And that’s what we do.
Our beans are roasted the way coffee was roasted when it was discovered, and where it’s grown: in a cast iron skillet over a steady open flame. We uniquely craft each batch of beans to create a balanced, bold, clean cup of joe.
Coffee is an agricultural product, and like the grapes that create wine, coffee beans take on the distinctive characteristics of the terroir in which they are grown. Our craft roasting process coaxes the ideal flavor out of each bean, highlighting the nuances that each coffee growing region, each farm, each crop produces.
We are also innovators in coffee roasting technologies. We are creating new ideas and taking commercial coffee roasting to new places.
Cast 26 Coffee is about more than coffee. It’s also about a connection to the birthplace of coffee. Ethiopia introduced the world to coffee, and introduced us to the art of roasting coffee in a skillet. Ethiopia is also a Mecca to one of our other passions, running, and home to two of our running heroes, Abebe Bikila and Haile Gebreselaisse. There are 26 miles in a marathon, and our founder Jeff has completed 16 of them, plus four 100 mile races, an un-remembered number of 50 milers, and too-many-to-count miles on his feet in training for all them.
Cast 26 Coffee is also about a connection to the process itself. 26 is also the atomic number of iron, one of the most common elements on earth. That makes it an ideal substance on which to roast the ingredient for one of the most common drinks on earth.
Hence, the name: Cast 26 Coffee. Small batch coffee roasted in a cast iron skillet.
is to produce fresh, original, great tasting coffee by roasting high quality green beans in a flatbed cast iron roaster, and to do so in a meaningful, impactful, and sustainable way that has a positive impact on our community and our environment.
We accomplish this by sourcing our green coffee from small producers, farmers, and cooperatives that value sustainability in their growing and milling practices; by taking care with each batch of coffee we roast; by valuing diversity and equity; by being committed to providing a great work environment and treating everyone—partners, associates, suppliers, buyers, and customers—with dignity and respect; and by implementing accounting controls that establish long term financial success.
We started with a simple idea:
Roast coffee in a cast iron skillet.
Our mission
Values
Quality & Detail: in every batch we roast, in every bag we seal, in every cup we brew.
Community: When we improve our community, we improve the lives of all our neighbors.
Environment: We’ve only got one home; let’s take care of it.
Sustainability: In the coffee we source, in how we package it, in how we sell it, and in our own finances.
Innovation: from the design of our process to the development of a new kind of coffee roaster.
Who we are
I began roasting coffee in 2014.
Having been a lifelong coffee drinker, I wanted to try my hand at roasting beans, but the high cost of roasters seemed to put the idea out of reach. Undaunted, I reached for one of my oldest kitchen tools, the cast iron pan.
While traveling in Ethiopia in 2010, I’d had the opportunity to participate in a coffee ceremony which are traditionally performed on special occasions or to mark important events. During the ceremony, a small amount of green coffee was roasted in a pan over a flame. The then freshly roasted coffee was ground and brewed in a ceramic pot called a jebena. The brewed coffee was shared among all the participants, each of us receiving three cups of coffee we’ll never forget.
Applying what I’d experienced in Ethiopia, with supplemental knowledge from a few online videos, I roasted my first small batch of beans in a 9-inch cast iron skillet on our electric stovetop. Though the house filled with smoke, the coffee was delicious, and transforming the beans from green to nut brown to roasted was really a lot of fun. I took future roasts outside, upgraded to a 5-quart dutch oven on a propane fueled pot stove, and appropriated a pasta pot with colander as a cooling bin. Every month or so I roasted enough coffee to keep our Chemex filled daily.
When 2020 hit and the world turned on its head, I came up with this idea of selling the beans. I set up the stove on a camping table at the Berlin Farmers Market and in three hours sold out of a couple dozen half pound bags of Ethiopian Harrar.
Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who liked the coffee.
Cast 26 Coffee was born from my love of exploration and experimentation, and from the thrill at meeting others who love the taste of a good cup of coffee as much as I do.
