Like many of us, my affection for coffee started at some point during my first semester at college. I remember we had an enormous Bunn coffee maker in our fraternity house. I can’t remember a moment when it wasn’t powered on, with a pot of thick, effective salvation on each of its two burners.

I also remember my FIRST cup from a French Press. It was at a small gathering at the home of my Art History professor. She was a delightful older woman from Iran, and our small class met at her house one evening for dinner. After a delightful meal of “I can’t remember what,” she brought out something I’d never seen, and it was full of that hot goodness. The fragrance, the mouthfeel, the flavors…that moment changed my life in innumerable ways. Not only had I never been offered coffee that didn’t taste like it was from a gas station, that entire preparation, presentation and enjoyment set me on my course to recreate that experience for myself and others.

I love few things more than helping someone learn the true perfection of a hand-made cup using very basic tools. To watch their eyes widen when smelling freshly-ground beans from a farm we love to support…to see them sit back and savor that first, steaming-hot sip from a perfectly prepared Chemex, Aeropress or French Press…

My personal coffee journey of late has been an adventure into the world of light roasts, especially coffees from unique regions and which have been processed using interesting methods like Anaerobic Maceration. I’ve consumed swimming pools full of dark roast coffee in all its forms. From “Charbucks” to those weird, oily beans at the local grocery, and every imaginable big brand of heat-baked bean in between, I’ve run the gamut. And it simply no longer interests me one bit. By the time a coffee gets roasted to even a “Medium” roast, a significant and notable amount of interesting and exciting flavors and aromas are completely cooked out of the coffee, leaving an uninteresting cup which—depending on how long it’s roasted—quickly approaches the taste of pure carbon. Dark roast has been done, and I have no interest in attempting to produce coffee I’d never personally enjoy.

There’s a reason we humans do so many things, have important conversations, make meaningful relationships, work through difficult times…and add coffee to the equation. It’s magic. It’s medicine. It’s life-sustaining. We hope you’ll come to enjoy our coffees as much as we do.

Welcome to Dry Heat Coffee, roasted with dry, hot love one small batch at a time.

peace. love. palm trees.

joeshoe