The Background Story

So, who is the Red Headed Stepchild, other than the cute kid sitting in the sand on my logo? Basically, I'm a kid born and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida who is now all grown-up and retired. I have more gray mixed in with the red hair and am still a stepchild.

I've always been into cooking and stuff like that. In addition, I am addicted to coffee. This addiction started long before the current 3rd wave coffee boom. I remember visiting my local roaster back in the early 1990's and seeing her wonderful classic gas drum roaster and burlap bags of green coffee ready to be transformed into the magical elixir we all love. As the years passed by, so did my quest for the perfect cup of coffee. I have tried almost every method of brewing coffee imaginable. This also usually led to me searching every town I visited for a coffee shop that featured specialty coffee and the coveted pour-over.

I also became obsessed with tasting the best roasted coffees and exploring the many different cultivars and countries and the various flavor notes they provided. This led to the inevitable conclusion of me roasting my own coffee in the hopes of getting the freshest, most flavorful coffee I could. I discovered I was pretty good at this new hobby, and others seemed to enjoy the coffee I made for them. But being the obsessive-compulsive that I am, I was always tinkering with my roasts in an attempt to squeeze the last bit of perfection out of the beans. This resulted in having too much coffee for me and my lovely bride to drink in this lifetime.

Retirement also led to me having too much time on my hands. The result of this is the appropriately named Red Headed Stepchild Coffee Roaster company.