Our Story
Mark & sons Ben & Isaac are Cuneo Coffee
Isaac – Fulfillment Specialist
Isaac takes care of everything post roasting. Label Design, Label Printing, Appling labels to bags, Weighting and Filling bags, Grinding if needed and sealing the bags.
Ben – Apprentice Roaster
Ben is an apprentice roaster. He’s read the roaster manuals and is shadowing Mark. He gets the roaster warmed up, weights out the green beans, turns on the fans, fills the roaster, and is learning to properly identify first and second crack during the coffee roasting process—all under the guidance of his father. Follow Mark’s journey below.
Mark’s Journey
Mark has been roasting coffee since 2016—and obsessive about Espresso even longer.
Coffee?
When I was 7 I went with my parent and grandparents to the family home in Calvari Italy—Northern Italy where much of the history of espresso was written. During that trip my father bought an espresso machine. It was impressive, especially for a 7 year old. It was made of shinny metal and an ornate top piece. It had all sorts of knobs and levers and when the steam lever was pulled it sounded like a jet airplane taking off—Impressive.
My dad drank coffee all the time, but he only fired up the espresso machine when guests came over. I never liked it, it smelled okay but when I tried it I thought it tasted terrible.
Portland—and a new place called Starbucks
But after I got married, we moved to Portland Oregon; 9 months of depressing overcast skies. My wife was sold on this new place she had found called Starbucks “they have mochas, they’re warm, and yummy and make you feel good” after a lot of encouragement I gave a chocolate raspberry mocha with whipped cream a try. Oh, that was good, but importantly, the caffeine made my dreary days in Portland seem better.
Georgia—First Espresso Machine
But I began to wonder just how good all that those syrups and flavorings were, and they weren’t cheap. So I decided I could do this myself. When we moved to Georgia I bought my first espresso machine, decided to skip the extras and just drink cappuccino’s—espresso and steamed milk. That was good.
Sadly espresso drinking is not as inexpensive as I thought, only because I got more and more focused on perfecting my espresso, which lead to better grinders and better espresso machines. Moving up to better espresso equipment (mainly the grinder) made me realize that straight espresso (all by itself) was pretty good. The better equipment let me pull thicker shots. But it was a business trip to Seattle where I discovered Espresso Vivace that really changed the taste of my espresso shots, the first time I remember tasting a sweet espresso shot.
But those beans were expensive and the shipping made it pretty expensive to buy all the time. And then I heard that some people roasted their beans themselves, which began my coffee roasting odyssey.
Where do you get Coffee Beans?
I began to locate sources for unroasted coffee (referred to as green coffee). I found out that there were actually quite a few places that I could buy green coffee and I didn’t have to buy a 132lb bag off a ship from Brazil. Actually it was easy to get green coffee beans from all over the world.
Roasting Coffee
I read a lot—roasting books, coffee bean supplier websites, and websites of companies that sold coffee.
I started roasting by putting green coffee beans on a cookie sheet in the oven. Didn’t work well—don’t bother trying this yourself. But I am so glad I took the ridiculous path I did to coffee roasting. I learned so much!
Next was a wok on the stovetop, in a cast iron pan, stirring constantly. This is not a lot different than the way they roast in Ethiopia, but they do it outside, on a stovetop it gets pretty smokey—at least that’s what my wife said.
Then I started using a Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper. I moved to the garage (still smokey but I could open the garage door), but I had to keep manually turning the handle. Then I turned the Whirley Pop into a Frankenroaster. Added a motor (no more turning the handle), inserted a thermocouple (so I could have control over the roast temperature for the first time) and connected the thermocouple to my laptop with roast software (because I am a geek).
That was great, but I could only roast 1lb max at a time. I was roasting for friends, and family now, and I was outgrowing my little Whirley Pop. So got a 1 Kilo (2.2lb) Aillio Bullet. A beautify designed roaster for the home enthusiast with all the controls I needed to roast.
I spent several months getting my Georgia Cottage Food License and started selling to a few more people. Now with the help of my son-in-law James I have a website. We’re the real deal now. I hope you will help Ben, Isaac and I keep this story going.