A couple laid off from the hospitality and service industry have started up their own coffee company delivering custom roasts, and decided to name it after their two 14-year-old cats.

Two Cats Coffee is all about customizing. You can choose from their selection of beans and tell them your preferred brew method and favourite coffee flavour profiles, and they'll brew a roast that fits you as perfectly as a fluffy cat fits a lap.

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The project began during COVID when the couple was looking for new hobbies. Richard has always been a coffee lover but only considered roasting his own beans once they found themselves with more time. He started experimenting with roasting in a mini cast iron pot on the stovetop, but ended up smoking out the apartment numerous times.

"Richard decided he wanted to invest in a proper roaster," Crystal tells blogTO, "so we bought a small one-kilogram Danish-designed roaster that we can home roast with."

As the lockdown dragged on, it became clear to the couple that their hobby was going to have to start contributing supplemental income, so they started selling their roasts. 

They have numerous pieces of custom artwork of their cats, who are named Tigger and Spottie, and decided to make the kitties the official logo they'd put on their bags of custom roasted beans.

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They've only been roasting with their current roaster since September, and started selling custom roasts just before Christmas. Seeing as their operation is incredibly small batch they're able to fine tune custom roasts created especially for each individual.

"Since our roaster is small, we only roast one or two bags at a time," Crystal says. "It's rare that you buy and brew coffee beans that were roasted a few days ago."

The roaster they're currently using comes with software that's able to save profiles of roasts customers have had in the past, so not only can they create an individual roast just for you, they can also recreate it exactly.

Customers have responded saying that they find the quality incredibly fresh, and though they have ambitions of opening a physical cafe storefront one day, they hope never to compromise on their customization.

Crystal has recently secured a full-time medical admin job and stepped back a bit from Two Cats, but Richard continues to power forward as full-time roaster and social media manager.