade Certified as well.
Our journey continues and life is good.