Tio Fallen is the featured roaster for the month of November, and we couldn't be more excited to celebrate the confluence of coffee and music that this release represents. 

Tio is the founder of Three Keys Coffee in Houston, and was the 2021 Glitter Cat Roasting Competition winner. With Three Keys, Tio finds the commonalities between coffee and music easily — coffee has tasting notes, it can evoke multiple senses, and the flavors of a particular coffee can speak differently from one drinker to the next. 

Gabe Boscana is the owner of Máquina Coffee and talks risk, green buying, and how to start your own small roasting business. Gabe is a returning Matchbook roaster—so you know this release is going to be special. 

This month’s release is meant to challenge your perceptions of what you know about roasting, education, and making tasty coffee. 

We’re thrilled to work with Christina Chin, owner of Favor Coffee, this month here at Matchbook. She’s roasting coffee for you folks in August, and she’s generating a bit of mystery for you...

his interview is almost like a stop on a long journey. We’re not done yet—we still have coffee to roast, to send, to drink, but this is just a quick pit stop along the way. 

Mikey Rinaldo is the Matchbook featured roaster for the month of July. They own a small roasting company out of Chicago called New Math, which highlights specialty Asian coffees. Mikey found coffee during grad school, and pursued their passion through brewing at home and eventually roasting, ordering coffee from places like Sweet Marias, and fiddling around in their kitchen. 

Eventually, Mikey wanted to explore more—specifically, they wanted to learn more about specialty coffees coming from Asia, which don’t get as much shine in the specialty coffee industry. Perhaps your view on coffees from Asia has been formed by a singular tasting, or maybe you've just heard things about coffees from the region.

Mikey is here to dispel preconceptions and find the potential in coffees from the region. Because that’s what specialty coffee is all about, right? It’s not necessarily about sourcing the most pristine coffees but finding ways to highlight their inherent potential and honor the hard work that goes into growing coffee.

Jiyoon Han is the featured roaster for the month of May here at Matchbook. She sources and roasts coffee for Bean & Bean, her family's coffee shop with four locations across the greater New York City area. 

We've been doing Matchbook for four years now. Our very first release was in March of 2017, and we've worked with over forty different roasters to bring folks some of the most exciting and interesting coffee releases — at least, we think they are! 

Things are getting cute over here! 

Aaron Fender is the co-founder of Portrait Coffee in Atlanta, Georiga, and the featured roaster here at Matchbook for the month of February. Aaron is the type of person you want to sit and have a beer with. In fact, we probably spent more time just sitting on Zoom talking and chatting than we did actually recording. 

Aaron started Portrait Coffee less than two years ago, and their motto is "pouring a new narrative," which they do by shining a light on Black people in the coffee industry. Aaron is interested in coffee as a conduit, a way to connect with people and build shared experiences, which you hear in this episode. Our conversation is more casual than most you've probably heard on the podcast because Aaron is incredibly easy to talk to. He's the type of person who asks questions, wants to know more about others, and can break the ice easily.