Behind the scenes at Pure Intentions Coffee
Pure Intentions Coffee is roasted north of the city in a concrete and cinder block storehouse stock piled high with burlap sacks of coffee beans and lined with gleaming chrome machines. There’s a hodgepodge of what I assume is hand-me-down furniture and vintage pin-ups on the walls. You wouldn’t know it sitting there in that eclectic, almost rebellious space, but Matt Yarmey, the founder, was actually born and bred into corporate desklife America. His dad worked for Apple in its heyday back in the 80s and Matt himself went to work in financial services after college, following what he felt was the prescribed path.
Looking at it now, he remembers, “I’d sit there at my desk thinking, Is this it? Is there more to life?”
We’re sitting in the warehouse one Saturday afternoon chatting life and coffee over a rare Panamanian espresso from Finca dos Ruedas, the first shots of it ever pulled in the United States. Matt’s just purchased 500 pounds from the owner of Dolce Vita who imported it himself from his family farm in Panama. “I took a risk,” he says. “It’s the most expensive coffee I’ve ever purchased.”
A photo posted by Finca dos ruedas (@fincadosruedas) on Mar 2, 2015 at 10:10am PST
Three years in and roasting an average 200 pounds of coffee each week for dozens of wholesale customers throughout Charlotte, buying expensive coffee is a new kind of risk that stems from the original one he took to start the business in the first place.
“When it comes to coffee, why go somewhere like Portland or Seattle where someone else has already blazed a trail?” he asks. “Charlotte is ripe for opportunities like this but you have to have the balls to do it.”
Matt bought his first home roaster back in 2011. At the time, he was a Gold Card carrying member of Starbucks and knew nothing about taking coffee from farm to cup. He started roasting small batches in his apartment on Commonwealth and handing it out around Plaza Midwood, which is how he landed his first wholesale customer: Okra Yoga.
Things look a little different today on his new industrial roaster at the warehouse, but Matt built the business with a lot of hustle and that small table-top appliance. “I just wanted to do something I loved,” he says.
Dropping the first batch of @fincadosruedas Panama #coffee #cltcoffee #clt #local #farmtocup
A photo posted by Pure Intentions Coffee (@pureintentionscoffee) on Mar 5, 2015 at 8:35am PST
For the record, Matt loves coffee and that’s very clear in the business he has built. He hasn’t stepped foot in a Starbucks in the last two years, but he says that doesn’t mean that he turns his nose up at anything that isn’t his coffee. “If I’m out driving around in the truck and I need coffee I’m not going to not grab a cup of gas station coffee because it isn’t at the level I prefer,” he says. “I’m going to get coffee.”
At the same time, he believes in educating people about really good coffee and elevating the experience in a way that’s approachable and replicable at home. “For me, it’s not about telling you you need to buy $200 in equipment and commit to a complicated 20-minute brew process every morning if you’ve got a Mr. Coffee sitting on the counter and that’s what you know,” he says. “It’s about teaching you how to make the best cup of coffee you can with what’s accessible to you.”
I first met Matt at Sunflour Baking Co. on day two of the Charlotte Coffee Crawl where he told me my 20-minute steep time on my French press coffee was about five times longer than necessary or recommended and gave me some friendly pointers on better options. In an industry that, in my opinion, can be a bit uppity and exclusive, Matt makes artisan coffee approachable and inclusive. I tell him as much and he says it means a lot because that’s actually exactly what he’s going for.
“It started out as this idea of following your dreams: What’s your purest intention in life?” he says. “With the product, it’s evolved. Everyone has an emotional connection to coffee, and my purest intention with our coffee is to make that connection with every person who drinks it.”
Cheers to that. Shots (of espresso) all around.
This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 12:38 AM with the headline "Behind the scenes at Pure Intentions Coffee."