Rigby Roastery

Watermelon. As in, the beans taste like watermelon. No flavoring, no syrup, just the bean. That's what one customer said about a Rigby Roastery lot, and it tells you what kind of roaster Naiman is: precise enough to dial in specific flavor notes that most operations would never try to pull out of green coffee. The kind of roaster who's targeting profiles rather than just hitting a generic medium.

This is a family-run, online-only operation connected to Memphis. There is no cafe. There is no walk-in counter. What there is, on Saturdays, is a pop-up at Boycott Coffee in Memphis, which is where you can taste what Rigby is doing and talk to the person doing it. Everywhere else, you order beans through the website and they ship.

What to buy. The single-origin light roasts are where the precision shows up most clearly, and the watermelon-style flavor notes are not a one-off. The espresso beans are also worth a try, and the smart move is to ask what's being highlighted at the current pop-up, since Rigby curates rare and high-end lots and the lineup turns over.

The shop won't be for everyone. If you want a hangout space, this is the wrong roaster, full stop. If you want fresh, weird, carefully-roasted beans from someone who treats roasting as a craft rather than a volume game, you've found your person. The watermelon-tasting beans are not a metaphor or a marketing line. They are an actual cup someone drank and remembered enough to mention by name.