Base Coat Coffee Drops is a project built to support coffee education, science, and innovation. It was built out of (what felt like) necessity to learn how to drum roast. As a result, we tailor to roast experiments and exploring our curiosities all while being hyper-transparent about the process. It's a project fueled by passion, but also honesty. Too often is the coffee relationship one-sided between a consumer and a business, or a producer and a business. While we hope to build trust with professionalism and sincerity, we hope to break norms in our whimsical and hyper-honest natures. Our coffee sourcing is aimed at supporting young and innovative producers. When we can, we prioritize less represented communities in coffee. At our core, we're driven by coffee science and curating shared coffee experiences.

How it works

Every month we source two to three exceptional coffees that we believe will adhere to our profile styles. We roast one under the principle of having whimsical fun while also learning something. In the first week that coffee is available, we sell it only as a roast experiment -- where you as the buyer get to participate in the sensory feedback of the experiment.

Coffee bags are launched in one of four profile options we've grown to love on the Proaster:

  • Ultralight: sub 30 seconds of development time; as light as we can possibly take the green. Usually our hardest to brew but least characterized by our drum roaster. Florals and coffee structure are in full display. Acidity is present, but toned down.
  • Nordic: Coffee is lively, and represented without accentuation through roast. Development time is typically 35 to 50 seconds. Acidity is the most prominent, sweetness is present but not dominant. Flavors are structured and at high intensity.
  • Light: 60 to 90 second development. Coffee is roasted quickly to preserve structure. Post first crack development is low heat momentum. Coffee is still tea-like, but less structured, super sweet, and still has high clarity of flavor.
  • Light-medium: 60 to 90 second development. Coffee is roasted with a slower momentum in order to stew flavors. The coffee body is boldest in this presentation. This coffee style aims to potentially pair with milk and extract with a fuller body on 9 bar espresso, but still offer complexity and balance when served black.

On occasion, we also buy less of an even more exceptional lot to practice roasting for the competition scene. We sell these in 100g (~3.5oz) bags next to our normal 200g (~7oz) bags.

About us

This project is run by Aidan and Peter. We have been friends since pre-school and spent much time in our adolescence daydreaming about building a business together. Coffee came into our lives in our own happenstance ways. Since then, our immediate goal with this project is to kickstart our own careers in coffee without having to conform to the current cafe landscape we had been exposed to.

I (Aidan) spent two years at two different cafes prying that a roastery position would become available. After awhile, I became very impatient, but eventually realized that the coffee profiling I was being exposed to (and the green coffee being purchased) did not really excite me. Starting this project meant we had the freedom to follow what excited us in the industry. Through a coffee conference talk, I found myself attending a local coffee roasting course taught by Mike Nelson (founder of Guilder/Junior's Coffee) at our PDX co-roasting space. Shortly after, I was regularly hobby roasting whatever tasty green I could get my hands on.

Aidan is based in Portland, Oregon. He is coffee roasting and buying. Aidan is hyper-interested in coffee roast profiling and origin-level coffee details. He cares a lot about the green we're buying and sharing his excitement about what he's tasting. Peter is based in the Hudson Valley, New York. Peter is the "design mind" and has a passion for building community. Peter is very talented at curating and refining content and work. He is very passionate about connection, shared experience, and how coffee can enable those interactions.