It was some of years back when Caitlyn and I (Cody) paid ten cents for a dusty old Chemex at an estate sale. That hourglass shaped coffee brewer, with its handsome wooden collar, made the best home-brewed coffee we’d ever had. But instead of kicking back and enjoying that cup of coffee, I was instead puzzling over why it tasted better brewed in a glorified flower vase than it did from our Mr. Coffee.

I had no idea that this would lead to Caitlyn and me starting a coffee roasting business. On the contrary, I was pretty sure I was going to invent a new brewing device, and sell it for millions. My career as an inventor culminated, though, in a botched attempt at making coffee in a cocktail shaker. It didn’t go so well. When the pain from the burns subsided enough that I could lift the tea kettle again, I went back to Chemex, refining my method with each brew, carefully analyzing the results and documenting my findings in a yellow legal pad. In short, what had began with a ten cent purchase, quickly devolved into a cupboard dedicated to brewing devices and a countertop over-run by various coffee gadgets.

It was Caitlyn’s idea to buy a coffee roaster. She suggested we make a business of all this coffee geekery, combining my coffee obsession with her passion for community. And thus the dream was born: to make Northfield an even cooler place than it already was by adding specialty coffee to the equation.

We soon purchased a used 5lb roaster with a sparkly red paint job. We named it Dorothy to remind us that there’s no place like home. And as they say, the rest is history.