Something new is brewing in Manchester
Isaac Bowers sells his locally fire-roasted coffee at the Manchester Winter Farmers Market.
If you have driven through the village in the middle night and wondered why someone would choose to barbecue in the wee hours in the parking lot behind Comerica Bank, in December, you might be even more surprised to learn that it isn’t meat on the grill … it’s coffee beans!
Isaac Bowers, founder of Paper Cup Coffee Company, grew up in Onsted, Michigan and has lived in the area for 35 years. He has 15 years of experience in the grocery industry and became involved with finding a solution to the near-food desert status in Manchester when the Manchester Market closed. The coffee roasting started last April when Manchester resident Laura Billetdeaux, also involved in working toward a food desert solution, expressed to him the need for good coffee in Manchester.
Bowers explained, “I started experimenting with roasting on a cast iron skillet on the stove, and posed a question to myself, ‘What was my best cup of coffee ever?’ The answer that came was ‘Camping!!’ So I decided to use my resources and began fire roasting over an open fire with black walnut, peach and hickory wood.” Bowers talked with other roasters to identify the pitfalls of roasting coffee beans over an open fire, but he states that his natural desire to experiment with food came in handy.
He moved to Manchester in October and has since met many supportive business owners and friends.
Currently Bowers sells hot coffee by the cup, whole bean coffee, ground coffee, homemade donut holes, and vegan gluten-free superfood snacks at the Manchesters Winter Farmers Market located at 327 West Main Street on Thursday and Friday evenings from 3 to 7 pm and Saturday morning 9 am to 1 pm. He roasts the coffee to order the day before the Market, every time.
Roasting so close to its sale date, gives the coffee a very smooth taste that is not bitter or acidic. Bowers explained, “When coffee is very acidic or bitter it is because it has been roasted and put in a warehouse and then shipped on a truck and then placed in another warehouse and then shipped on another truck and then sent to a store and sat on a shelf and then finally sold.” He added, “Not many people know that coffee can, in fact, become rancid.”
Over the summer, Bowers started selling coffee beans and ground coffee at the Dexter and Clinton Farmers Markets. At that time, he had been buying coffee beans from online suppliers. Then he met a woman who told him that a friend of hers was getting coffee from Guatemala and got him in touch with the Radical Coffee Project.
The Radical Coffee Project is a non-profit organization started by three Michigan State University graduate students who had studied abroad at Santiago Chacaya on a coffee plantation on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, and witnessed firsthand the poverty in which coffee farmers were trapped because of lack of market access. The students purchase un-roasted beans from the Chacaya Coffee Cooperative in Guatemala and use all proceeds from the sale of the coffee to fund interest-free micro-loans and to provide equitable wages and market access to rural coffee farmers located in Santiago Chacaya. Bowers is their first green coffee bean buyer. He stated, “I felt great that money is going to help others in a country that needs it.”
The name of the company came from “The Paper Cup Theory,” advice his dad gave him as an adolescent. When he wanted to name his coffee company, it just made sense as the right name. He then asked his dad to design a logo, which is the “Kilroy” logo he is now using. His dad continues to draw art for many Paper Cup brand projects. Bowers does, in fact, use paper products to help reduce the use of plastics; the cups he sells hot coffee in are 100% compostable, including the lid.
In addition to the Manchester Winter Farmers Market, Bowers also does pop-up events at Mave’s Fashion Faves in Clinton Michigan, and at Woodstock Wine and Cheese in Devils Lake, Michigan. His website is http://papercupcoffeeco.simplesite.com and you can find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Fire11Eleven.
The Paper Cup Theory is the origin of the name of his coffee company.
Isaac Bowers roasting coffee beans over an open fire on a grill the night before the farmers market.
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