We dig coffee.
Haymakers was born of a love for coffee and community and has grown into a small-batch, private roastery in Gananoque, ON. We roast single-origin, microlot coffees on Wolfe Island, Ontario; a 20-minute ferry ride from downtown Kingston. Erica Reyers and Theo Graham are the proud owners of Haymakers Coffee Co. and are thrilled to bear the tradition of exceptional coffee that is sustainably and ethically sourced.
Haymakers' Heritage
Alix Carr-Harris and Sieste Hylkema founded Haymakers Coffee Co. Sieste Hylkema from their shared love of good coffee. Haymakers Coffee Co. was not developed from a formal business plan and decisions around a table but rather from two friends picking up a Whirley-Pop popcorn pot and roasting green coffee beans on the BBQ. Yep, you read that right.
From there, their obsession grew. They started inviting friends over for experimental roasting sessions, where they documented everything and sampled the batches with friends while slurping, laughing, and critiquing. It was, at its best, an opportunity to learn and play with friends, marvelling at how the flavour of the coffee changed from roast to roast.
At some point, it dawned on them: Wolfe Island should have a coffee roaster—playing, learning, and connecting are what communities do over coffee. And Haymakers Coffee Co. was officially founded.
How we do business has an impact on both humans and the earth.
Haymakers started with a 2.5Kg Diedrich Roaster and a specialty coffee importer in the US (Café Imports) that invests in a holistic approach to sourcing excellent coffee.
Within the bean industry, producers often aren't paid enough to sustain their lives, let alone their farms. We love Café Imports because it builds reliable relationships with producers to foster improvement in green coffee production and, even more so, to empower producers to grow and develop their farms by investing in initiatives and offering support at origin. It's through this exploration that Haymakers began roasting microlot coffees from Café Imports.
There are many definitions of what a microlot is across craft industries, and in the coffee industry, it is no different...In short, microlots are small quantities of exceptional coffees.
Haymakers selects microlots because the beans can be traced directly back to the farms and mills where they are produced, and the farmers are paid quality premiums that reflect the herculean efforts required to produce them.
Whenever we receive a microlot, we roast the samples and sample the coffee. From there, we choose what to serve up and bring to all of our local friends.
