Coffee lovers rejoice! Current Crop Roasting Shop, 3931 Magazine St., is a unique store offering a one-of-a-kind destination for specialty coffee beans and home roasting equipment. In addition, the shop offers products and experiences to help customers learn more about the art and science of home coffee roasting.
Current Crop Roasting Shop was founded by John Puckett, while Catherine Mansell serves as Current Crop Roasting Shop’s Director of Product and Programming. The shop is designed as a do-it-yourself roasting hub where customers can visit and roast their own coffee beans. The store has coffee specialists on staff to guide and advise customers, as well as classes and educational resources. Current Crop is a coffee lover’s dream and offers roasting and brewing supplies, brand merchandise, and green unroasted coffee beans from more than 70 unique origins for purchase.
Puckett has been in the coffee industry since 2017, when he purchased Coffee Bean Corral, the world’s first e-commerce specialty green coffee supply store geared toward home roasters. Coffee Bean Corral was founded in 1994 and is run out of Jackson, Mississippi. Puckett’s love of home coffee roasting led to the opening of Current Crop. He wanted to create a place where his thriving online community of home-roasting enthusiasts could have hands-on experiences with their coffee.
Catherine Mansell, who has completed CQI Q Cupping Essentials and CQI Arabica Grader Combo certification courses and is now a certified Q-Grader, ensures that every customer at Current Crop has a fulfilling, knowledgeable experience when they visit. She helps visitors find the right coffee for them through education and tastings in an environment where they won’t feel intimidated.
What is the Current Crop Roasting Shop experience?
Mansell described it as a place where customers can choose from a selection of about 75 types of coffee beans and learn how to roast their own coffee. In the bean library, there are three roasting stations where customers roast their own beans in a process that only takes about 10 to 15 minutes.
“The idea is to come in and speak with one of us on the staff and we’ll guide you to a region of coffee you might want to try,” Mansell explained. “Let’s say you buy a coffee from Brazil. I will show you how to roast it, and the next time you come in you will be able to roast it yourself.”
The coffee at Current Crop comes from all over the world.
Mansell explained, “The prime coffee growing region is between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. We have coffee from Africa, Indonesia, Asia, South America, Central America, and North America. When a customer comes into the shop, we explain different regional flavor profiles to them and get to one area that is the right one for their taste.”
Entry-level roasting classes will be available at the shop every Thursday and Saturday in March. Customers will learn the basics of coffee and how to roast coffee from beginning to end.
“Once you learn how to do it, you can come in and buy a half-pound of coffee and use our roasting stations for free,” Mansell said.
Half-pounds of coffee start at $6, while more premium coffee costs $25. A few pre-roasted four-ounce bags of coffee are available for $4.95. On Sundays, the shop has coffee tastings where customers can visit and try coffee from different regions.
Current Crop Roasting Shop is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
