Hi! I'm Dave, nice to meet you.
I've always enjoyed good food, good drink and great coffee. As a self proclaimed foodie and passionate home cook, I was naturally drawn into the world of specialty coffee. The abundance of coffees, grown around the world and roasted to varying degrees was intriguing. And like exceptional wines, I learned that altitude, climates, drying methods and harvest seasons all played an important role in the flavor profiles of different coffees.
I started a small cafe in the back room of a historic 1740 farmhouse in Charlestown Rhode Island in 1998. For several years, I purchased roasted coffees from various small batch roasters across the country to serve at our cafe. During this time, I continued educating myself about coffee growing regions, the roasting process and refining my pallet to distinguish subtle notes in flavor profiles.
"Every coffee has a story to tell. Knowing who grows the coffee, how it’s harvested, and the effect on the local community is just as important as the quality of the coffee itself"
Then in 2009 a new chapter in the Dave’s Coffee story began when I started roasting our own coffee in a small five hundred square foot room in an old brick factory in Westerly Rhode Island. This new endeavor opened up limitless possibilities of sourcing coffees from around the world and roasting them exactly as we thought they should be to bring out the best flavor and characteristics.
Every coffee has a story to tell. Knowing who grows the coffee, how it’s harvested, and the effect on the local community is just as important as the quality of the coffee itself. I look for coffees where we can trace them back to the growers. When possible, we buy from family farms that often produce only a few hundred pounds per harvest.
I often compares roasting to cooking. It’s a creative culinary expression. Give two chefs the same ingredients and they’ll create totally different dishes. Different coffee roasters can take the exact same beans and create completely different tasting coffees based on their roasting styles. That’s the thing that makes small batch, craft coffee roasting so much fun; no two coffees are ever the same.
Although Dave’s Coffee has grown over the years, we take pride in the fact that our focus remains on the coffee growers and on our small batch roasting style. All Dave’s coffees are roasted weekly to order and shipped fresh. We’ve upgraded our equipment roasting on a twenty-five kilo, American made Diedrich infrared roaster, and now call our seven thousand square foot roastery in Narragansett Rhode Island home. We operate two Dave’s Coffee retail cafes in Charlestown and Providence Rhode Island and love serving our customers amazing coffees.
I look forward to the pleasure of meeting you in person in one of our cafes soon!