139 | Starting A Coffee Shop vs Starting A Coffee Roastery

We're approaching the end of the year, and wanted to take a moment to reflect back on our coffee journey this past year. In this episode we talk about our favorite coffees of 2025, big lessons of the year, and the one thing you need to do to master any skill in coffee.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Coffee gear is meant to make coffee taste better and your life easier. In this episode, we each share our top 3 coffee tools that have impacted our coffee journey the most this past year.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

There's a lot of new coffee gear being released and it feels like it's more than ever which is exciting. New gear is a step in the right direction, however, does new gear make coffee taste better or is it simply making brewing coffee more convenient?Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

We take 3 common phrases we heard around the coffee community and rate them as overrated, underrated, or properly rated. We talk about why grinding finer isn’t always helpful, the benefits of properly resting your coffee, and why you might not want high clarity burrs.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Coffee roast color is one of the biggest variables in taste. We often choose the coffees we drink by roast development level, however, how do we measure that? Light, medium, and dark roast are broad terms that are difficult to quantify and that have a wide range. How can a roaster communicate their roast level in a way that is helpful to coffee drinkers? We talk about the challenges of defining development level, color readers, and a simple database that might help.Google Sheet With Color Readings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GkIjVVj6_PW9_JavwixluRgKK1U2ZLT-xXFs1ZmzSWE/edit?usp=sharingPick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Coffee equipment plays a huge role in running a successful and thriving coffee shop. Picking the right gear for your specific coffee shop needs can help you serve your guests well, save money, and make it easy for your team of baristas to do their job. In this episode we expand on what to consider when shopping for espresso machines, coffee grinders, and other gear for your new coffee shop.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Many of us love the hunt of finding exceptional coffee to brew and drink at home. Oftentimes, they come with a much higher price tag. Exotic, hard to find, and delicious coffees deserve to cost more, but that doesn’t mean that all expensive coffees are delicious or worth their price. On this episode, we talk about what goes into pricing coffees and how sometimes, pricing can be deceiving.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Developing a coffee roast profile is one of the most important parts of roasting coffee. It’s what becomes the reference point to all your production roasts. Although we could have talked for another hour about building roast profiles, in this packed episode, we talk about our approach to building roast profiles, how new coffees are roasted, and the quality metrics we aim for that help dial in a coffee. Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Recently, we competed in the regional aeropress championships. There were some last minute challenges we had to work around, build recipes, and create efficient workflows with the aeropress. We cover all of this in this episode of the coffee roaster warm up sessions podcast.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA

Light roast has exploded in popularity over the last 15 years. It's quickly becoming many people's preference in coffee development, however, for many people, it's something they avoid. Through personal conversations, social media, and online forums, there are a few myths and misconceptions we often here time after time again. In this podcast, we address these misconceptions.Pick up our coffee here: https://mirrorcoffeeroasters.com/Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirrorcoffeeroasters/Mirror Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bellingham, WA