New Roasting Company Hawthorne Hill Now Jazzing Up Dayton

The cover of Jeff Goldblum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra’s 2019 LP “I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This,” released by Decca.

Style icon and star of stage and screen Jeff Goldblum is also an accomplished jazz pianist — a fact that is not as widely known as his roles in the Jurassic Park series or The Fly.

Similarly, specialty coffee may not be Dayton, Ohio‘s most recognizable trait, though a new roasting company with an appreciation for all things Goldblum called Hawthorne Hill Coffee hopes to raise that profile.

Truly a fruit of pandemic-era, home-based labor, Hawthorne Hill was founded in June by Chris Dearth and Carrie Snider-Dearth out of their home in the Dayton suburb of Centerville.

Now inside the District Provisions market building in Dayton’s Oregon District, the company has upgraded to commercial Dong Yi  roasting equipment and is poised for growth.

Chris Dearth at Hawthorne Hill in the District Provisions building in Dayton, Ohio. Courtesy photo.

“Dayton is a great coffee town, and we have partnered with other roasters in the area to purchase green beans alongside their shipments,” Chris Dearth recently told Daily Coffee News. “This has helped us build a cooperatively competitive market in Dayton, which fits perfectly into our passion for community stewardship.”

Dearth took his first steps into the craft of roasting by gleaning advice from online resources and applying them to batch after batch on his Behmor 2000 home roaster.

“Through hours and hours of late nights roasting on the tiny Behmor in our garage I was able to quickly see, feel, smell, and hear what certain coffee beans want you to do to them during the roasting process,” said Dearth. “Having a sales background I’m not shy, and I have been able to connect with other roasters in Dayton that have been in the space for decades. They have been supportive in any way that I have needed, including advise of profiles, packaging, logistics — the whole business really.”

Courtesy photo.

The internet is now also where Hawthorne Hill, like so many companies in the COVID-19 era, does a lot of its business. Social media engagement is thus an important tool, and on the accounts associated with Hawthorne Hill, a surprising amount of time is spent in adulation of Jeff Goldblum.

“Jeff is the truth,” said Dearth. “Jeff Goldblum’s style is incredible and is an inspiration for many aspects of our coffee brand. …The irony here is, according to [TV show The World According to Jeff Goldblum], Jeff removed coffee from his diet. Find me a more stylish icon and I’ll consider switching my JG fixation.”

Finding brand alignment through the spirits of family, craft and quality, Hawthorne Hill sells a selection of brewing equipment by Saint Anthony Industries alongside its 8-ounce bags of single-origin coffees and blends, including multiple fundraising coffees for local nonprofits such as Clothes That Work and The Autism Society of Dayton.

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While building sales locally and online, Dearth hopes to grow the business into a full-service coffee bar with a “watch your roast” service once the COVID-19 pandemic has abated to safe levels.

“We are eager to see our world normalize as I am excited to have our customers play an active role in the coffee that they are buying from us,” said Dearth. “We anticipate being able to start the ‘watch your roast’ service in the Spring of 2021.”