A bag of Panama Bambito Gesha Peaberry from Oliver’s Custom Coffee. All images courtesy of Oliver’s Custom Coffee.
A longtime leader of Washington State roasting company Olympia Coffee has launched a new venture called Oliver’s Custom Coffee, focused on high-end coffees, experimental post-harvest processing and a novel approach to communicating differences in roasting.
In an announcement of the new roasting outfit, founder Oliver Stormshak described the company’s coffee offerings as “the best of the best,” while noting that many of the coffees in the inaugural lineup feature processing methods that were developed in direct collaboration with the coffee producers.
A bag of Panama Bambito Gesha Peaberry from Oliver’s Custom Coffee. All images courtesy of Oliver’s Custom Coffee.
The coffees come with a number of third-party bonafides, including B Corp certification, Olympia Coffee’s Fair For All designation (as certified by Enveritas), and Stormshak’s own professional certification in Q Processing.
While Stormshak maintains his role as Olympia’s co-founder, president and green coffee buyer, he told DCN that Oliver’s Custom Coffee is focused on trends that began to emerge among certain high-end coffee consumers during the pandemic era.
“We started selling much more coffee online with a much more engaged customer base; we see more interest in more specific coffees that are unique in flavor and exciting to drink,” Stormshak told DCN. “Simultaneously I grew more interested in the farming and processing side of the business and wanted to gain more control over the raw product we are roasting. However, Olympia Coffee has a selection of core products and great coffees our customers love. We didn’t want to make dramatic changes to Olympia Coffee flooding our customers with more experimental coffees and with higher prices.”
Prices for 6-ounce bags of roasted coffees in Oliver’s inaugural lineup range from $22.75 up to $65, pre-shipping.
Notably, all of the inaugural single-origin coffees offered by Oliver’s are roasted to two distinct levels — one lighter and one darker, as communicated by a numeric Agtron score. In a launch announcement, the company said this allows coffee drinkers to “explore the unique flavors roast imparts.”
Oliver’s coffees are being roasted at Olympia’s roastery before being packaged in 60% compostable Biotrē 2.0 bags from manufacturer TricorBraun Flex. Portland, Oregon-based design firm Needmore Designs helped lead the design of the brand, the bags and the website.
“On the packaging design, we were really inspired around the idea of the bags mimicking a 7″ single on vinyl,” Stormshak told DCN. “We also took inspiration from both jazz albums and early new wave and punk designs. I love the idea [that] when we drop a coffee it’s like a single hitting the airwaves.”
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Nick Brown Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
