Why We Roast Every Batch In-House in Medford, NJ
Here's something most people don't think about when they order a latte or buy a bag of beans: where was that coffee actually roasted? For the vast majority of cafes and grocery brands, the answer is a warehouse — sometimes across the state, sometimes across the country — weeks or months before it ever reaches your cup.
At Roast Coffee Company, the answer is different. Our roaster sits about 30 feet from our espresso machine. We roast every batch ourselves, in-house, at our shop on Tuckerton Road in Medford, New Jersey. And it's been that way since we opened in 2014.
Why In-House Roasting Matters
Coffee is a perishable product. Once beans are roasted, the clock starts ticking. Peak flavor hits a few days after roasting and holds for roughly two to four weeks. After that, the oils oxidize, the aromatics fade, and what you're left with tastes flat and stale — no matter how good the beans were to begin with.
When a roaster and a cafe are in the same building, you eliminate the biggest freshness killer: time in transit. There's no warehouse, no distributor, no truck sitting in a loading dock. The beans go from the roaster to the shelf to your cup in days, not months.
That's a meaningful difference you can taste. Freshly roasted coffee has more aroma, more complexity, and more of the distinct flavor characteristics — the berry notes in an Ethiopian, the chocolate in a Brazilian, the citrus brightness in a Colombian — that make specialty coffee worth drinking.
Small-Batch on a Diedrich Roaster
We roast on a Diedrich machine, which is a drum roaster known for even heat distribution and clean flavor profiles. Each batch is small — we're not running an industrial operation here. That means we can adjust roast profiles on a per-origin basis and respond to what the beans need rather than running everything through the same automated program.
It also means we roast frequently. Instead of doing one massive production run and sitting on inventory, we roast throughout the week so that everything on our shelf and everything we ship is as fresh as possible.
Where Our Beans Come From
In-house roasting only matters if you start with quality green coffee. We source single-origin beans from farms in six countries:
- Ethiopia — Bright, floral, and fruity. Our Yirgacheffe is the crowd favorite.
- Colombia — Balanced and smooth with caramel and citrus.
- Guatemala — Rich and nutty with cocoa undertones.
- Kenya — Bold acidity with berry and wine-like complexity.
- Brazil — Low acidity, chocolatey, great for espresso blends.
- Sumatra — Earthy, full-bodied, and deeply satisfying.
Each origin gets its own roast profile — lighter for beans where you want to highlight brightness and fruit, darker for those that shine with body and depth. We also blend several of these origins into our signature espresso and drip blends.
How to Get Our Coffee
There are a few ways to drink what we roast:
- Visit the cafe: We're at 200 Tuckerton Rd, Medford, NJ 08055. Open Monday–Friday 6am–4pm, Saturday–Sunday 7am–4pm. Espresso drinks, pour-overs, breakfast, and acai bowls.
- Order beans online: We ship whole bean and ground coffee nationwide, fulfilled within 1–2 days of roasting. $10 flat-rate shipping, free over $50.
- Subscribe: Roast Subscribe & Save delivers freshly roasted coffee on a schedule you set — weekly, biweekly, or monthly — at 10% off every order.
- Wholesale: We supply other cafes and restaurants across the region. If you run a business and want to serve freshly roasted South Jersey coffee, reach out.
Serving South Jersey Since 2014
We're proud to be Medford's hometown roaster, but our regulars come from all over Burlington County and South Jersey — Marlton, Cherry Hill, Mount Holly, Lumberton, Medford Lakes, Shamong, and beyond. With over 500 Google reviews and a 4.7-star rating, the word has gotten around.
If you've never had coffee that was roasted the same week you're drinking it, come see what the difference tastes like. Once you do, the pre-ground stuff from a warehouse just doesn't hit the same.