Hermetheus Coffee

Hermetheus Coffee is run by Jason out of Olathe, Kansas, and the shop has moved into the downtown Olathe library, which is the kind of arrangement you'd have to see to fully believe. Library coffee. Books one wall, espresso the other. The same operation also sells at the Olathe Farmer's Market and ships beans by mail with three-fifty local delivery for nearby customers.

The seasonal flavors carry the menu. Winter Warmer is the cold-weather signature. Amaretto and Peppermint round out the seasonal rotation. The espresso-machine beans are the workhorse offering for home brewers pulling shots at home.

Here's the part that makes Hermetheus different from every other small roaster in this list: they sell a roasting-automation product called Copilot designed to work with Artisan 3e roasting software. Copilot is the kind of side-business that comes from operating long enough to want to solve your own problems and then realizing other people had the same problems. One Copilot buyer in Iraq cited it as a workaround for the difficulty of finding skilled roasters locally. That's a real use case, and it tells you something about the kind of operator Jason is.

For most customers, though, the relationship is simpler. You buy bags. You drink coffee. The bags get to your door (or to your library) on a cadence that works for you.

Who this is for: Olathe locals using the library who can pick up coffee on the same trip, farmers market shoppers, home roasters interested in the Copilot add-on for Artisan. The library-located shop is the unusual move, and the unusualness is the point.