Pa.-based Denim Coffee Co. offers a more relaxed attitude with a cup of joe - Herald-Mail Media

One might say that Matt Ramsay’s world is coffee.

He not only only roasts coffee, but for the past seven years, he has managed and operated a coffee warehouse, supplied coffee brewing equipment to coffee shops and business, helped design coffee shop spaces, provided consultation on coffee shop workflow, provided training for baristas, and more. Ramsay co-owns Shippensburg, Pa.-based Denim Coffee Co. with his wife, Kristin Ramsay.

Last December, the Ramsays opened a shop, Denim Coffee Co., in Carlisle, Pa. Ramsay got hooked on the coffee shop vibe while he was a student at Shippensburg University and worked at a coffee shop there.

“There was a coffee shop on campus. As a student, I loved the coffee, the art, the music in it,” he said. “I loved the social scene around drinking coffee.”

Ramsay said coffee shops serve as a “third space” in a society that is built around home and work.

“It’s a place outside of those spaces where folks meet. They aren’t going as much, these day, to the Rotary or the Kiwanis. Church attendance is down. People don’t really bowl anymore,” he said. “One-third (of the) space that is on the rise is built around coffee.”

The experience of coffee done right intrigued Ramsay.

“I went to a coffee shop and had this great Ethiopian coffee. I didn’t know coffee could taste like that. The smell just naturally woke me up. The coffee was so complex. I didn’t know you could have a cup that tasted just like blueberries naturally,” he said. “I loved it. So I started learning how to brew properly. I started dialing in on how to brew a good cup at home.”

He started roasting in a small popcorn popper that he purchased on eBay.

“I was roasting half a cup at a time and sampling them. Learning a little about roasting really woke me up to nuance of coffee. It’s very, very complicated,” he said. “How you roast it really changes it. Every little detail matters in coffee.”

Matt Ramsay grew up new Lebanon, Pa., and Kristin hails from the Philadelphia area. They met during college. Matt studied criminal justice, then decided to switch his major to history, which was Kristin’s major as well. After graduation, the couple moved to Huntingdon, Pa.

Ramsay managed a coffee shop in Huntingdon and worked for an outreach ministry, Coalition for Christian Outreach. He spend part of his time on campus at Juniata College meeting with students “asking big questions,” part in the third space coffee shops doing a “mentoring type of thing,” and a lot of time thinking about and studying coffee.

But Matt and Kristin missed the area they’d come to know as home.

“We realized that our community was (in Shippensburg). We had friends who became like family,” he said. “We missed the college community. Most of our friends were not from there, but they went to school there and stayed and planted roots.”

Ramsay decided to return to Shippensburg, and to continue pursuing his outreach ministry and his passion for coffee. As both recreation and research, he visited hundreds of coffees shops, he said, many of them in Pennsylvania. His immediate goal was not to open a shop himself, but to support others to do so well, in part, by supplying the coffee; so he created and followed a business plan for a coffee roasting business.

Wholesale warehouse

“I realized if you want people to make better coffee, they need to have the best equipment. If you want to make good coffee, you have to use good water. We need to train baristas. You need to consider every element,” he said. “We gear everything toward making better coffee. That’s our slogan. ‘Make better coffee.’”

Finding funding to get the business up and running was no easy task.

“Nobody wanted to give us funding. We didn’t own a house. But two people took a big gamble on us,” he said.

With the backing of Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce and Members 1st Federal Credit Union, the Ramsays purchased a roaster and began a bootstrap coffee roasting business out of a warehouse. Originally known as Mosaic Coffee Co., the company found its niche not only roasting, but doing all things coffee, including consultation design, workflow and training.

“I love everything about coffee,” Ramsay said. “I love the intricacy of the taste. The quality that the farmers put into it. They spend a whole year planting coffee and taking care of the soil stewarding the plant. It’s so very intensive. I love the challenge of tasting what they put into the bean and what the soil gives to us.”

Ramsay said he likes to work as closely with farmers as he can, but that coffee grows 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south of the equator.

“I can’t yet afford trips to Costa Rica and Columbia. So we depend on good quality importers who source coffee to shipping ports in New York, then they truck it down to us,” he said.

Coffee can taste thousands of different way, Ramsay said.

“I really love when coffee presents something unique to me. I have had coffee that tastes like garden tomatoes or peas,” he said. “I love them all. It’s just amazing how there two ingredients, water and coffee, have thousands of distinguishable flavors.”

Factoring in the method of processing — wet or dry — creates even more variability, and the level of roast determines whether the taste will be fruity or more robust.

Denim Coffee Co. recently worked with Brio Coffeehouse, which opened this past summer in Waynesboro, Pa. Denim continues to supply the shop with coffee and tea. The wholesaler also is working on a project with a shop in Mercersburg, Pa.

Coffee shop

While the Ramsays enjoyed success with their wholesale business, Matt still had aspirations to open his own shop.

“I remember going to a coffee shop in high school. I could hang out there with friends, do work. I just loved the scene,” he said.

So when he learned that a storefront space that had been a coffee shop in Carlisle was available, he seized the opportunity.

“It was a beautiful space. I knew it was a good opportunity right in the middle of downtown Carlisle. We jumped at it and put a bid into that space. They liked the offer and the use of the space,” he said.

The couple remodeled last year and opened the shop they had dreamed of.

“So, the shop features a modern look. The walls look clean, the color of denim, kind of blue grey. We didn’t want to be too kitschy. You are not going to find a pair of jeans hanging on the wall. It’s subtle,” Ramsay said.

The floor is a cool gray color, and the bars are embellished with metal.

“We’ve got real wood from a local guy who did the bars,” he said. “They are gorgeous and made from scrapped wood. There is a big gorgeous window that overlooks the corner at the square. You can see in and see out. You can sit and work, or meet up with somebody at the bar.”

In addition to coffee, tea and espresso, the menu features some baked goods, and smoothies made only of fruit.

“We do simple sandwiches, five paninis. The recipes have been built over a long period of time. And we have a soup every day as well. The idea is to serve a lunch and to keep it simple and keep it fresh,” Ramsay said.

A few years ago, due to trademark issues, Ramsay changed the name of Mosaic Coffee Co. to Denim Coffee Co.

“Denim” is simple to say and understand, he said, and with just five letters, it’s easy to spell.

“You can wrap your mind around it as a brand,” Ramsay said. “Plus, I like it as a third space image. It’s a place where everyone can come together, and everyone wears denim. Even the president of the university, at some point, wears denim. And so does the guy just coming in off the street, taking a break and grabbing a cup of coffee.”

The “denim” concept applies not only to the people who take part in the coffee culture, Ramsay said, but it also relates to the larger connections in the business of coffee.

“It’s not only what the consumer wears, but when the farmers are planting and harvesting coffee, a lot of them are wearing jeans. It’s about being connected, about those threads coming together and building a strong fabric,” he said. “This coffee and everyone involved in this relationship that goes to other ends of the world. We are connected through this social fabric, as they say.”

In his corner of the world, Ramsay said, “I love that this is one of the most affordable luxuries in our culture. You have moms with kids coming in the shop. You don’t have to spend 40 bucks for lunch. We have black people, white people, Muslim people in the shop with Christians. I love that. I love that people are talking to each other.”

In his ministry work, Ramsay encourages people to ask questions, to consider what they are doing and why they are doing it.

“I say, ‘OK. You are going to get a job and make money. What service is your job going to provide to the world? Can you think about your job in a way that is not about you?’” he said.

He tries to apply the same principles to his coffee enterprise. Ramsay said he sees much of his work as serving other people, including the farmers who produce the beans. “Making better coffee” involves valuing, and not degrading, what the farmers have worked hard to produce.

“We degrade it when we don’t use it properly, when we don’t use the best water, when we don’t use proper filters or the best equipment,” Ramsay said. “We degrade it when we don’t offer great service. When we don’t value it and maintain integrity and value, it is a justice issue.”

Many producers do not get paid what they earn or what the deserve, he said.

“For us, it’s not just about giving our customers a great experience, but also about making sure the farmer gets paid what they deserve, at least the best that we possibly can.”

For more information the Denim Coffee Co.'s wholesale warehouse in Shippensburg and the coffee shop in Carlisle, go to http://ift.tt/2zjc3i3.

http://ift.tt/2zz9J7t