Diane Merritt, Owner and Roaster

10 years ago, l saw coffee beans being roasted, and l was fascinated by the process.  l have loved coffee for a long time.

I had the opportunity to start a business with a client to roast coffee.  l got a small table top roaster and 50 pounds of Colombian coffee and started teaching myself to roast coffee.  After 6  months of hard work, l had come up with the roasts to where they would be marketable – and thus Harvest American Coffee was born.

Having been a massage therapist for 20 plus years and raising 2 children, I am now a single mother of young adults.  I realized that I needed a partner and met Helen and told her about my business.  She was interested in joining me on my coffee adventure.

My goal as a coffee roaster, is to able to supply other coffee lovers with fresh roasted fairtrade organic coffee at a reasonable price.

Our coffee is roasted using a hot air roaster that does not produce sulphur compounds on the coffee, avoiding a bitter undertone when its roasted.  One of our goals is to see this company as a fundraising opportunity to help cheerleaders or the fire department or whoever needs to raise money.  Harvest American can offer a good product to sell to raise money. 

We get our coffee beans from a fairtrade company that goes into other countries and helps villages to become self-sustainable to raise their beans in a renewable way.  We procure coffee with no pesticides and want people to think about their coffee and just take time to drink good roasted coffee.