Welcome to Mile Fifty Nine Coffee!

Hey everyone, I just wanted to introduce myself and share a bit about what I'm building with Mile Fifty Nine Coffee. 

I'm Justin Steele. Long time coffee lover, moderate-time home roaster (for personal consumption on a FreshRoast SR800), and short time espresso enthusiast based in Northwest Arkansas.

My professional background doesn't really involve coffee, but I’ve recently found myself in a position where I can take some time to explore new career directions — and coffee felt like the perfect place to start.

Here's the current roadmap for Mile Fifty Nine Coffee:

• Start by selling small-batch beans under cottage food laws while I continue improving my roasting.
• Add a curated selection of wholesale coffee accessories to the shop.
• Transition into a commercial kitchen using my current roaster.
• Eventually, either join a roaster-share program or upgrade to a larger setup.

There's not much (yet) that separates us from other coffee brands. The name Mile Fifty Nine comes from the view of the city of Fayetteville nestled between the hills as you're driving north on I-49 and pass mile marker 59. Even though I'm a transplant from Northeast Texas, seeing Fayetteville always felt like coming come.

Like most coffee companies, we'll strive for quality, transparency, sustainability, and fairness. But I would also like to build something a little more participatory. I want the community to be involved in this brand through feedback, experimental roasts, contests, art, puzzles, and games.

A couple of experiments are already in motion. I've found some allegedly home-compostable packaging, including the degassing valve. I tossed one bag into our compost pile to see how it breaks down, but I'd love your help testing this. If you compost and order a bag of our beans, try composting the bag and let us know what happens. I'll share our results in a future write-up.

'Til next time,

Justin