The roaster gets a new toy!

I ended my last blog hoping you were anticipating this next one and so it is now time to share more of the story of how we began...

We bought a small 5 pound roaster (meaning it can roast 5 pounds of coffee at a time) we didn't want to get to carried away for our first real purchase. It was still so new...the thought that we were roasting coffee and people actually liked it. We couldn't live without it and now customers couldn't either. Our neighbors wondered about the smells coming from our house (we do have 4 kids......3 at the time) and one neighbor just about called the fire department when he saw all the smoke coming from our roof. The smoke was coming from the "dark roast." I always knew when Rodney was doing a dark roast.....the smells are good and bad. It may smell like something is burning but a "good burnt" right? The medium roast coffees did smell much better. Most people think roasting must smell "great" but they are thinking of the "grinding" of the coffee which is so aromatic!

Alright, Rodney is now roasting a lot more with his new "toy" and adding new origins of beans and creating his own blends. The story behind KELLY'S BREAKFAST BLEND....Rodney's brother and sister in law came to stay a few days with us all the way from Alabama. Rodney was excited about his new found "love" and wanted to share with them. Now, my name is Mindy and yes I am the wife of the roaster.....Rodney asked his sister in law what she liked in a coffee. She gave him some ideas of flavor, etc. He created a blend, roasted it and handed it off to his brother to take home and try it out. She loved it! Her name is Kelly. When Rodney allowed friends to try this new blend they would ask what it was called....he would say...."Kelly's Blend" only because he didn't know what else to say. It became one of his most popular blends that the name couldn't be changed. TODAY that is our most popular blend with our medium roasts. I don't expect Rodney to ever name a coffee after me, besides "Mindy's Breakfast Blend" wouldn't have been as exciting....(I am smiling)

All the beans we were selling at the time were to support the Living Freedom Recovery Center. We wanted to help people with addictions and selling coffee beans was a great way to support it. We soon became past (a whole other blog) musicians that turned into coffee roasters. We were enjoying it but we could see there was more we were supposed to do with it.

We started growing and a bigger "toy" was in our fututre.....

Traveling Espresso Bar

As I spoke before about the news getting out FAST about this great coffee (did I mention great before?) we had to figure out a plan. A business plan was not what we were thinking. We needed a plan to keep us roasting and selling fresh, smooth, aromatic coffee beans. Our first coffee client was Regal Nissan in Huntsville, Alabama realizing that it is good to serve the best when you are "selling" the best as far as cars. We couldn't really believe the response to the coffee. I was loving the fact that my husband would roast up a batch of Decaf for me and bring it up from his small shop in our basement and I could be spoiled with the smooth taste. The smell, the taste...perfection and I never realized coffee could or should taste so good.

Back to my blog...I had a moment of thinking I should brew another pot for myself today. I did mention Decaf and one day soon I will explain why those of you drinking decaf should be sure you are getting a "swiss water" or "mountain water" process...stay tuned...

I titled this blog "Traveling Espresso Bar" because that is how we began to let the public really know we were here. Ionia, Mi had another coffee shop/restaurant but we were different. We always tell people that. We are a coffee roasting company "first" and a bakery cafe. Not too many cities have their own coffee roasting company and some of the bigger companies don't allow you to try the coffee in a "shop" setting. We started out at the Ionia Free Fair with a small booth. Rodney and friends spent many hours building a cart system so we had our sink and counters and refrigerater all in one place. It seemed to be a success and the word was getting out about "Sozo." The next event was the Harvest Festival on Main Street Ionia. We had a great night and people were surprised but happy we were in town. We didn't have a location set for Sozo YET but we were telling people we were coming. Some very "kind" lady said "We don't need you in this town--we already have a coffee shop." She wouldn't buy a brewed cup of coffee but instead bought our yummy Caramel Apple Cider Latte! No coffee in that drink....she said it was good.....

**fast forward....the coffee shop she was referring to....closed at 6pm the day before we opened at 5:30am!! I guess they did need us after all....

That is a good place to end this blog. Happy Day! Great Coffee!

How Sozo Began....

It is a funny story how this all really started. I, the roasters wife, was tired of hearing Rodney, the roaster, say he would like to learn how to roast coffee. He was asking a few questions to people about roasting but not doing anything about it. So, one weekend while I was away with a close friend (having some "me" time with out the kids and hubby) I found a coffee shop that sold "green beans" (beans not yet roasted) and bought a pound for my husband. All I knew about coffee was that he liked a bean called "sumatra" and you don't leave coffee on the "burner" because it will taste burnt. My knowledge was simple.

The story goes that I gave Rodney the bag of green beans and said "learn how to roast" and show me what you can do. He had a friend tell him to use a popcorn popper to begin. He roasted enough beans for a pot of coffee every day for about a week. He loved the coffee. He couldn't believe the difference FRESH beans could make. I wasn't sure about the commotion over the beans, but I was willing to try his coffee. I am personally a decaf drinker and wasn't drinking full cups of caffeine to get the taste he was raving over. But it did taste different. Smooth....the smell was so yummy too....

Rodney started calling companies and getting samples of other green beans to keep roasting. He ran out of what he had and went to the local store to buy some brand off the shelf. THAT WAS THE LAST TIME HE WILL EVER DO THAT!! It was not a good day for this coffee drinker of mine. The coffee was bitter and stale and well...nasty. We had bought this brand before but now that we had tasted the FRESH cup we didn't want to turn back. Rodney did get some decaf for me to try and then I was hooked too. We went to a restaurant that we had drank coffee at many times before and I told him one night on a date....that I was frustrated with him.....now I couldn't drink coffee any more except Sozo Coffee......he as glad that was it....our popcorn popper soon roasted it's last batch of beans and we were on to a bigger roaster. Our friends that had tasted Rodney's coffee were getting hooked too and the need for a bigger roaster had come.

So here we are....much more to our story, but for now the night ends here.