Exploring Life & Business with Jason Scott of Hermetheus Coffee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Scott.

Hi Jason, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, let’s briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
“I wonder how that works.” This sentence is always running through my mind. I have always had an insatiable appetite for learning new things. We incessantly ask “why” and “how” questions as children. I never grew out of that phase. My questions have developed more complex. But it has given me a deeper understanding of the world around me. It has also taught me that changing directions and learning something is always possible. In 1997, I was an elementary school teacher in Olathe, KS. I taught 6th grade and got to share my wonder and joy of being a life-long learner. Along that journey, I met my to-be wife, Faith Scott. After a few fulfilling years of teaching, I was ready to try an entirely new path. I completed my master’s degree and began a 20-year career in IT. During that career, I had a boss-turned-friend, Scott Hamby, who introduced me to specialty coffee. He was passionate about great coffee. I, on the other hand, believed most coffees tasted the same. He finally convinced me to buy an espresso machine, which grabbed my attention. I felt like I had discovered a new world of coffee. I felt excited by this discovery. He was also excited by my excitement and said, “You know what comes next, right? You need to roast your coffee.”

I laughed off that suggestion as ridiculous. After all, most coffee still tasted the same. Scott went on to give me his coffee roaster, a tiny, toaster-oven-sized appliance that could roast about 8oz of green coffee beans. And in hindsight, it could be a better roaster. And yet, that mediocre little gift would change my personal and professional trajectory in a way I couldn’t imagine. Once I tasted high-quality specialty coffee, I was hooked. I discovered parts of the coffee tasting wheel I had never experienced distinct blueberry flavors. Sweet tropical fruit notes. Rich, almost molasses-like notes. This was unlike any coffee I had ever tasted.

And so, I began doing what I do with all my passions. I began to analyze the coffee roasting process and how to improve it. I quickly learned that roasting great coffee involves accurately controlling the bean temperature throughout the roasting process. I added temperature probes in the roaster to feed the coffee temperature to software on a PC. But there was still this manual heat control knob that I needed to master. Of course, mastering heat control is like any skill. It’s honed over time and repetition. But I kept thinking there must be a way to automate it to let a computer control the heat like cruise control on a car, but for coffee roasters.

I began building prototypes of robotic controls and control boards that would act as this “cruise control” for a roast profile that I created in software. And over many months and prototypes, I had something that worked well. It roasted coffee far more accurately than I could do manually. With the support of my wife and this crazy robotic contraption that roasted amazing coffee, Hermetheus Coffee was born.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been smooth?
While we’ve never encountered major setbacks or obstacles, every step has taken more energy, time, and capital than expected. Every. Single. Step. In hindsight, I was a bit naïve to think that running a successful coffee roasting company was as easy as roasting great coffee and providing a website to order it. Community outreach and engagement have proven far more important than I would have thought. And as it turns out, this is one of the most enjoyable aspects of running the company. When Faith, Zoe, and I serve coffee at community events, we connect with people. Sometimes about the coffee itself and other times about life itself. It is this connection that makes coffee such a special beverage to me. There is a deep relational authenticity to coffee that no other beverage has. Real life and real relationship happen with a cup of coffee. For the past 14 months, I have been mentored by other successful business owners in the Kansas City area. There is a high likelihood that Hermetheus Coffee wouldn’t exist today without their support and challenge. It’s important to be challenged by people who care about you and have been down the same entrepreneurial path. During one of the most challenging and exhausting moments of starting Hermetheus Coffee, I began asking questions like, “Will this ever work out? Is it even worth it? What was I thinking?”

I learned that these questions are all normal. They are questions that nearly every successful business owner has asked at some point in their journey. One of the most meaningful bits of business advice I have ever heard was a simple line from Finding Nemo. “Keep swimming.” That’s it. There is a pivotal moment in most businesses when profound second-guessing will take place. Every successful business decided to keep swimming through those moments. It’s overly simplistic sometimes, but it has become a mini pep talk I give myself weekly (and sometimes daily). No matter how busy things get, I have to keep swimming.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Hermetheus Coffee is a specialty coffee roaster and a coffee roasting technology company. Our robotic, software-controlled air-roasting process makes our specialty coffee different from any other roaster in Kansas City. This system’s temperature control level is impossible to achieve with manual control. And so, Hermetheus Coffee is ethically sourced and masterfully roasted specialty coffee. But in 2022, we decided to package and offer our robotic roaster control system to other coffee roasters. We called it the Hermetheus Roaster Co-Pilot. While we thought it would be a niche product, it surprisingly became quite successful for us. It now outsells our roasted coffee, with roasters worldwide using the Co-Pilot system. In fact, in early 2023, one of the largest coffee roaster manufacturers in the world decided to build its newest roasters around Hermetheus Co-Pilot functionality. And so, Hermetheus Coffee has an identity crisis. Are we a specialty coffee roaster or a manufacturer of roaster automation kits for other coffee roasters? The answer is a simple “yes.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hermetheus.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hermetheuscoffee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hermetheus
• Youtube: @hermetheuscoffee