Greg Moore doesn’t view himself as a coffee connoisseur, exactly, but he admits he has an enthusiasm for the java drink few can match.
A marketing major in college, Moore has long been attracted to the bold artwork and attractive design elements that are traditionally part of coffee companies’ branding campaigns, as well as the “creativity” of the roasting process itself.
The Washougal resident purchased his first espresso machine in 2014 — “a manual one that didn’t have a lot of bells and whistles,” he said. — then he read and researched anything he could find about the beans, equipment and methods needed to produce a quality roast. And, of course, he drank a lot of coffee. After a while, it simply became a way of life.
“I used to take my oldest son to a new coffee roaster in Portland every weekend for the course of a year. The goal would be to try a new place every single time,” he said. “I think I’ve been to pretty much every coffee roaster in Portland and some shops that don’t roast but serve coffee. I’ve tried enough coffee in my life to know what I like and what I don’t like. (Coffee) is just something that I’ve always really enjoyed and really liked.”
Eventually Moore decided to put his knowledge to practical use by roasting his own coffee. Now he’s preparing to open his own business, Lorem Ipsum Coffee, later this fall.
“It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for many years,” Moore said. “This is a cool way for me to do something I’m passionate about. If this thing never makes me any money or breaks even or whatever the case may be, that’s OK. I’m not doing it for money. If it makes me money, great, but I want to create something that other people can enjoy. That’s what gets me fired up about it.”
Moore purchased a custom-made roaster from a Dutch company known as Aillio in early 2020 and has been steadily working since then to perfect his art, conducting “trial roasts” and soliciting feedback from family members and friends.
“I’m still learning myself,” he said. “I’d definitely say I’m a novice. I started roasting coffee in February, and I’m not even putting up anything for sale until probably November, and my goal was to spend all of this time just figuring it out by reading what I can and (through) trial and error. There’s a lot of things that go into roasting coffee, and changing any one of those things can actually change the way the coffee tastes.”
Moore is chronicling his progress on the Lorem Ipsum Coffee Instagram page, showing off beans from countries like Guatemala, Ecuador and Rwanda. He purchases his beans from online retail stores or wholesalers, preferably those that partner with co-op and sustainable farms.
“That is important because we want the small farmers around the world to keep making good coffee,” he said. “That’s where you’re going to find the best stuff, these little out-of-the-way farms that partner with major co-ops that can bring their beans to the market. I’m not getting Costco beans or anything like that. I’m trying to be selective.”
Moore will sell his hand-roasted coffee beans via his website, loremipsumcoffee.com, with a limited-time-only business model. That way, he figures, he can produce and ship his product without becoming overwhelmed.
“I can say, ‘OK, this week or this month I’m going to feature this single-origin Guatemala, here are the tasting notes and other things about it. Put your order in,’” he said. “When it’s all ordered up, I’ll close the ordering and say, ‘We’re closed now, but come back to see the next offering.’ The reason I’m doing that is my roaster can only handle so much coffee per roast, and there’s a lot of time that goes into roasting, so I have to figure out what my capacity is to actually roast coffee.”
Moore chose “Loren Ipsum” as the name for the business as a tongue-in-cheek way of letting people know that a new moniker might be coming in the near future. In publishing and graphic design, “lorem ipsum” is commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or typeface without relying on meaningful content.
He’s thinking about rebranding to incorporate two of the other things he and his family are passionate about — jiu-jitsu fighting and their church.
“Nothing about the company or model is going to change except the name to something that speaks to those communities a bit more,” he said. “I want to try to speak to those communities to attract customers. There are (jiu-jitsu) tournaments all the time, and maybe if there’s a decent amount of revenue coming from the business, it’d be cool to advertise those events. A lot of my test roasts for the past eight months, I give to our church and they serve it on Sunday morning. Anyone’s open to becoming a customer, but I kind of want to merge church, ju-jitsu and coffee together, and this is a cool way to do it.”
Moore, who works full-time for a private wealth management firm, doesn’t “necessarily see this as something that’s ever going to replace (his) current income and be a full-time thing.” But he hopes to keep it going for as long as possible.
“I don’t think this business is going to be all things to all people,” he said. “I’m going to create something based on what I’ve come to like, and if other people love it, that’s awesome. That’s why I have it. If they don’t, that’s OK, too.”
For more information about Moore’s coffee startup, visit loremipsumcoffee.com or @loremipsumcoffee on Instagram.