The Gift That Helped Build Iron Bean Coffee
The grinder that helped us fill some of Iron Bean Coffee Company’s earliest orders.
There Was a Story Behind the Grinder
The other day, I was talking with a customer about coffee grinders.
We get questions about them all the time. Sometimes someone needs a custom grind. Other times, they’re looking for a grinder for home and want to know what we use.
That conversation got me thinking about the grinder pictured above.
Not because it was the best grinder we ever owned.
Because of what it represents.
Sometimes, it isn’t the machine you remember. It’s the people attached to it.
Building Iron Bean One Order at a Time
Back in 2017, when we finally decided to go after this crazy dream of ours and start Iron Bean Coffee Company, we didn’t have investors or deep pockets.
We had a garage, a passion for coffee, and a willingness to figure things out as we went.
Like most small businesses, we were trying to make every dollar count. We sold things we didn’t need. We bought equipment when we could afford it. We made labels, applied stickers by hand, printed postage, taped boxes, and stretched every penny as far as it would go.
When it came to grinding coffee, we started with a little home grinder.
It worked fine when we were making coffee for ourselves.
It didn’t work quite so well once the orders started coming in.
As we grew, we knew we needed something bigger.
That’s where this grinder came in.
A Gift We Never Expected
At the time, Eric wasn’t my son-in-law yet. He and our daughter, Sammy, were engaged.
Around that same time, Eric lost his grandfather, a man he had been very close to. His grandfather left him a small inheritance.
Most people would have used that money for themselves.
But not Eric.
Eric thought of us.
He believed in what we were trying to build.
So instead of spending that money on himself, he bought us this grinder.
And that meant more to us than he probably realized.
The grinder wasn’t really the gift. The belief was.
Putting It to Work
It didn’t take long before we put that grinder to work.
You had to slide the coffee bag underneath it just right. As the coffee filled the bag, you had to slowly lower it so the grounds stayed inside instead of spilling all over the table.
Sometimes the bag would slip, and coffee would end up all over the floor.
Looking back now, I can laugh about it.
Back then, not so much.
There were days when our fifth or sixth order would come in, and it felt like we couldn’t grind the coffee fast enough.
When you first start a business and orders begin showing up, you can’t wait to get them packed and on their way.
The grinder wasn’t the problem.
The grinder was exactly what we needed at the time.
It got us through.
It helped us fill those first online orders.
In the beginning, nearly everything was done by hand inside our garage.
Then Came the Order That Changed Everything
In 2019, about two and a half years after we started in our garage, we received a call from U.S. Patriot Tactical.
They wanted to carry our coffee.
At first, I was excited.
Then Fred told me how many bags we needed to fill.
Four thousand.
I remember thinking, How in the world are we going to pull that off?
That story is probably a blog all by itself.
What I remember most is that this little grinder came right along with us as we moved from the garage into our first shop.
Fred was already researching industrial grinders because he knew there was no way we could keep up with what was coming next.
If you look closely at the picture, you’ll see little markings on the grinder.
Those weren’t put there by the manufacturer.
Those were our marks.
That was how we dialed everything in and figured out what worked best for the coffee we were roasting.
Those little marks were part of us learning our craft.
Outgrowing It Without Forgetting It
Eventually, we purchased our industrial grinder.
I’ll admit, I felt a little bad when we slid Eric’s grinder off to the side.
Not because we didn’t appreciate it.
We absolutely did.
The reality was that there was no way we were going to fill thousands of bags of coffee with it.
We had simply reached the point where we needed something bigger.
But that didn’t mean we forgot what that grinder had done for us.
It carried us through the stage of the business when every order felt like proof that this dream might actually work.
Back Where It Belongs
As soon as we received our industrial grinder, we made sure the original grinder found its way back to the person who gave it to us.
Today, it belongs to Eric again.
It sits on his workbench, ready whenever he needs it.
These days, that grinder spends its time grinding Odin for Eric and Ride or Die for Sammy.
Every time we visit New York, we bring whole-bean coffee with us.
And every time I hear that grinder start up, it takes me right back to the beginning.
Back to the garage.
Back to the excitement of seeing an order come through.
Back to the days when we were building Iron Bean one bag at a time.
More Than a Piece of Equipment
I hope the grinder does something else too.
I hope that every time Eric looks at it, he thinks about his grandfather.
I hope it reminds him of where it came from and of the man who helped make it possible.
More than anything, I hope Eric knows that his grandfather would be proud of the person he became.
A good husband.
A good father.
A good man.
And someone who chose to help others when he could have easily done something for himself.
That’s why I wrote a blog about a coffee grinder.
Because it means something to us.
When that customer asked me about grinders, they probably didn’t expect there to be a story behind one of them.
But there was.
And I wanted to share that story with all of you.
Someone Crazy Enough to Believe
Most of all, that grinder reminds me of someone who was crazy enough to believe in our dream—and who, thankfully, also loved my daughter.
I still can’t decide whether buying us that grinder was Eric’s way of helping us build Iron Bean or his way of trying to win my daughter’s heart.
Truthfully, it was probably both.
Either way, he has been a great son-in-law.
From the very beginning, he believed in what we were trying to build. Even today, he is still just as excited about Iron Bean as we are.
Looking back, the grinder wasn’t really the gift.
The belief was.
And that’s something we’ll never forget.
Forged Fresh. Built With Belief.
Iron Bean Coffee Company began in a garage with a handful of equipment, a passion for great coffee, and people who believed in what we were building.
Every order still means just as much to us today.
