From $300/Month at Starbucks to Small-Batch Roaster: How I Accidentally Started Boom Roasted (And Why You Should Care)
Look, I'm not proud of this, but I need to come clean: I was dropping $300 a month at Starbucks.
Three. Hundred. Dollars.
Every month, like clockwork, I'd reload my Starbucks app because I needed my daily caramel mocha fix. The baristas knew my name. They knew my order. They'd see me walking up and have my transaction ready with a smile. I was living the dream, right?
Except the coffee tasted like a mouthful of copper.
I Thought I Was a Coffee Person
Here's the thing—I've loved coffee since I was a kid. My parents would let us have a cup on Monday mornings before school (yes, even as kids, and yes, we turned out fine). When I was seven, I tried making my own coffee. It went about as well as you'd expect from a second-grader with access to appliances.
Fast forward to sixteen: I got a job as a dishwasher at a local coffee and artisan bread shop. This was where I learned there were different types of coffee. French roast! Espresso! Drip! I thought I was a real connoisseur. I had arrived.
Cut to me, years later, as a grown adult working at a tech company, walking in every morning with my Starbucks caramel mocha, thinking I had good taste in coffee.
I was so, so wrong.
The Day Everything Changed
One morning in 2015, I walked into work with my usual Starbucks cup, and my coworker Mike DeClue called me out.
"You're drinking swill," he said, completely unprompted.
Mike had been a sous chef and—here's the important part—a coffee roaster. He promised to bring me something the next day that would "change my mind forever on coffee."
I was skeptical. But the next day, Mike showed up with a bag of fresh-roasted beans from Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
I haven't been the same since.
Okay, full disclosure: I've definitely stooped to Starbucks in moments of desperate need since then. We're all human. But if I can help it? Never again. That bag of Huehuetenango beans Mike brought me was a revelation—a BOOM moment, if you will—that showed me what coffee could actually taste like when it wasn't burnt into oblivion and drowning in caramel syrup.
The Dream Gets Planted (Then Takes Forever to Grow)
For the next seven or eight years, I talked. And talked. And talked about roasting coffee. "I should totally roast my own coffee," I'd say at parties. "Wouldn't it be cool to start a roasting business?" I'd wonder aloud to anyone who would listen.
But I didn't do anything about it.
Until 2023.
I finally pulled the trigger and bought a small air roaster. I set it up on my kitchen counter, ready to begin my journey as a coffee roaster. I watched the beans bounce around in the roasting chamber, completely mesmerized, almost trancelike, thinking, "This is beautiful. This is my calling."
Then the smoke alarms went off.
The dogs started barking. The cats begged to go outside. Everyone in my house was yelling, "WHAT IS THAT BURNING SMELL?!"
I had no idea roasting coffee would produce this much smoke. Nobody tells you that part.
That was the moment I realized: this is a garage activity. With many, many fans.
Learning the Hard Way (AKA Wasting 10 Batches)
My first batch was underroasted. Tasted like grass. Not great.
But when you buy your first batch of green beans, you get this little card that shows you the color evolution of a roast—from pale green to light brown to that perfect medium roast to "oops, that's charcoal." I started watching the beans carefully, learning to read the color changes, listening for the "first crack" (the popcorn-popping sound that tells you things are happening).
It took about ten wasted batches before I dialed it in. Ten batches of trial, error, and slightly disappointing coffee. But when I finally nailed it? Chef's kiss.
When It Got Real
In 2024, my brother tasted what I'd been making and fell in love with it. He believed in what I was doing so much that he put up money to help me expand. He helped me get a larger electric roaster and my first big order of unroasted Huehuetenango beans—the same origin that started this whole journey back when Mike brought me that first bag.
In March 2024, I set up my LLC. Within the month, I had paying customers.
Boom Roasted was officially real.
Why "Boom Roasted"?
I like to think I'm funny. The name is a double meaning: there's the Office reference (Michael Scott roasting people), and I actually plan to put silly roasts on coffee bags one day—stuff like "You're short, flat-footed, and your mama dresses you funny" or "You're bald." Stupid stuff that makes people laugh.
But more importantly, "BOOM" captures that revelation moment. That feeling when you taste actual good coffee for the first time and your whole understanding of what coffee can be just explodes. BOOM. You see it. You get it. And you can't go back.
That's what I want to share with people.
What I'm Doing Now (And Why You Should Care)
I still have my day job. Roasting is my weekend escape—my Saturday or Sunday ritual in the garage, surrounded by fans, watching beans transform from green to glossy brown. Sometimes I sneak in a weekday roast if I can get away with it. It's cathartic.
I don't need an empire. I'm not trying to become the next big coffee chain. What I do want is this:
Help people who've never had good coffee start with great taste from day one. Why settle for burnt Folgers when you could know what coffee is supposed to taste like?
Get people away from Charbucks (yeah, I said it) and grocery store coffee that's been sitting on shelves for months. You deserve better.
Be dependable for the people who get it. I can't please everyone—and that's fine. But the people who taste what I'm making and feel that BOOM moment? Those are my people. And they deserve someone reliable who's going to keep delivering quality, small-batch coffee roasted fresh in a garage in Utah.
That's What She Roasted
So here we are. A guy who spent $300/month on coffee that tasted like copper is now roasting 500-gram micro-batches of Huehuetenango beans in his garage every weekend, trying to bring a little coffee enlightenment to the world, one bag at a time.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. If you're curious about what I'm roasting right now, check out the shop. And if you're still drinking Starbucks every day?
No judgment. I've been there.
But maybe—just maybe—it's time for your BOOM moment.
— Mike
Founder, Chief Roaster, Former Starbucks Apologist
BOOM! Roasted Coffee Co.
