Matt Sloan approaches coffee with a scientist’s eye. Tracking data on a computer monitor to his gleaming custom roasting oven in the basement of his Riverside home, Sloan searches for the right balance of heat and time to produce a consistent product.
That will be important in the coming days and weeks as he begins making the first local deliveries of his holiday blend of Sloan’s Coffee beans from Guatemala, Kenya and Ethiopia.
“In my ideal world, I would have subscribers [and] every Friday I would deliver the roast of the week if you wanted,” Sloan told the Landmark during an interview last week. “They drop it off at your house every Friday.”
After posting a pitch for her new business, Sloan Coffee, on a Riverside community Facebook page, Sloan garnered seven subscribers and sold another dozen bags of coffee. It begins delivering bags (shipping is free for Riverside residents) to subscribers on December 2.
“It went a lot faster than I thought it would,” Sloan said.
It may get a lot more subscribers in the next few days as Sloan Coffee will have a pop-up tent at both the Riverside Holiday Stroll (outside Shamrock Garden Florist) on December 2nd and the Brookfield Holiday Celebration (near SE Gross Middle School ) on Dec. 3
He’ll be giving away free 4-ounce samples of his holiday blend, as well as taking subscription orders and selling individual bags of coffee. On Dec. 4, he will be selling coffee at the Hinsdale Winter Wonderland event.
It costs a few bucks per 12oz bag to get a subscription, and whether you’re a monthly or quarterly subscriber, you’ll get a new coffee delivered every Friday.
“I want to change it up a lot every week for people so they have a unique experience every week,” Sloan said. “There will be some mix-ups here and there, like this holiday one. I’m not going to drink 52 different coffees.”
If a customer wants a specific blend, they can also request that for delivery, Sloan said.
Sloan Coffee is what is called an agri-food operation from the state of Illinois. He has a village business license — the village recently had to complete a fire inspection as part of that process — and can only sell directly to retail consumers, so he doesn’t want to go into grocery stores or coffee shops.
The loosening of Illinois state restrictions on food-at-home operations in 2022 lit the fuse for Sloan Coffee, which has been in development since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, giving Sloan plenty of time at home to develop what was already of interest.
He started by roasting beans using a modified hot-air popcorn machine and then bought a more advanced roaster before switching to a propane-powered machine capable of roasting 3.3 kilograms of beans in about 11 minutes. In a few hours, he can fill an entire 5-gallon container with baked beans, which he sources from importers.
Sloane’s scientific approach to coffee roasting makes sense as he is both a chemical engineer and an avid foodie. Sloan said he remembers watching celebrity chef sensation Emeril Lagasse’s 1990s show on the Food Network with his father.
Sloan’s love affair with food and cooking was cemented during the seven years he lived in New Orleans, first as a college student and then as a chemical engineer.
“It’s so different from the Midwest,” said Sloan, who grew up in Canton, Ohio. “In Chicago, food is definitely part of the culture, but in New Orleans, food is kind of the culture.”
More information about Sloan Coffee can be found online at sloancoffee.com.
