Our Story…
This is my Dad and me.
This picture was taken our first day roasting on our very own coffee roaster back in March of 2017. People always ask me how I got started coffee roasting. And I tell them that it all began with an air popcorn popper on our deck, as it always does. Well we soon (accidentally) destroyed the popcorn popper with overuse- roasting coffee, in any form, is a lot of fun. After that we decided to move to the big leagues, and bought a little 1lb Fresh Roast air roaster. We learned a lot from using the Fresh Roast because we could track temperatures on the computer. You can’t do THAT with a popcorn popper! After that it all spiraled very quickly out of control. I told my Dad, “I want to do this for real. We need to get a roaster- a big one”. It didn’t take long to convince him- corporate life is irritating and stressful. Coffee roasting is certainly not.
A few months later we were flying to Ponderay, Idaho for our first roasting class at the Diedrich manufacturing site, where we got to roast on an 10lb roaster. Now we were REALLY in the big leagues. We learned a ton and ordered our roaster (Big Blue as we would name him later) right then and there. Waiting was agony! But our roaster arrived in pristine condition (after having been built to order) in March of 2017. We quickly got to roasting and tasting in preparation for the opening of the coffee shop. I have never consumed so much coffee (with so much regret) as I did when we were working on the proportions for the house blend. Shaking slightly, and very dehydrated, we triumphantly declared that we had found the perfect blend!
We have been growing ever since and are learning something new with every roast. Coffee roasting is quite an adventure. Each bean is different, and we enjoy finding the perfect roast, to give people the best tasting coffee possible. Come visit us at Ancestor Coffeehouse & Creperie (Campbelltown location) to see Big Blue and try the coffee that all started with a popcorn popper.