FOR RELEASE DEC. 17, 2012
MEDIA CONTACT: Keith Hautala, (859) 533-2911
Magic Beans: Local Roaster Raises Bar on Coffee Quality
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 17, 2012) — Keith Hautala sniffs, then sips
from his mug, and gives his first impression.
“It has a nice, berry-like aroma,” he says.
Across the table, his partner, Schuyler Warren nods in agreement:
“I like this one a lot.”
501 W. Sixth Street
Lexington, KY 40508
www.magicbeanscoffee.com
The two are looking for a single-origin coffee to feature as the next
offering by Magic Beans Coffee Roasters, the company they launched earlier
this month. This particular sample, a “micro-lot” offering, traceable to a single
farm, is a strong contender.
“Coffee is made on the farm,” says Warren, the business end of the
sales
Schuyler Warrren
(859) 629-1209
[email protected]
production
Keith Hautala
(859) 533-2911
[email protected]
partnership. “What makes any single coffee taste different from every other
mostly has to do with where it is grown, and how. We’re looking for coffees
that offer exceptional value in the cup.”
Hautala is responsible for sourcing and roasting the green coffee
beans and coaxing out their delicious aromas and flavors.
“We are not the creators of magic,” he says. “We are merely the
curators, the last of many, many hands that worked to bring this coffee to
market. It is our responsibility to preserve and highlight the outstanding
qualities of each coffee that we present. Our philosophy can be summed up
in three words: Respect the bean.”
This business isn’t completely new to Hautala and Warren. The
new Magic Beans takes its name from the coffeehouse Hautala operated
in Lexington from 1999-2001, when Warren was a University of Kentucky
student, working his way through college at the restaurant next door. Hautala
closed up shop after two years to pursue a career in journalism. Warren
moved to Oregon to attend graduate school and start a family.
A decade later, Warren returned to Lexington and found himself
dissatisfied with the coffee on offer in his old Kentucky home. So he
approached Hautala with the idea of roasting again.
“Being on the West Coast, especially in Portland, you can get spoiled
on great coffee,” Warren said.
Hautala, a California transplant who moved to Lexington in 1998,
agrees.
“A lot of people say they don’t like coffee because they’ve never had
good coffee,” he said. “Outside of cities where there’s a well-developed cafe
culture, it can be hard to find a really great cup.”
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MAGIC BEANS
page 2 of 2
“We are not the
creators of magic;
we are merely the
curators ...
Our philosophy
can be summed
up in three words:
Respect the bean.”
— Keith Hautala,
roaster, Magic Beans
Coffee Roasters
The two formed a company in August, bought a coffee-roasting
machine and set up a tiny, 324-square-foot “roasting studio” in the Bread
Box, the former Rainbo bread factory now known as the home of West Sixth
Brewing.
In October, they launched a subscription-by-mail business on the
popular crowd-funding website Kickstarter, where they raised their initial goal
of $2,000 in slightly under seven hours. They went on to raise more than
$7,000 in pledges and recruit more than 100 customers over the next 30
days.
The coffees are roasted using a hand-built Sivetz roasting machine,
a contraption straight out of a mad scientist’s laboratory, which uses a
special hot-air “fluid-bed” process to roast the beans. The machine produces
coffees that are more evenly roasted and cleaner-tasting than traditional,
drum-roasted coffees, Hautala says.
The new Magic Beans has no coffeehouse, no storefront, and, as of
yet, no retail outlets. Instead, the business depends upon word-of-mouth,
Facebook (www.facebook.com/magicbeanscoffee), and its own website
(www.magicbeanscoffee.com) to reach out to customers.
“We want to find some local shops to carry our beans as well, but
we don’t want our beans to be sitting on a shelf somewhere going stale,”
Warren said. “Our goal is to get them sold within a week of roasting.”
They accomplish this through a combination of in-person deliveries
and limited public sales around town.
Magic Beans’ next public sale will be from noon to 4 p.m. this
Saturday, Dec. 22, at West Sixth Brewing, where they will be sampling
three different types of coffee, offering grinding and brewing tips, and selling
12-ounce bags of their beans for $12 each.
For more information, please visit www.magicbeanscoffee.com or
send an e-mail to [email protected].
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Magic Beans’ roasting
machine is a handbuilt Sivetz ‘fluid bed’
design, which uses
rapidly moving hot air
rather than a rotating
steel drum to roast
the beans. Proponents
of air roasting say it
produces a cleaner,
more evenly roasted
product.
‘Guerrilla roasters’
Schuyler Warren (left)
and Keith Hautala
entertain customers
with a brewing
demonstration at Magic
Beans’ first public sale
on Dec. 8.
Magic Beans hand
packages its coffees
in bags that have been
individually stamped
with the date the coffee
inside was roasted.
They aim to sell all of
their coffee within a
week of its roast date to
guarantee freshness.