Newmarket’s coffee connoisseurs quickly made My Indie Coffee a popular destination.
When you enter the roastery, it’s as it you are walking into the living room of friendly Meagan Dierin in search of a good cup of java and some conversation.
As a second-generation roaster, Dierin has a long tradition in the coffee business. In 2006, her family started roasting their own coffee.
“Dad and I roasted in the backyard with a tiny little roaster,” she said.
Back then, they were roasting for their family-owned café clientele.
“But we quickly outgrew it and opened up here,” she said of the Leslie Street strip mall location.
Dierin took over the family business, but still looks to her dad for the seal of approval on her new roasts.
“I quickly learned about the coffee business being a barista in our family-owned cafes, but it wasn’t until 2016 that I came in and learned more about being a coffee roaster,” she explained.
They have come a long way from the backyard. Dierin now roasts coffee with a 15-kg roaster, a Toper, made in Turkey. But this younger generation coffee roaster is aware of the global footprint and makes it her business to do things right.
Her beans come raw and green after the coffee is cherry-picked and processed at farms and co-ops around the world.
“We only roast organic and ethically sourced beans. The farmers and co-ops get paid well for their raw beans, which means our purchases here make a huge and lasting difference to families and businesses abroad to continue growing the coffee we love,” added the personable and knowledgeable Dierin.
She roasts or cooks them to become a brown coffee bean, with which we are all familiar.
“High-quality coffee matters to me the most in order to serve a product that I can be proud of — great coffee is only as good as the raw product we start with.”
She consistently tastes her coffee looking for what she considers to be “delicious and flavourful.”
For example, with their most popular roast, the Signature Blend: “We experimented with a number of different coffees through trial and error and came up with really what we think is a delicious coffee.”
She offers three different whole bean blends: Signature; Espresso; and North of Nine. She also sells Swiss Water Process decaf coffee. You can find her coffee in several cafes, restaurants and offices across York Region, the GTA and Muskoka.
Her own passion for the business perked while roasting at home.
“Roasting at home can be easy and very accessible. There are so many ways to roast your own green beans — it’s so fun to see what you can create. Experiment making your own blends or try new single origin coffees. You don’t have to spend a lot to start either,” she advises.
Try roasting using a popcorn maker or your oven. You can even ‘Macgyver’ your own roaster or purchase an at-home roaster, she added.
You can purchase green beans direct from the roastery to try it out for yourself.
“A lot of our business is word of mouth, it’s a really good feeling when someone tells me their friend said it’s a must try. This is absolutely a labour of love for me,” she exclaimed.
My Indie Coffee is open Tuesdays to Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Dierin takes a break Sunday and Mondays. The shop is located at #7 – 17817 Leslie St., one light north of Market Brewing Company and across the street from Mint Garden Restaurant. Call 416-953-4186 or visit online.
And if you go in for a grab 'n' go latte or espresso, make sure you pick up your loyalty card, so your eighth cup is on Meagan — and tell her Rockin’ Rod sent you.
This article originally ran on NewmarketToday.ca and is contributed by Newmarket resident Rod Urquhart, the author of three books — two humour books Talk Turkey With Urqey and Tales For The Outhouse, and one poetry book, Life Lines.
