Roaster Rhys Evans-Brown Spreading Good Cheer

The culture of specialty coffee in Oceania is in many ways a world apart from the coffee culture of the United States, Howard Bryman writes for Daily Coffee News. Yet according to New Zealand-born Colorado-based roaster Rhys Evans-Brown, one common thread that runs between any good coffee business is kindness, a motivating factor behind his new Denver coffee company, Kind & Co.

The budding business was bolstered in January when the Denver multi-roaster café Blue Sparrow Coffee took a leap of faith in becoming its first wholesale client. That particular gesture of kindness paid off.

“The locals couldn’t get enough of it,” Evans-Brown told Daily Coffee News. “They had sold out of the 40-plus 300g retail bags and drip offerings faster than we could’ve ever expected.”

Evans-Brown, previously a carpenter by trade, hails from the tiny Waikato town of Te Aroha.

He took his home-roasting hobby and Oceanian perspective with him when he moved from New Zealand to Milwaukee in 2016 with his US-born wife Bethany. His first gig in the US was a six-month stint as a carpenter for a local coffee chain, assisting in equipment maintenance and working on installations for new wholesale clients.

“I always wanted to work for a coffee company but just never took the leap,” said Evans-Brown. “I took every opportunity to ask as many questions I could with the roasters, and learn.”

Original article by Howard Bryman, Daily Coffee News, March 25, 2020.