Placer Roasting Opens a Place for Tasting in California Gold Country

Howard Bryman | July 24, 2025

Placer Coffee Roasting cafe Rocklin CA 1

Inside the new Placer Roasting Company tasting room in Rocklin, California. All images courtesy of Placer Roasting Company.

There’s gold in them thar beans, and a new Northern California roaster called Placer Roasting Company is extracting it for guests inside its new roastery tasting room.

About a half an hour northeast of downtown Sacramento in Rocklin, the new shop from married co-founders Katie and Shawn Clouse features a brew-colored landscape mural overlaid with the motto “Good People Good Coffee” while reflecting the area’s rugged terrain.

Pops of green and black complement natural wood surfaces and the polished white quartz bar, where espresso drinks, batch brews and single-cup pourovers shine the brightest.

“These materials strike a balance between modern and earthy, aligning with our values as a local roaster that prioritizes both quality and approachability,” Shawn Clouse told Daily Coffee News. “We wanted the environment to feel bright, intentional and welcoming, but not overly cozy or cluttered. It’s a space that invites curiosity and conversation around specialty coffee.”

A brew bar devoted to Hario V60 pourovers was designed to promote engagement, as guests can closely observe the brewing process led by skilled baristas.

“That visibility and interaction were central to our design. We wanted to foster an environment that celebrates the craft behind every cup,” said Clouse. “The tasting room is quickly becoming known for its single-origin pourovers, but we feature specialty coffee drinks as well, including seasonal creations.”

The shop’s namesake, Placer County, sits squarely in Gold Country, the region that attracted waves of ’49ers to its treasure-laden mines 175 years ago. The tasting room’s quartz counter nods to this history, while all of the coffee company’s blends are named after nearby mines.

“It’s a way for us to honor the local heritage while creating a strong sense of place in everything we do,” said Clouse. “We even involve our kids in the naming process, which has been a fun way to incorporate our family into the roastery.”

The Clouses launched Placer Roasting Company in the summer of 2024, with Shawn building upon his experience as a home roaster and Katie leveraging experience in sales and management.

Now, in a 400-square-foot roastery adjoining the coffee shop, Shawn mines each coffee for its ideal flavors using a Nucleus Link sample roaster prior to production roasting on a custom painted Diedrich IR-12. Green coffees come mostly through Covoya Coffee, with some also coming through direct relationships with farmers in Mexico and Costa Rica.

“My top priorities are transparency, ethical sourcing and cup quality,” said Clouse. “I look for coffees that are not only traceable and fairly traded, but also bring something special to the cup, whether that’s vibrant fruit, floral aromatics or deep sweetness.”

As the tasting room provides a platform to directly engage consumers in the specialness of specialty coffee, the company is also looking to expand on the wholesale frontier.

“We’re focused on growing a thriving wholesale business, partnering with like-minded cafes and shops that value quality,” said Clouse. “At the heart of it all is our mission: Good People Making Good Coffee, and we look forward to growing our roastery and tasting room footprint while giving back to the local community.”