Exploring Life & Business with Eric and Nancy Schneider of Headrush Roasters Coffee and Tea

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric and Nancy Schneider. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Headrush Roasters is a locally owned independent coffee house operated by Eric and Nancy Schneider since 2012. We are passionate about all things coffee and tea. To be frank, Eric was burned out after working in the commercial insurance industry for 25 years. Ending this chapter in his life wasn’t easy and even a little scary, but Eric and family are now having the time of their life and have never looked back. Although Eric had no background in the coffee industry prior to opening, Headrush has been very successful since the beginning. Eric attributes this to countless days of research, learning and the wonderfully vibrant independent coffee community in Kansas City that was always willing to help. Eric likes to think where there’s a will, there’s a way.

To ensure the highest quality of coffee, Headrush strictly controls the entire process of selecting, roasting and brewing exquisite coffee. Eric sources premier Arabica coffee beans from around the world, including fair-trade/organic offerings whenever possible. Although Eric appreciates traditional drum roasting, they opted for air roasting as they believe it offers an unmatched consistency in roast. Air-roasting also provides the convenience of being able to “roast-on-demand” right in the store. At Headrush, a pound of freshly roasted beans is available to take home in only six minutes! Why buy something roasted days, weeks or months before when you can leave Headrush with beans roasted just for you.

Eric’s wife Nancy grew up in Yunnan, China, a beautifully lush mountainous area in the far southwest of the country. It is one of the largest tea-producing regions in the world, and it is believed to be the birthplace of tea. Its aged tea trees produce the tea leaves that have made Pu-erh, an exquisite and complex tea, the signature tea of Yunnan. Nancy’s love of tea comes directly from her father who never fails to start his day with several cups of Yunnan’s homegrown tea.

Nancy says that the experience of growing up in a culture that is deeply steeped in tea tradition is what has inspired her lifelong love of tea. Nancy believes that fine quality teas should be accessible to everyone who is open to the experience. Her selection of fine loose leaf teas is a testament of her devotion and respect to the artistry of tea.

Together, Eric and Nancy continue their commitment to providing a gathering place for the community at large. They love to get to know everyone that comes in and serve exceptional coffee and tea drinks. Chances are that if you come by in the morning, you’ll see Betty, Eric’s 88 years old mother sipping her daily Italian-style cappuccino! In addition, each barista at Headrush is carefully trained and selected. We are proud to have a close-knit team of employees who have made Headrush known for its authentic and warm service. Every employee at Headrush shares a love of coffee and tea.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We are not going to minimize the many obstacles and struggles all other brick-and-mortar businesses like us going through on a daily basis. However, we want to celebrate what we have achieved so far. There is not a single day that we have shut down due to personal issues. We have kept our words and promises to the community by physically being here every single day making coffee and tea for our customers. It is even more remarkable that we have done that throughout the pandemic. Our team stayed together and stayed open every single day. More than that, our service actually got even better. The pandemic has in a weird way making us realize the importance of human interactions no matter how small. We believe we brought a little sense of normalcy to many of our customers.

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?
Headrush Roasters is a family-owned specialty coffee & tea house featuring gourmet coffee drinks, loose leaf teas, smoothies, and homemade bakery goodies. We also offer onsite roasting and baking to ensure only the freshest coffee and bakery items.

We are known throughout the coffee community for having one of the best tea selections anywhere. We are known to have the best matcha in the area being the first local coffee shop that started offer the matcha drinks back in 2012. We were interviewed and featured in the Feast magazine’s matcha scene in Missouri back in 2005.

We are very proud of our menu. We believe we have one of best and most creative menus. Our customers marvel at our drink choices and how great the flavor combo works.

We are also very proud of our efforts in making things as fresh as possible. We refuse to use boxed Chai concentrate. Instead, we actually blend of our own Chai spice mix with seven whole spices which we then mix with authentic Indian black tea. We brew fresh daily to create a Chai that is complex, fresh, flavorful and delicious. We also bake on site using traditional family recipes. All made with real and fresh ingredients in small batch.

We also believe our on site coffee roasting on demand adds value for our customers. Our customers are genuinely delighted with the finished quality and amazing aroma of the freshly roasted. In addition, we have more varieties of single origin coffees and blends than anyone else in the area, totally more than 16 varieties. That is only possible because our agile small batched coffee roasting business model allows us to rapidly roasting coffee on demand one pound at a time. We don’t carry large quantity of any single type, but instead we carry many more varieties. This is great news for customers as they are increasingly looking for coffee that matches to a specific flavor profile. They can easily find one from our wide options. Besides, with smaller quantities, we go through each coffee so rapidly. It guarantees coffee is always fresh.

Overall, we believe we have succeeded in competing in quality and service. We have also succeeded in building a vibrant and strong constituency who believe and share what Headrush stands for.

What makes you happy?
Being with people makes us happy. It makes us even happier to see that we have improved someone’s day by our coffee, tea, or our service.

Life is short and truly precious. We are here to be fully present for our team and our customers.

Contact Info:

• Email: headrushroasters.com
• Website: www.headrushroasters.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headrushroasters/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeadrushRoasters
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/headrushroaster
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/headrushroasters
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/headrush-roasters-coffee-and-tea-kansas-city?select=6AnsZsOw0TRPjDDYQgzInQ