beanfruit coffee company roaster jackson mississippi good food awards sneaky beans cafe sprudge

BeanFruit Coffee Company‘sย owner, Paul Bonds, grew up disinterestedย in coffee. At Mississippi College, he drankย commercial-grade stuff mainly as fuel for his studies. Yet today,ย his roasting operation in Jackson, Mississippi, is good enough to have earned a 2015 Good Food Award.

It was seven years ago that Bonds had his epiphany.ย During a cupping in 2008 at Mississippi Coffee Companyย he tried a washed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe that “changed my mind completely about coffee,” heย recalls. Since there weren’t many options nearby, he began ordering coffees online from Austin’s Cuvรฉe Coffee, Brooklyn’s Cafรฉ Grumpy, Santa Cruz’s Verve Coffee Roasters, and San Francisco’s Ritual Coffee Roasters to brew up at home.

“I would taste the coffee and be like, ‘This is good, you know, what else is good?’ ” Bonds says. “I would try different things from different origins, and it just opened up a whole new world to coffee.”

Soon after, Bonds slidย further down the rabbit hole when he began to roast at home for fun. First, he oven-roastedย beans on pans before stepping up to a small Behmor roaster. After a friend’s suggestion to pursue roasting further, Bonds considered graduating his hobby to a business. At the time, he was working on the manufacturing floorย at an aerospace company, a job with benefits. But all heย needed was a two-kilogram Ambex roaster, which he set up in the guest bedroom, and a trial run selling beans at a local farmers market in Jackson. With a humble start, BeanFruit Coffee was launched in 2010.

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As his customer base grew, Bonds began pulling double-duty days, beginning as early as 3 a.m. to roast, squeezing in coffee deliveries on his lunch break, and following up with customers after work atย night. This went onย for several years before he decided to leave his job in 2012 ย and pursue BeanFruit full time.

beanfruit coffee company roaster jackson mississippi good food awards sneaky beans cafe sprudge

beanfruit coffee company roaster jackson mississippi good food awards sneaky beans cafe sprudge
The Good Food Award paidย tribute to Bonds’sย hard work, but he almost didn’t even enter the competition. He admits he lacked theย confidence, but a push from Ben Myers, owner of Athens, Georgia’sย 1000 Faces Coffee, led Bonds toย submit his washed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Cheleโ€™lektu for the 2015 award cycle.

“When I went out [to San Francisco for the awards]ย I actually spoke on behalf of specialty coffee, too,” Bonds says. “I tell my friends I feltย like a donkey at the Kentucky Derby because I’m just this guy from Mississippi who’s roasting. Then I’m standing onstage with the owner of Blue Bottle…and all these other companies that were there. It was pretty overwhelming.

“[My winning brought]ย more attention to BeanFruit, of course, but [also to]ย specialty coffee in Mississippi. We’re not known for it.” It also caught the attention of potential new clients. “The owners of GoCoffeeGo were there. We sent them coffees and they really liked them, so that also got us an entry [with them],ย which helped get our brand and our name out so much more. It wasn’t some Oprah effect, but any kind of publicity and positive attention can help.”

Currently, Bonds hones his craft in a warehouse space in Pearl, a suburb of Jackson,ย on a yellow, 10-kilogram Ambex roaster. On a visit there oneย early summer Thursday, the temperature inside the BeanFruit warehouse stands atย 86 degrees, with 71 percent humidity. Equipped with merely a stopwatch and a clipboard, Bonds begins to roast. Approximately every 30 seconds he uses the tryer to pull out a sample of roasting beans,ย checking the smell and the beans’ color. Bonds focuses in, makingย occasional adjustments to the roaster’s gas. He roasts several batches and begins bagging them for a retail delivery to Sneaky Beans, the quintessential Jackson coffee house and one of BeanFruit’sย first wholesale customers.

beanfruit coffee company roaster jackson mississippi good food awards sneaky beans cafe sprudge
BeanFruit coffee on display at Sneaky Beans in Jackson.

At one point theย phone rings. Bonds chuckles over the line. Even though BeanFruit is currently just a roasting company, heย regularly fields calls from people asking if theyย can swing by toย buy beans. When theย callersย arrive, Bonds describes his current selections at length, including a Colombia Finca San Jose thatย just scored 92 points onย Coffee Review. After selecting two bags, Bonds steers the discussion toward brewing equipment as he walks them through various options (he stocks some gearย for his web store). The Good Food Award medal is camped out on hisย desk duringย all of this. Soon a Chemexย goes into the shopping bag, before the happy customers thank Bonds and head off.

beanfruit coffee company roaster jackson mississippi good food awards sneaky beans cafe sprudge
Quickly, it’s back to work. The beans are loaded up and taken to Sneaky Beans. There, Bonds chats up the baristas as he unloads the delivery. It’s been a long road to this point, but he knows he needs to keep moving forward.ย “Grind, hustle,” heย says. “Typical words you hear from entrepreneurs [that] you understand like, ‘You just got to make it happen.’ I feel like it can either defeat you or it can give you drive, and with me it was the latter.”

Visit BeanFruit Coffee Company’sย official website and follow themย on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Evan C. Jones is a Sprudge.com contributor based in St. Louis. Read more Evan C. Jones on Sprudge.

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