Name of business: Inland Roasters
Specialty: Coffee
Location: Based in Turlock
Contact: InlandRoasters.com or @Inland_Roasters on Instagram
History of business:
It’s safe to assume that for someone to launch their own coffee business, they have to love drinking coffee. It’s exactly the case when it comes to the Volk family.
On Saturday, Brent, Lizzie, Reid and Caitlin Volk held a launch party for their new business, Inland Roasters.
Brent is married to Lizzie while Reid is married to Caitlin. The brothers handle most of the experimentation with the coffee while the sisters-in-law handle most of the marketing. Together, they’ve built a well-oiled machine to supply coffee to community members and businesses.
The inspiration to start their own business was Brent and Reid’s father, Steve.
“Our dad was the type of person that always branched out and would always tell people, ‘Why don’t you try something; try something new?’” Reid explained.
Reid also lived in Santa Cruz for a period, a city that he described as having a huge coffee culture. He even worked at a cafe at one point. When he moved to Turlock, he would have all his favorite coffees shipped to his door.
“I even had people bring some when I knew they were coming over to visit. So I always wondered, ‘Why don’t we have killer coffee?’” Reid continued. “When you talk to people, they always say that they’ve always drank Folgers or went to Starbucks, which isn’t necessarily bad, but we want people to branch out.”
Steve passed away this past winter, and as a way to honor him, the brothers named their first roast Vallarta Sunset, the visual that greeted them when they first learned of the news of his death.
“We were actually in Puerto Vallarta (Mexico) when he passed, and it’s a place we all love, so we decided to name our first product after Vallarta as an ode to our dad,” Brent explained.
Vallarta Sunset features organic beans grown in clay soil from the Chiapas region in southwest Mexico. They are fully washed and dried in the sum and roasted with notes of citrus, chocolate and graham cracker.
But their first product was far from their first roast.
“The first couple roasts that we did were pretty rough,” Reid joked. “But that’s how you learn. You readjust, start making relationships with suppliers, mix and match some stuff, compare things and eventually you’re onto something. It’s a lot of trial and error and using everyone’s strengths to make a good tasting coffee, and at the end of the day, it’s a lot of fun. This is something that has really brought us all together.”
Steve is also honored with The Odyssey, another one of the group’s first roasts. The roast’s Ethiopian beans are also sun washed and dried, but offers a darker profile highlighting floral notes of jasmine, tart citrus and hints of passion fruit with a caramel finish. It is named after a “life changing” African adventure Steve took a few years back.
Their mother, Mary Volk, is also honored with the Miss Mimi roast. Mimi is a nickname for Mary, and her signature roast uses Peruvian beans that are decaffeinated using the chemical-free Swiss Water Process. The roast is rich with notes of dark chocolate and roasted almonds.
“This stuff is so fresh, and a lot of corporate coffee can’t say that,” Brent said. “The other guys are buying their beans at a couple dollars a pound because it’s so old, but for us, sometimes we’re buying at $12 a pound. The quality is just different.”
“I think people sometimes forget that coffee is a fruit, and even for me that’s kind of odd to say, but it’s true,” Reid added. “These beans are seasonal. You have to take care of them, whether it’s rinsing them properly, using them fresh in their seasons. And you can really tell the difference. We just hope that people in the community give it a try and like it as much as we do.”
Products can be purchased online at www.InlandRoasters.com. Freshly brewed cups of coffee can also be purchased at First and Main on 100 W. Main St. and at Toscana's Ristorante within The Tower Health & Wellness on 1801 Colorado Ave.
