At the new Coffeewomple roastery in Minneapolis. Photos by Cindy Freske-Whitney, courtesy of Coffeewomple.
A roasting company in Northeast Minneapolis called Coffeewomple recently embarked on a journey towards high-quality and environmentally conscious coffee, opening a new roastery with an all-electric 15-kilo Giesen roaster at the core.
Playfully referencing the Welsh slang word coddiwomple — which means to travel in a purposeful manner without a defined destination — Coffeewomple is the creation of life and business partners Nicole Bolea and Zach Whitney.
Coffeewomple coffee people: Founders Nicole Bolea and Zach Whitney.
The Minnesota natives met during college engineering studies and are now applying their combined coffee, environmental, engineering and business backgrounds to the full-fledged coffee roasting venture.
The couple started with an Aillio Bullet machine in their basement in late 2022, growing the business through family, friends and local sales while benefitting from training at nearby Mill City Roasters.
Last month, the company completed a transformative upgrade, installing the electric W15E machine by Giesen at their dedicated new roastery.
“We absolutely love Northeast Minneapolis and were fortunate to find a space that was willing to work with us,” Bolea recently told Daily Coffee News. “The space used to be the Rye Krisp factory so there was plenty of power available, which, given the demand of this large and electric roaster, is not the case everywhere. The space also has wonderful light and character so we can continue to grow and utilize the space to host and just enjoy roasting.”
The choice of the Giesen machine was intentional given its relatively large size compared to most electrically heated drum-style production roasters available on the U.S. market.
“We knew if we wanted to really jump in and invest in our expansion, we didn’t want the roaster size to be our limiting factor,” Bolea said. “There were some accommodations we had to make given the roaster did come from the Netherlands.”
Specifically, Bolea and Whintey leveraged their engineering backgrounds to convert the machine for U.S. standard 240/480V power (Giesen has since unveiled a U.S.-specific option).
The roasting machine is the highest-profile example of the company’s efforts towards environmental sustainability. The roastery’s water heater and makeup air unit heater are all both heated by electricity. Consumer coffees are packaged in reusable or compostable bags. Wholesale clients are offered reusable food-grade buckets outfitted with seals from Planetary Design.
Coffeewomple also composts all its chaff via the county’s commercial composting pickup program, and it collects and recycles all of its GrainPro green coffee sacks. Burlap sacks are given to local artists or farmers for reuse.
Said Bolea, “I want to ensure we can maximize the usefulness of all of our waste streams, and would like to explore more uses for chaff beyond just composting.”
Green coffees make their way to the roastery primarily through Minneapolis’s own Cafe Imports, as well as through Western Wisconsin-based nonprofit Farmer to Farmer and Nicaraguan coffee specialist Gold Mountain Coffee Growers.
Bolea said the company is currently focused on expanding locally through more wholesale accounts, in part to minimize the environmental footprint associated with transportation and shipping.
Environmental impact will continue to be the guide of the Coffeewomple coddiwomple.
Said Bolea, “We’ve really approached the business that way and have just had fun exploring coffee in a way that mirrors our environmentally conscious values.”
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Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
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