Where do I start?

Sometimes specialty coffee can seem intimidating. There are so many little details to learn, but the secret is you only need to learn the details you’re interested in. Do you drink your coffee with cream and sugar? Maybe you like to reheat your coffee in the microwave throughout the day? Or maybe you just aren’t looking to drop a fortune on a bag of coffee. Our blends are a great place to start. We blend vibrant and tasty coffees together to create unique flavors that will be sure to satisfy your needs. We always add beans sourced through our Brazilian partners, Our Coffees (you should read about them, they’re great!) These beans add body and full flavors people know and love in their morning cup as well as maintain a quality product at an affordable price. Our blends are a great place to get started in coffee or to find a reliable coffee you can come back to again and again. FIND BLENDS HERE

Do you like bright, exciting, and exotic flavors in your coffee? If I told you the tasting notes of one of our offerings were, “blueberry, hibiscus, and red wine” would you just have to try it? Our single origin selections are for you! We have selections from all over the world, focusing on small farms and farmers who produce big flavor. With these coffees we focus on flavor development and generally roast them light to medium to allow them to maintain the exciting flavors and acidity inherent to their origin. FIND SINGLE ORIGINS HERE

Tell me about blends

A coffee blend is just what it sounds like; a blend of different coffees. If you are a wine or whisky drinker, it is similar to single malt vs blended scotch or blended vs varietal wine. Both can be excellent, they’re just different and serve different purposes. We blend different varieties and origins (origin refers to the country a coffee is imported from) to create delicious and reliable flavor profiles. Our blends usually contain coffee from Brazil, sourced through our direct partners Our Coffees. We add Brazilian beans both to create body and flavors that coffee drinkers are accustomed to (Brazil produces much of the coffee we drink) and also to help control the cost and allow us to sell these bags at a more value focused price point. Our blends will all go well with cream and sugar or black. Most of them will make a tasty shot of espresso too! We have several for you to try out and we are confident there’s one in there everyone will enjoy. If you’re unsure what is best for you, don’t hesitate to reach out via the “contact” link at the bottom of this page to ask any questions. We love talking about coffee and our founder/head roaster Alex is always happy answer questions about our coffee selections.

Single origin?

The term “single origin” Is sort of a loose term with no set definition. Most specialty coffees like Hammerhand use the term to describe roasted coffees that were all grown in a single geographic location, most often single farms or multiple neighboring farms processed at a single washing station. These coffees will sometimes have odd sounding names like Finca La Argentina, Mutitu AA, or Girma Eshetu Estate. These coffees normally bare the name of the farm that produced them, the washing station they were processed at, or sometimes even the specific farmer if it is a micro-lot produced by a single farmer. Girma Eshetu is an example of this. We sold coffee grown in Ethiopia by Mr. Girma in 2019 and 2020. In our single origin coffees you can expect vibrant and exotic flavors, sometimes fruity, sometimes full and sweet. We try and have a variety of flavors and origins on our list at any given time so we are sure there’s something you’ll love. If you’re unsure what is best for you, don’t hesitate to reach out via the “contact” link at the bottom of this page to ask any questions. We love talking about coffee and our founder/head roaster Alex is always happy answer questions about our coffee selections.

How long does coffee stay fresh and how should I store it?

Three things will affect the freshness of your roasted coffee: moisture, oxygen, and light. There is no real set time that coffee stays fresh as it all depends on storage. If you leave it open on the counter it will probably taste stale in a week or two. If you leave it in a hermetically sealed bag, it will stay fresh for months. We pack our coffee in airtight, opaque, valved bags that allow gasses out but do not allow oxygen in. If left in these bags our coffee will stay fresh for about 3 months. Once opened, the coffee should be consumed within a couple weeks. If you have a way to store coffee away from light and oxygen, such as an AirScape canister or something similar, your coffee will stay fresh much longer. Keeping it in the bag and folding over the top is a pretty good method but it isn’t fully airtight so you’ll still want to consume the coffee within a few weeks. Ground coffee goes stale much faster and there isn’t a great way to avoid that. You can still use an airtight container to prolong it’s freshness but once you open the bag you’ll want to consume the coffee pretty quickly.

Where do you get your coffees from?

We get our coffees through a small variety of importers. Some direct, some indirect, but we trust all of our importers in terms of quality and ethics. Our Brazilian coffees are all imported directly through the vertically integrated Brazilian company Our Coffees. Most of our high end single origin coffees are sourced through Crop to Cup Importers. Crop to Cup has done some great work in Uganda and is the source of all our Ugandan coffees sold as single origin (the Bulaago, for those who remember that stellar coffee) and found in our Light of Earendil espresso blend. We get our blend selections from both Crop to Cup and Anthem Importers, a local KC partner. Our Guatemalan single origin coffees are all directly sourced through another great vertically integrated company, Onyx Coffee Importers. All these companies are great and we encourage you to read about them. Onyx and Our Coffees especially are really cool companies doing great things in their communities. Their vertically integrated models provide unmatched transparency and quality.

Does decaf coffee have to suck?

If your decaf coffee sucks then you are buying the wrong decaf. Decaf coffee can be delicious just like any other coffee as long as it’s grown and processed with care, roasted properly, and brewed fresh. We focus on sourcing coffees that are decaffeinated through the “Sugarcane Process” as opposed to the typical Swiss Water Process. Unlike the Swiss Water Process, which soaks the dried coffee in tanks of water and then re-dries it, Sugarcane Process decaf exposes the green coffee to Ethyl Acetate to remove caffeine. Ethyl Acetate sounds scary, but it is essentially a product of fermenting sugarcane. Ethyl Acetate is a naturally occurring, sweet solvent and thus ideal for extracting caffeine. Also in countries like Mexico and Colombia, sugarcane is abundant and thus very cost effective. Sugarcane (or E.A.) decaf coffee tastes good enough that it can often be mistaken for regular coffee. Our current decaf was sourced through Crop to Cup Importers and hails from Oaxaca, Mexico. It is a deliciously sweet coffee that has tasting notes of hazelnut, chocolate, and graham cracker. It goes great with cream and sugar but, honestly, we prefer it black. Our founder and head roaster, Alex, is fairly sensitive to caffeine and drinks our decaf regularly. If you want to try it out find it here. You won’t regret it.

What blends do you sell?

The Everyman: Our medium roast blend is formatted to please just about everyone. Currently a blend of Colombian and Brazilian beans, we roast this coffee right in between light and dark to make for a cup anyone can enjoy. Our most popular coffee, this blend goes very well with cream and sugar but also tastes great on it’s own. If you don’t know where to start or you are just looking for a good old standby, this is a great choice.

Halo: Our light roast blend is made to satisfy the coffee lover. With this blend we generally use one of our washed Ethiopian single origin selections blended with our Brazilian mainstay coffees to make a cup that is tantalizing, familiar, and affordable. You can expect bright and vibrant flavors balanced with sweetness and body.

The Wanderer: If you like dark roasts, this one is made for you. We blend together coffees from all over the world and roast them just to the edge of darkness to make a bold, smoky cup that you’ll crave every morning. Leave the ashy, stale grocery store brands on the shelves. This will be your new favorite.

Espresso: “Espresso beans” aren’t really a thing. Any coffee can be brewed as espresso, but we blend coffees specifically to fit a flavor profile we look for in the cafe. In our espresso drinks we look for perfect balance of sweet and bright flavors. When these specific coffees are available, we use natural coffee from Serrinha Brazil and washed coffee from the Mt. Elgon region of Uganda. As these coffees are seasonal, we will blend together other, similar, coffees in the off season to best match our desired flavor profile. If you have a home espresso set up this blend will work great for you, but it also makes for a great medium roast drip coffee! This blend is tasty and versatile.