Nov. 6—CAVALIER, N.D. — A locally roasted coffee recently hit the shelves in Hugo's Family Marketplace locations around the region, including Grand Forks.

Sparky's Craft Coffee Roasting, a Cavalier, North Dakota, small business, started selling four kinds of coffee at Hugo's locations in North Dakota and Minnesota on Oct. 10. For owners AJ and Valerie Ramirez, the deal signifies a step up for their business.

"The Hugo's account has been the biggest thing ever to happen to us," said AJ.

When the Ramirez family moved to Cavalier from Arizona in 2018, coffee was not in the picture. Instead, it was an unexpected business endeavor sparked by curiosity and the search for a new hobby.

"You really get to know who you are when you move to a city and you know nobody," said AJ. "And then you end up starting a coffee roasting business."

While AJ had been drinking coffee for years, his interest in the technical aspects of coffee started growing in 2019, when he learned about different methods of brewing coffees and the flavor notes that coffee could have, like fruit notes or chocolate notes.

However, when buying coffee from other roasters, AJ could not pick up on the flavor notes the coffee was supposed to have.

"He was tired of buying coffee from other roasters and it not being what he wanted in a cup of coffee," said Valerie. "He said 'I'm going to buy a small roaster and we're going to roast for ourselves,' and I told him that he was crazy."

The first roaster the couple bought could roast one pound of coffee beans at a time. AJ said he started taking virtual classes on coffee roasting over the summer of 2020, and started roasting his own, finding roasts he likes through a process of trial and error.

Though skeptical at first, Valerie has since been convinced that a good roast makes a difference.

"Before I had a little bit of coffee with my cream and sugar, and now I don't put anything in my coffee — I drink it black," said Valerie.

As they found roasts they liked, the AJ and Valerie started gifting bags of beans to friends, and eventually, started selling at local farmers markets.

AJ said when he realized how much he liked roasting coffee and was ready to invest in a bigger roaster, he sold his Harley Davidson motorcycle to pay for it.

"I figured as a long term investment that coffee roaster would eventually make me enough money to buy a motorcycle later on," he said.

The larger coffee roaster allowed the Ramirezes to increase production volume and sell at Pride of Dakota shows. This summer, they finished a building dedicated to Sparky's Craft Coffee Roasting in Cavalier. They bought an old building in Cavalier and renovated the space mostly by themselves. This building, and the larger coffee roaster, opened the door for wholesale distribution.

When customers taste the coffee at farmers markets, they can taste the difference, says AJ.

"You see it in the face," he said. "It's just kind of a visual reward."

For the first Hugos order, AJ and Valerie roasted 300 pounds of coffee beans in one week, which is a record for them. They do all of the work for the small business — AJ does all of the roasting, while Valerie handles grinding the beans, weighing and bagging the grounds and labeling bags. AJ also designed the logo and labels, which feature the family's dog Sparky.

"We're probably the truest 'mom and pop' little company — I've done everything I can do myself," said AJ.

When it comes to drinking Sparky's coffee, AJ prefers to make his with an AeroPress, but he says a standard drip coffee maker works just fine too. He recommends weighing the coffee grounds and water so each cup of coffee tastes the same. AJ's preferred ratio is 15 grams of coffee to 240 milliliters of water.

Sparky's Craft Coffee Roasting will be on Hugos shelves as long as it continues to sell, says AJ.

"I'm going to do everything to keep it selling until we can go back and restock the order, and just keep bringing good coffee to Hugo's," he said. "That's always been our goal — to bring people good coffee."