Our Story
Our roasting journey began as a hobby
I've always been a bit of a coffee geek. At my work, I would be the guy who would weigh out the beans, hand grind them and whip out the Aeropress or a V60 brewer to make my morning coffee whilst everyone else would just settle for instant coffee.
Once you experience coffee as a ritual and not just "caffeine juice" you enter a world of science, art and culture and it's a deep deep rabbit hole!
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If anyone has ever gone all in on a hobby, there's a phenomenon you will likely have experienced called Gear Acquisition Syndrome whereby you basically buy more and more equipment in the pursuit of excellence. I bought an espresso machine, a fancy grinder, a Chemex brewer, a drip filter machine and a variety of exotic cups - yet something was missing.
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This is exactly how my roasting journey started. Evidently as a coffee drinker, purchasing beans from the supermarket or some other roasters wasn't good enough in the end... I wanted to experience more, so I bought myself a cheap coffee roasting pan to explore what flavours I could bring out of each coffee.
After many 'interesting' batches that were either too developed and tasted like charcoal or underdeveloped and tasted like grass, I eventually found what worked well for different beans and was ready to share this with others. I gave beans away to friends and family to test out. They were blown away, coming from a pod-machine or even instant coffee, my coffee was nothing like they had ever experienced.
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My wife said to me, "why don't you sell your coffee?".
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There was a lot to do! I bought a commercial roaster (Aillio Bullet) to allow for scaleable and consistent roasts; designed branding; built a website; explored packaging and shipping options; navigated the world of Food Health and Safety; and built strong relationships with coffee growers and suppliers.
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In November 2022 Foxholes Coffee was born.
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I hope you enjoy.
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James