How I came to be a Virginia Coffee Roaster…info for our curious clients about the history of Mattie’s Mountain Mud. I started working in the coffee business as a dishwasher/bus-gal at the age of 17. I moved up quickly to barista and weekend manager. As soon as I fired my first batch of green beans, I had the coffee bug in a really, really good way.
I worked for several specialty coffeehouses throughout the mid-atlantic region and settled in Lewisburg, West Virginia for my first coffee house. I purchased a closed general store and revamped the location into a sweet little hub filled with light, joy and love…and oh yeah, lots of fresh roasted coffees.
After three years, we moved to a bigger location just down the street with the help of a great community! We had a separate room for roasting and thus began our wholesaling and shipping career. Eleven years after we opened our doors, we sold the storefront to a wonderful couple and it is now the beloved Wild Bean.
I then moved the roaster to our family farm in Virginia. We renovated the old machine shed where I had watched my husband care for his grandfather’s jubilee tractor. It is beautiful here…looking out at the mountains and biking from home to the roasting facility.
Today I am proud to be a Virginia specialty coffee roaster. I love supplying all of our wholesale locations and sending boxes of fresh roasted coffees to our clients across the United States of America. Today we are shipping organic, fair-trade certified, rainforest alliance certified coffees to Indiana, Florida, Wisconsin, and The Commonwealth of Virginia. Thank you for supporting us all these years. We look forward to many more!
Mattie Barnes, Roastmaster: Mattie’s Mountain Mud.
