Troy brothers opening local coffee roasting company

Coming to Libby in mid-August, a new business will offer the area freshly roasted coffee beans.

Two area locals, Ben and Ted Montgomery are planning to open Camp Creek Coffee Roasters in downtown Libby in approximately a month.

Ben and Ted decided to name their business after Camp Creek, where they grew up. Ben and Ted do not want to rush anything, as Ben said, “We’re trying to make it right.”

The have been leasing the space for a month, taking their time to make sure everything is ready for when they open.

“Everyone likes coffee, so everyone seems to be excited,” said Ben.

Once the business is up and running, people will be able to come and buy fresh beans, roasted to their preferences for the typical price of supermarket coffee. Customers will also be able to order specialty beans through the shop.

“We are by no means coffee snobs,” Ben said. “We’re just trying to make good coffee.”

Ben graduated in 2002 and Ted graduated in 2001 from Troy High School. Currently, they both have full time jobs. Ben is a Lincare Office Manager, and Ted is the manager of a mine supply company.

In a nutshell, Ben and Ted buy coffee beans from their Co-op, roast them and will begin selling those beans next month, although according to Ben and Ted, there’s a lot more that goes into the process. For the past few years, Ben and Ted have been researching the coffee roasting business, including experimenting with techniques, beans and degrees of roasting.

They’ve also had some assistance in their research, from people in the area, including a man in the area that had his own coffee roasting company in Romania.

“He took us on and he’s been a huge resource,” Ben said.

They are part of a co-op that allows them to order a wide variety of fresh coffee beans.

Once a batch is ordered, Ben and Ted personally lay out the beans and inspect the beans for quality. After inspection, each batch takes eight to to 10 minutes to roast.

“Any coffee you’re getting at the supermarket is potentially six-12 months old,” said Ted.

They will offer brewed drip coffee for people to buy, although they said they were reluctant to do that.

According to Ted, beyond being knowledgeable of the coffee roasting process, each of them have been drinking coffee since they were teenagers.

“We were originally just going to sell beans,” Ted said.

Ben and Ted do not want to be competition for the local coffee shops. Instead, they would like to sell their coffee beans to the surrounding businesses including coffee shops, grocery stores and the farmers markets. However, they figured that not selling coffee would be confusing to customers.

“You can’t have a place that’s a coffee shop that doesn’t sell coffee,” Ben said.

Although they will sell coffee to their customers, Ben and Ted said that they’re not going to sell speciality drinks, such as lattes, frappes or mochas.

Their goal is to eventually do retail through their shop, selling hats and shirts with their logo. They also want to keep up with the camping theme and sell camping mugs. They would also like to potentially sell reusable products, such as jars for people to buy their beans in.

Ben and Ted also can order customised packaging for people, “If someone wants to come in and have their face on a bag of coffee and name it...we can do that,” said Ted.

They would also like to potentially sell coffee at community events, such as Relay for Life, bake sales and other fundraisers. “We want to give back to the community with fundraisers and be involved and help out,” Ted said. “We want to be an encouragement to the community through this.”

Camp Creek Coffee Roasters will be located at 116 East Third Street. They do not have exact hours yet, but they said they will have consistent, weekly hours and will most likely be open before and after business hours.

Reporter Bethany Rolfson may be reached at 293-4124 or by email at Reporter@TheWesternNews.com.