THE CONVERSATION
Ray: This week, Abracadabra Coffee Co. of …
Kandace: Vermont.
Ray: Somewhere in Vermont.
Kandace: Wait, Vermont’s a city, right? No, I’m kidding …
Ray: Isn’t that where Bernie Sanders is, the senator, from?
Kandace: Oh …
Ray: What, he’s not dead or anything, he’s still running.
Kandace: This isn’t coming out for like a month.
Ray: Yeah, he’ll be dead by then.
Kandace: Are you going to cry during this episode?
Ray: Why would I cry?
Kandace: I’m not saying Ray’s a cryer, I just …
Ray: They roast coffee and they give a damn. They’re all about giving a damn, really, that’s kind of their brand. It’s super cool how they put these little tags in here. I feel like I’m thrift-shopping.
Kandace: It’s two people! Two people. This is what is so surprising to me, there’s two people, they’re roasting coffee, they’re at a bunch of farmer’s markets in Vermont, they have a nitro cold brew, and they hand screen-print all of their packages, they hand-stamp all of these, they made their own logo … It’s two people who never sleep who are making this amazing coffee and brand. Their Instagram feed is fantastic. It has so much energy.
Ray: Yeah, it’s on fleet. Did you talk to Clint?
Kandace: I talked to Clint.
Ray: What did you guys talk about?
Kandace: We talked about … lots of things. Clint gave us a tour of their roasting facility.
Ray: Okay. Take it away, Clint.
Clint: Yeah, I am Clint Hunt, I am the co-owner and roaster of Abracadabra Coffee Co. in Cavendish, Vermont. We are a really micro, micro-roaster, specializing mostly with single origin micro lots.
Yeah, there was a tree that fell onto this roastery last summer, but it’s all good. Can you still see?
Kandace: Yeah. This is the roastery?
Clint: Yeah.
Kandace: One thing that’s interesting about Abracadabra is that they set out not to be coffee roasters, but to make goat cheese.
Ray: Really?
Kandace: Yes, so they have some space in Vermont, they have goats right outside of their roasting facility, and one of the things that they noticed was that there wasn’t any phenomenal coffee happening in their region. Being the go-getters that they are, they thought, “We’ll make that coffee.”
Ray: Goat getters?
Clint: I was in coffee in Columbus, Ohio, before we moved to Vermont, six years ago, as a barista all the way through most of the aspects of the coffee industry, except for roasting. When we came up here to get away from the city and try to take a stab at homesteading and farming and all that fun stuff, we had the idea of having a goat cheese farm.
That did happen, we still have goats, it still exists, but after realizing that the opportunity here for coffee was huge, there wasn’t any specialty coffee in our area, so it was kind of a no-brainer to try our hand at roasting and doing that. We had to do it for ourselves anyway, I’d have to drive at least 30 miles to get good coffee.
Ray: One day, did they come out and notice the goats were dancing because they had lots of energy? Really fucks with the cheese, yeah.
Kandace: Growing their own coffee … Oh my god, coffee goat cheese. Please, make it. These guys could do it.
Ray: Wait, what? Wait, back up …
Kandace: Yes, yes. No, yes!
Ray: Walk me through this. You just said coffee and goat cheese like we’re supposed to naturally fit those together.
Kandace: I think Clint and Antoinette could do that.
Ray: Do what? What is this, an affogato or something?
Kandace: Yes!
Ray: You take some goat cheese, pour some coffee on it. That’s not going to be good!
Kandace: No, not affogato, actually make goat cheese infused with coffee.
Ray: Oh, okay.
Kandace: Oh, now you’re on board?
Ray: Well, it makes more sense than what …
Kandace: Abracadabra …
Ray: Of Vermont. Go get yourselves some coffee.