The Mill City Blog
News & Notes
Bye, bye, Big Red Roast Rig!
Big Red is ready for a new home! We built Big Red as a mobile coffee lab for the US Roasting Championship. Over the last...
2026 Colombia Trip: Photos and Takeaways
Earlier this year, I traveled to Colombia for an origin trip with our education and green coffee partner, Cafe Imports. Also on the trip were...
Introducing Second Spring: A fresh green coffee blend
This week, we're releasing Second Spring, a seasonal coffee blend available as a green pre-blend in 10lb bags and 40lb boxes, and available for a...
Support these Twin Cities Coffee Companies
We are all aware of what's been happening in the Twin Cities over the last two months. Because coffee people are the best people, we've...
The World's Best Commercial Coffee Roaster: Introducing the MCR M-Series
The M-Series: Built for the Future of Roasting The M-Series line-up is designed from the ground up to be truly automation-ready, encompassing three core models:...
New Video! Putting Path Intelligence to the Test: Costa Rica VS Path Intelligence
Join Lauren and Bryant as they challenge Path Intelligence to create an optimized roast profile on the MCR-2E and roast the very first batch of this...
Roasting Education with Sweet Renaissance Coffee Academy
Last week, we hosted members of Sweet Renaissance Coffee Academy for an afternoon of roaster training, sensory skill building, and discussion on developing a career...
Notes from the Cupping Table: September 2025
It's supposed to be fall here in the Midwest, but the weather is still feeling decidedly summery. We blazed through September with only a few...
New video! Coffee Roasting with AI? Ethiopia vs. Path Intelligence
A new video is live featuring a natural Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Chelchele G1! Watch as Lauren uses Path Intelligence by RoastPATH® to generate a roast curve...
The Brazil Problem: Use Path Intelligence to profile your replacements
Last week, coffee importers (and Mill City pals) Cafe Imports published a resource recommending coffees that may serve as good replacements to Brazil. The article...
Notes from the Cupping Table: August 2025
There's a chill in the air this week in Minnesota and the L. L. Bean fall catalogue recently arrived in our mailboxes. That can only...
Notes from the Cupping Table: July 2025
For several weeks over this spring and early summer, we were tasting a lot of unusual coffees. Many of those coffees were below the threshold...
(Unsolicited) advice to beef up skinny credit
I recently worked with a young roasting company that was growing fast. Their coffee was dialed in, their wholesale accounts were expanding, and they were...
Notes from the Cupping Table: June 2025
In June, a month that has 30 days, we cupped 30 coffees. I wish this had been on purpose, or it was the result of...
Notes from the Cupping Table: May 2025
This May, our sensory team evaluated 43 coffees and two unique chicories (more on those later). This is a fairly average number of cups for...
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