Starting A Home Coffee Roasting Business - 3 You Should Know If You're Starting to Roast
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- After months of planning, we launched our coffee roasting company in December of 2019. Like any business, there were many unexpected things that came up, and we wanted to share those experiences with you.
IG: @mirrorcoffeeroasters
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Great tips. I couldn't agree more. Since Covid, my company in Melbourne started selling our coffee beans online (where we were previously making brews at events) - since the transition, we are still figuring out the right packaging for our coffee. Plus, we didn't expect how long it would take, just to pack all the different coffee orders for each customer and send it to them - figuring out our distribution took a bit of trial and error to get it an an affordable price point per order. Good news is that we have been able to make a profit, but it goes to show how there's a lot of other elements that go into the mix. Thanks for the video.
Yes! A part of this video is to say expect things you didn't see coming and be ready to figure it out. We've learned so much from trial and error and that's also what we want to share with everyone. Glad to hear you guys are making something working and making profit. Lets stay connected!
Thank you
Amazing! I'm also starting a coffee roasting business, mine will be a lot smaller than mirror yet still decently sized! Thank you for this video!
Hey! Thanks for watching this video too. Sometimes starting small is the best way to go. We're excited for yah!
Thanks for the great vid! I can't stress how thankful I am for coffee and the community it brings. Side note, I am extremely blessed to be able to run a business out of my home! Something I see way too often is people tying to start a business from scratch and they rent or buy a space that's way to high of overhead.
Community has got to be one of our favorite things about coffee. Starting a businesses like that is very smart. Rent and high overhead adds a lot of stress so it's nice to be able to eliminate as many of those things as possible.
This video was on point! the saying is "you don't know what you don't know" & so many unexpecteds have come up along the way but you just have to persevere & figure it out. A lot of the things we want to do have to wait until the money's there. Legalities is a whole other conversation for another day but that slows things down by weeks or months. Good on you for putting out this video. Cheers!
That's part of the journey. You can embark on something new and great without the unexpected! Thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed this!
The Fresh Roast Sr 540 is a great sample roaster - only does 4 ozs. I do sample roasts in that and then do 1lb roasts in a Behmor with the winning profile.
Oh, that's great! Just looked it up and it even has several different fan and heat control settings. Super neat, thanks for sharing that!
Good luck to you guys up in Bellingham, WA, beautiful seaside town close to Vancouver. Hopefully you get lots of orders from the UW. Yeah, not easy setting up your own roaster business, I have seen others failed. Planning, money and marketing require lots of energy and patience. I am doing my own roasting as a hobby and have a small following from work and friends. Most people who consume coffee does not understand how much time and efforts that roaster put into prepare that coffee. I personally hand sorted all defects before the roast. I use my suppliers' cupping note as a reference and request the samples according to my customers' profiles. I have a Diedrich 2.5Kg roaster so that I can perform personal orders. So far I am having lots of fun and learning ins and outs about roasting coffee. I wish you folks the best and make sure that you watch your cash flows. Cheers.
Hey Calvin! Thanks for the wishes and for watching this. Bellingham is a gem we're very glad to be based out of. Yes, it's those things and even more that go into something successful. To say the least, it's a journey and a grind. That's so awesome! Roasting as a hobby sounds like the fun parts of roasting without all the stress haha I appreciate the hand sorting though and that attention to detail. The 2.5kg is awesome too. Lots of benefits to having a smaller machine to roast on. Appreciate you stopping by Calvin!
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters I had my own business longtime ago and was lucky in the sense that I was able to build a financial foundation out of it. From that experience I have learnt that you need a little of luck sometimes to succeed in your endeavors. Especially with coffee because there are so many different varieties of coffee hence it's almost impossible to know them all. Roasting is such a critical element that even if you are succeeded in bring out the best profile of the green beans, your clients may not always agree with you. Our taste buds are unique and different, some of us are better equipped to discern the nuances in coffee than others. This makes it very challenging to garner a following. I wish you guys the best and a successful career in coffee roasting. I am very happy with the Diedrich 2.5kg machine because the maintenance is a breeze. I didn't hear you folks mention that in your video but I think before anyone make a commitment to purchase a roaster. They should also consider the maintenance factor in pick the right roaster. Cheers!
This is a great video. Really insightful. I've been working toward launching my own brand over the last 14 months. Hearing you share your experiences so much of it resonates - especially thinking something will take a week only for it to take a month.
Glad to hear it was helpful and resonated with you. Best of luck on launching your own brand. 14 months is a lot of work and time so great job thus far!
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters thank you 🙏🏽🪓💪🏽
EXCELLENT VIDEO... Great Information
Thank you both for sharing this video.
NOTE:
Your background music was a little too loud, making it hard to hear and understand you at times. We don't need background noise, We just want to HEAR y'all TALK...
Thanks Judi! We appreciate the feedback and will take note of the music being too loud.
This definitely resonated. Feeling everything you guys said
Thanks for sharing that with us. Keep going and moving forward!
Thank you for making this video! I have the vision of starting a roastery and this video helped put some things into perspective. Part of my vision is to hopefully/ideal have the roastery on my home reservation. We have a lot of space that can/needs to be utilized and another source of income for our residents would be beneficial as well. I’ll be looking at more of your videos to get a better idea of how to make this work. I would also love and input for how to get things moving. Thank you all!
Hey Patrick! No problem, glad we could be of some help to you. Our goal is to share what we've learned over the years in hopes that it inspires and helps somebody in their coffee journey.
Feel free to shoot us an email with more specific questions if you have any!
I’m looking forward to do the same, garage roasting. How you doing now?
Do I need a retail grinder or the majority of your orders are not grinded?
the content is spot-on!! thank you for the knowledge and insights!
Thank you so much! We're just here trying to help and add value to others interested in this craft :)
I just orders a small roaster to learn and sell to friends to start got a copy right and logo here is to a small start! Thanks for the video!
Hey Bradley! That's so awesome to hear. Best of luck to you as you receive your small roaster and start selling to friends. Thanks for watching!
Hi did u get a smaller roaster
Great info dudes!! Thank you! Got a new sub 👌🏼🔥
Cole! haha so stoked you came across us. Thanks for the comment and the sub, that means a lot to us!
Make that 2! I’m on this journey
Thank you for the valuable information. I don't want to be a roaster, but offer a line of quality coffee that allows me to drop ship to customers and then hold my own inventory that sells successfully and then grow from there hoping to have my own roaster business.
No problem! We're glad we could offer some of our experience for people to learn from. A drop ship model is a great idea with coffee!
Have you started your business William ?
Hey guys, I'm so grateful that you made this awesome video. The transparency you're demonstrating here on what you struggled with is incredible, you don't really see that. I'm in the process of starting my own coffee roasting company as well out of Jacksonville, FL, and would love to ask you some questions if you have time?
Hey Jesse! Thanks for watching and leaving your comment, we really appreciate that. Unfortunately, you're right that transparency about this young industry isn't always prevalent for people to learn from. Sure, we'd love to chat!
Hey this is Raj from Kathmandu Nepal I've my own coffee garden and I'm looking to export or any wanna come Nepal and do invest in coffee business.
How are you doing today in your business ?
Good info guys. Sample Roasting is important.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
Awesome advice guys. Thanks so much. Subbed.
Hey Carl! Thanks for watching and glad to hear this was helpful information. Appreciate the sub!
Thanks for your video I just started importanting green coffee bean. And sell all sell. Taking notes very soon I'm looking at roasting
That's great! Best of luck on your journey
Great video! Currently getting ready to
Start up my own roaster business, this was really helpful. What should someone be looking for when they pay for the packaginG?
Hi Ben! That's great to hear, good luck with that.
A big part of packaging is personal preference. Do you want roll top bags, resealable zip lock, or maybe you want the upright zip lock bags. Packaging is the first impression of your brand identity so the struggle is what do you think looks great and do you have the budget for it. The rest is about making small changes to adjust to those parameters.
If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out!
Mirror Coffee Roasters Im looking for a stand up guesset with valve. Somewhat similar to yours... how much should I be paying per piece?
@@benjaminrodriguez3821 We were looking at around $0.50. That will change depending on the initial quantity. If you buy a lot, then You can probably bring that number down even more.
Thanks heaps for sharing guys! Subs are going up :)
No problem! Glad to be helping and sharing this with those interested.
Thanks! :)
This was incredibly helpful gentlemen. Thanksn
Happy this was helpful!
Thanks guys!
No problem!
I love your branding! If ever I start a coffee shop / roastery can I borrow it? :D Jokes aside, the colour scheme and wood finish is beautiful!
Thanks Russel! Haha I was unsure what borrowing branding meant there for a second lol! We appreciate the kind words!
Thanks - super informative!
No problem! Glad we could share this with everyone :)
Thank you for the video! Subscribed! What are some of the coffee importers you buy from!? Thanks!
No problem, thank you for subscribing :) We buy from Onyx, Catalyst, and Red Fox are amongst some of our personal favorite!
If you could relearn how to roast coffee, what route would you go? If you had to start all over again in 2023, how would you go about learning how to roast/starting a roasting company?
That's a great question. We'd probably spend more time working for someone else specifically roasting behind a machine. Getting paid to learn is the best return on investment.
Apart from that, we'd do the same thing. We read books, talked to others in the industry, listened to podcasts, and had a roasting consultant.
Hi , can discuss about the logic and fair margin on roasted coffee beans
Hi, Great video guys, A year old video still helping lot of people into starting their business, I'm from India in coorg which is highest in coffee productions, so I'm looking to startup coffee roasting business, in terms of machine I'm not sure how modern machines we have right here, Could you please help in boosting this business plan?thanks in advance
We're so glad to hear it's helpful!
How can we help?
Thanks 💯👍
No problem!
Good job Serg. Your a rock star:)
Serg is most definitely a rock star. Haha Thanks for watching Zach, we both appreciate it!
thank you!
No problem!
Good information. Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome!
It's really helpful keep posting more videos. and I need to know what machine to start the coffee business
Thank you! There's no answer to fit them all, but that would depend on where you're located and what you prefer. We love our Diedrich so far!
wow this is a great video! thanks so much for this insight. i would love if i can get a few mins out of your day to ask you questions if you have the time?
Hey! Glad this video was helpful. You can message us on Instagram or contact us through our website, and we'll see what we can do.
Hi there. Can you share where you ordered your bags/labels from? The white bags are mice, I have a label design already.
Hi! Yes, we can. We purchased the bags from an online site called TricorBraun Flex. The labels are printed with a Bellingham local printing company called Stickers For Days.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters thanks so much!
I want a Ikawa so badly.
We would highly recommend it! It's definitely an interesting approach to roasting, but it's portable, easy to use, and has been a saving grace for our samples.
Hello! Thanks for the video! Where do you get your stickers printed or do you have a specific machine?
Hi! We have a local company here in Bellingham, WA that prints the stickers we design.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters Could I by any chance get some contact info, ill make sure to name drop you guys so maybe you can get some kickback ;)
@@tristania456 Sure! The company is called Stickers For Days.
Pretty informative thanks.
Glad this was helpful
Hello Sir, where do you buys your green beans? Thank you sir.
Hi Emmanuel! We buy green coffee from all over the world. Currently we have some from Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Peru.
What was the name of the sample roaster
It's the IKAWA sample roaster
Hi guys, great content. I was wondering though, how much did you spend for the ikawa sample roaster and what is your criteria for choosing green beans? Thanks in advance for your answer. Good luck
Thanks! I think it was somewhere between 4-5k if I remember correctly. Now with their 150g sample roaster, I don't know if that's changed or not. As for our criteria for choosing green beans, we recorded a podcast episode that is up on our channel. There's a couple things we choose from one of which is flavor which is what that episode covers!
Some of the other things that we consider are our current relationships with importers, our relationships with farmers and producers, and sustainability.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters perfect, i will check that podcast out. Thanks guys.
Hi guys, it's me again :) did you get the chance to go to the origin (Indonesia) last summer? If yes, how was it? Best luck
Hey! We unfortunately were not able to go, and there's a big chance this year won't work with all the restrictions. Sadly we'll have to wait quite a bit before that happens.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters i'm also planning to go to Indonesia and visit the farmers somewhere in October, i hope until then the situation will better. Which region are you planning to visit? Do you guys offer indonesian coffee in your shop?
That's incredible. We're looking at Java, Sulawesi, and Lombok. We just got our first Indonesian coffee that will be released soon!
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters cool, i would also recommend you to visit Flores and Bali for coffee and also for leisure, really beautiful. You can also look up, they have annual specialty coffee competition, could be interesting for you. My last question :) which Indonesian coffee did you buy and what do you think about it?
How did you come up with the name of your brand?
Ooh that's a long story. Perhaps we can make a video about it!?
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters
Can't wait to see that video.
@@judichristopher4604 Check out our podcast episode on UA-cam titled: "The Origin of Mirror Coffee And Why We started A Coffee Roastery."
It breaks it all down!
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters
Thank you for that infomation.
I’m wondering how/where to buy raw coffee beans? Do you have any advice.
Figure out what origin you want to get coffee beans from and then find importing companies that have that coffee that they could send you samples of.
You can find importing companies on google, instagram, or just asking around the industry.
You can start with a few companies like Atlas, Royal, Genuine Origin, and Cafe Imports
Where can you buy green coffee beans to roast? Cost efficient
You can buy them from the many coffee importers out there. For small quantity, you can check out Sweet Maria's which is a great starting place.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters thank you very much!
Dzięki za wideo, trafne uwagi, jak Wam odzie mam nadzieję że wszystko ok, powodzenia, pozdrawiam Adrian
Thank you!
Im from gayo indonesia, can i meet you guys when you go to Indonesia
Great stuff guys. I’m excited to launch a coffee roasting business. How big is your roaster? Do you do mostly online sales?
Hey, thank you so much for watching! That's awesome, where are you going to be based out of? We have a 12kg, and yes, we mostly do online sales.
I am just curious about how you went about finding a place to home your business. I see that it says home roasting but your space looks commercial. How did you go about this process?
Hi Gabriel! This is literally on a family's home property. We renovated a small, empty space they had in a building on site.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters Oh very cool! Thank you!
🔥🔥
So much fire!
What roasting machine would you recommend?
That's a big question that depends on a lot of things from where you are in the world, your budget, what your roasting capacity is... etc.
How long did it take for you to quit your job and do coffee roasting full time?
Actually, so far neither of us have quit our jobs. Although our volume has grown a lot since posting this video, we believe it's not time to take away from the business for ourselves.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters I'm kicking around the idea of getting a good roaster, and go into the road of coffee beans...
It's a very competitive industry, but also growing fairly quickly. We'd recommend you start it as a side hustle until you grow into doing it full time.
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters exactly. I am an engineer. I make a lot of money, but I want to grow this over a few years. One day, I can resign. Until then, I am very intrigued. I want to try it out.
That's probably the best and most sustainable approach! You're onto something right
nice content! i'm from indonesia and starting my own roastery businesses. curently on origin trip phase around indonesia to secure my supplies! let me know if you by any chance want to hang out when you are here ;)
That's awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing that.
Mayb you should contact kühne Kaffee and ask for the best electric roasting machine.
Thanks
Have you guys been to Indonesia already?
Hi! We were supposed to go this summer, but because of covid, we were unable to. Perhaps next summer!
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters aah yes, I see. Covid really ruins plans lol. I'm originally from South America but as of now staying in Indo. I've learned the language here fluently, so I'd be happy to help in any way. Hope I could learn from you guys in exchange hehe
PS. hope to get a heads up from you guys when in Indo for it's indeed interesting
@@kenthedreamer4819 That's awesome! We have a friend who lives in Indo and knows the language fluently as well. Let's keep in touch!
@@MirrorCoffeeRoasters awesome! Hope we do.
@@kenthedreamer4819 Hi ! I'm originally from Indonesia lives in Jakarta and I'm interesting to start a roasting business, hope we can connect each other!
Thanks شكرا جزيلا
You're welcome
☕👍❤️
thank you!
Great Video. Can I have your email address. I would like to ask about roasting coffee beans as we are planning to venture into the business . Thanks
Hey! Feel free to head over to our website and click the "Get Connected" link and you'll be able to send us a message. Would love to help!
Hi there here is Yat who also running a cafe in Hong Kong. Recently I started a coffee bike project and planning to become a micro-roaster as well.
Personally feel like if you haven't get into the coffee industry long enough, more unexpected things could happen as "Experience" is the key to help you grow and make things easier.
Anyways, thanks for the video and hopefully we could share some coffees in the near future.
@bike.coffeeman
Hey Yat! Thanks for watching and commenting. I love the concept of a bike project, keep it up!
We both totally agree with what you're saying. Every time somebody asks us about starting a cafe or roastery, we always ask if they have experience in the coffee industry. There are so many things both of us have learned while getting paid on the job, from people's mistakes, and what is actually working. Thanks for sharing that!
That would be incredible. Let's keep in touch and good luck with becoming a micro-roaster!
These sound like mistakes/misjudgements that would not be particular to coffee roasting. Just saying.
Thanks for sharing and giving some honest feedback! We appreciate it.
A couple thoughts of where we were coming from.
Yes, these were our mistakes/misjudgements that we hope others who start a coffee roasting company should know before they start so they don't have to go through it.
Other than the sample roaster, these are not particular to a coffee roasting business, but it's definitely a part of the business.
I can provide you with the best coffee in the world if you would like.
Great video! How have sales been for the start up phase?
Thank you! It's hard to answer because I don't have a whole lot to compare it to, however, we've been having steady sales direct to consumer and have locked in a couple smaller wholesale accounts. Of course that's been different since quarantine and the lockdown.
Mirror Coffee Roasters what volume could you handle if we added your product to our offering? How many lbs per month?
@@keetonking We can be pushing a couple thousand pounds a month. There's plenty of room left in our max capacity.
Origin Indonesia really???
Hai .i like your channel and also all your videos.send me your addres and i will send you some coffee grean bean from our country,north sumatera,indonesia.😁
Hii i have a 100 acre coffee farm in kenya and i also roast my own coffee, if interested in good quality beans kindly let's get in contact and hopefully do business.
Thank you Tito Kibor! Will keep that in mind
packaging is a waste of money if your coffee sucks
We wouldn't quite agree, but that's fair.