Bart Baldwin made a life- and career-change during 2018 that led him to doing a Chapin-based business he loves while helping others along the way. He now roasts coffee to offer "the freshest, absolutely best-tasting coffee people have ever had."
"That's a big claim, but once you've had my signature coffee, you'll agree--like so many who've become fans--it's crazy good! You'll be blown away about just how good coffee can be," he asserts.
Bart knows first-hand what a journey it can be to find the 'just right' coffee for individual tastes, as he says he didn't drink much coffee until four or five years ago. "Over the years, people had tried to tell me how to fix coffee. But I realized the challenge was finding a flavor I liked and a way I liked it. Everybody's tastes are different, and coffee is made for people to enjoy. So, I always tell customers to find the way they individually like it, because all ways of drinking coffee are perfect!" he explains.
Bart likes extremely smooth coffee, and through experimentation, he came up with his signature, flavor-enhanced java beans, which is a secret recipe not to be revealed. "I think flavor should work with, and lightly blend with, the coffee. It's like using seasoning on food--you want it to enhance, not overpower, your dish," he says.
This small-batch coffee roaster says he also set up his company to help others along the way.
Bart says the coffee company was founded on the principle of maintaining a focus on the coffee, not an image. "We believe that when you buy our coffee, you're buying the coffee, not fancy packaging, flashy websites or wiz-bang gimmicks. For us, it's ALL about the coffee itself," he adds.
Giving back to community causes also was important to Bart, stemming from his sister, Sharon, being a breast cancer survivor who, in turn, wrote a book and created care packages to help other women understand what they faced during chemo therapy, radiation and surgical treatments. Bart says his sister was always his biggest fan during his whole life. Tragically, after being a 20-year cancer survivor, Sharon was killed in a car accident on Jan. 31, 2019. Bart, along with Sharon's friend, Lucy, is determined to carry on her memory through "Sharon's Fund," whose donations and purchases earn customers loyalty points toward future coffee benefits at Bart's mobile business while earning charitable funds from the coffee shop.
All of the money raised through the fund is donated to the Sharon Baldwin-Crews Foundation, which supports women going through treatment for breast cancer via CarePax. CarePax is a nonprofit organization that supplies women with “Got Your BackPax” and the book “My Chemo Cocktail & Me," both of which provide the tools that women need to face their treatment head-on with the knowledge and support of women who have walked the same path before them.
When Bart launched his coffee business during February 2019, he knew he wanted to devote funds toward good causes rather than spend money on expensive product packaging, so he's kept the plainer, eco-friendly craft bags with which he launched. It's part of Bart's way of staying true to his mission of focusing on quality coffee (period).
"Have a cup of coffee, enjoy the day and remember to work to live, not the other way around!" reminds Bart, the barista.
factors that make Bart's coffee unique
- Beans from Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Peru are represented.
- At least 90% of the beans used in Bart's coffees are organic; the other 10% are natural. All of his are hypoallergenic.
- Bart deliberately chose an extract-related process, rather than an oil-based one for his coffee flavorings. He says it's like adding seasonings just to enhance the overall flavors, not to overpower the java.
- He prepares his green coffee beans in an electric roasting machine, rather than a drum roaster. This electric method uses a clean air process, leaving the beans ready to grind immediately. He says beans prepared in heated drum roasters must be "rested," or set aside, for several days to allow them to degas because carbon dioxide forms inside the beans as they're heated and transformed.