Coffee by the Roast

Coffee by the Roast starts in 1972, when Paul took a job at a local coffee shop and roastery. He and Carrie discovered they loved fresh coffee, and Paul made a point of learning as much as he could about selecting and roasting green beans. They went to college together and worked a string of jobs along the way, including managing a coffee house. After college Paul worked first as a software engineer and project manager, then earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and spent more than a decade in management consulting and operations design. His career allowed Carrie to stay home with their growing family — four children, plus a parade of pets that included hamsters, bunnies, degus, the world's chubbiest hermit crab, and always a dog. In the moments between walks and games and keeping everybody fed, Carrie wrote stories. It was a crazy, busy, constantly changing time, but one thing that never changed was their love for coffee. Tired of the travel Paul's career demanded, the two decided to work together again and, with their children's help, returned to the coffee business. They took their early experience working with coffee, applied the business principles Paul had used as a consultant, and added Carrie's love of writing — opening Coffee Fresh Incorporated in 2003 and moving online in 2009 as coffeebytheroast.com. What they built is what they call 4th Wave Coffee: an approach that puts the coffee drinker, rather than the roaster, in charge of which flavors get highlighted. Micro-roast technology lets them roast only the coffee you order, at the roast level you choose, so nothing gets thrown away and nothing sits around going stale. Paul and Carrie are coffee sommeliers with 45 years of experience between them, and they still like helping people find the coffee they love best.