The future of coffee is brewing in Franklin County

The future of coffee is brewing in Chambersburg.

Thousands of people in Central Pennsylvania know Denim Coffee as the quintessential downtown coffee shop.

But it is also a growing enterprise that uses state-of-the-art equipment to — as its mission statement says — "make better coffee."

A couple of miles north of its downtown Chambersburg location, Denim Coffee brews up all of the coffee (and produces all of the baked goods) it sells at its five retail locations — and wholesale to other stores and businesses.

The 2021 purchase of this 33,000-square-foot warehouse just off U.S. 11, formerly home to an ice manufacturer, pushed co-owners Matt Ramsay and Tony Diehl to upgrade their coffee roaster and obtain new technology that improves their coffee and expands the company's footprint.

"It's a huge expense, but it's built to scale with us for the next 20 years. We can do 10 shops and plenty more after that," Ramsay said.

Italian roaster controls coffee's 'curve'

Until just over three months ago, Denim used a traditional drum convection roaster to produce all its coffee.

Now, head roaster Drew Martin operates a much larger, state-of-the-art recirculation roaster that Ramsay first saw at a coffee company in Wisconsin and ultimately bought from Italy.

Unlike the old roaster that has a burner underneath it, the new roaster has a burner in the back, and a valve that circulates heated air throughout the roaster to better cover the surface area of each bean.

"It's precise yet fast," Ramsay said. "On the traditional roaster, you have to slowly ramp up the thermal energy. On this one I can switch it and get tons of heat on the fly."

The operator can set the temperature and time — the "curve" — that is best for each type of coffee. Knowing the best curve for each kind of coffee is the "secret sauce," Ramsay said.

"Our Kenya (coffee) for example, it wants to be roasted pretty fast and it wants more aggressive heat. I can give it that and get the brightest expression in that coffee that I want."

The roaster is paired with a set of five silos, each of which holds up to 100 pounds of coffee in preparation for the roaster.

"A lot of small roasters like us don't have a silo like this setup, but we knew we were gonna get 10 shops, were gonna keep growing, so this was built to expand and this is fantastic for us."

Denim can now roast a thousand pounds of coffee back to back to back, Ramsay said — but usually it goes through 1,000 pounds a day.

"Just talking to people in the industry, this is the hot ticket right now., This is, I think, the best roaster on the planet."

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The future of coffee is flash-chilled

Cold brew's reign as king for cold coffee might be coming to an end.

Denim Coffee is among the few coffee makers in the country using "flash chill" technology to produce cold coffee.

Flash-chilled coffee is more consistent than cold brew, Ramsay said. Flash-chilling maintains the acidity and other taste factors that can be lost in the cold-brew production process, which requires 18 to 20 hours of steeping.

Ramsay learned about flash-chilled coffee for the first time a few years ago at a coffee trade show in Boston.

"This guy put a can on the counter and cracked it open. I took a sip and I thought, 'This is the best damn cold coffee I've ever had. What are you doing?'"

The man said he was a thermodynamics engineer from MIT and partnered with George Howell, the "grandfather of the specialty coffee movement," to make flash-chilled coffee.

He said it was coffee brewed hot, then chilled from 205 degrees to 40 degrees in 30 seconds.

"That's a long way to go. That's a big delta to cross in thermoenergy transfer with liquid. I asked him how he did it, but he wouldn't share," Ramsay said.

The Denim team started experimenting at their old studio space in Shippensburg two years ago and eventually made a perfect small batch.

Today, Denim is making flash-chilled coffee in a special room at its headquarters.

The team built a machine that quickly chills coffee as it passes through. But the name of the machine and the details of how it works is Diehl and Ramsay's secret.

The flash-chilled coffee is put in kegs, which can be stored for up to two months at room temperature or six months refrigerated.

The kegs are put on tap at Denim's shops, guaranteeing all pours are consistent and "brighter, fuller expression" coffee.

"I don't know of anyone that is flash-chilling into kegs, on the planet," Ramsay said. "And we're offering this to our shops, other shops, restaurants, bars, offices."

"This takes a substantial investment of time and money to set this up," Diehl added. "Not every café is going to be able to invest the time and money to set this up and do it to scale. But they can contact us and say, 'Hey, I'm tired of cold brew. Bring some kegs over and I'll put it on tap.'"

The Denim team is also working on canning their flash-chilled coffee. Ramsay's goal is to have cans available — hopefully mixed packs of different kinds of coffee — to sell at the end of the year, but he "won't put it out unless it's perfect."

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Denim aims to double locations

Denim opened its first shop in Carlisle in 2011. Today there are five Denim Coffees, including locations in downtown Chambersburg, Harrisburg and Mechanicsburg, and on the campus of Dickinson College.

Ramsay and Diehl plan to open a shop in Lancaster in about two months. They hope to open another one or two locations by the end of this year. The goal is for Denim Coffee to have 10 locations by the end of 2025.

"We have a pretty ambitious schedule ahead of us," Ramsay said.

The next locations will likely also be in Central Pennsylvania, but Diehl said they might also consider dipping down to Maryland.

Today, Denim Coffee is a long way from the side-hustle Ramsay started about 15 years ago. He met Diehl after taking space at The Thought Lot, formerly an artists cooperative in Shippensburg, and Diehl soon came on to help drive brand growth and marketing. Denim's headquarters was at The Thought Lot until moving to the Chambersburg warehouse.

"The community feedback is what gave us the confidence to pursue the shops," Diehl said. "I saw something in Matt and (his wife) Kristen and what they were doing."

The pandemic and inflation required Ramsay and Diehl to make some pivots as their company grew. For example, they raised prices for the first time after the pandemic.

Their sights remain set on making the best coffee. They even offer a business plan on how to open a coffee shop.

"Even if somebody else is doing something similar to what we do, that's a win because more customers are getting better coffee," Ramsay said. "The more customers that appreciate better coffee, we see the whole specialty coffee scene grow when that happens."

Amber South can be reached at asouth@publicopinionnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Chambersburg Public Opinion: Denim Coffee brews up the future with flash-chilled coffee