I began my coffee roasting journey in my kitchen. Having been a lifelong coffee drinker, I wanted to try my hand at roasting beans, but the high cost of roasters seemed to put the idea out of reach. Undaunted, I reached for my oldest kitchen tool, the cast iron pan. 

While traveling in Ethiopia in 2010, I’d had the opportunity to participate in a coffee ceremony which  are traditionally performed on special occasions or to mark important events. During the ceremony, a small amount of green coffee was roasted in a pan over a flame. The then freshly roasted coffee was ground and brewed in a ceramic pot called a jebena. The brewed coffee was shared among all the participants, each of us receiving three cups of coffee we’ll never forget. 

Applying what I’d experienced in Ethiopia, with supplemental knowledge from a few online videos, I roasted my first small batch of beans in a 9-inch cast iron skillet on our electric stovetop. Though the house filled with smoke, the coffee was delicious, and transforming the beans from green to nut brown to roasted was really a lot of fun. I took future roasts outside, upgraded to a 5-quart dutch oven on a propane fueled pot stove, and appropriated a pasta pot with colander as a cooling bin. Every month or so I roasted enough coffee to keep my  Chemex filled daily. 

When 2020 hit and the world turned on its head, I came up with this idea of selling the beans. I set up the stove on a camping table at the Berlin Farmers Market and in three hours sold out of a couple dozen half pound bags of Ethiopian Harrar. The next week, I sold out again, half of sales to repeat customers. 

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who liked the coffee.

Iron Skillet Coffee was born from my love of exploration and experimentation, and from the thrill at meeting others who love the taste of a good cup of coffee as much as I do.

Jeff Smith, Owner and Roaster