About the founders of Mighty Valley Coffee: A Rope of Sand

About the founders of Mighty Valley Coffee: A Rope of Sand

Hello, welcome! We are Jarryd and Josie— owners of Mighty Valley Coffee in Smiths Falls, Ontario! 

We are folks who love coffee and our community—we also love our dog and two cats, basketball (Go Raps!), and exploring new places and foods! We are very excited to be here in Smiths Falls, Jarryd’s hometown, roasting coffee and pursuing a livelihood we can be proud of and engage in our community through.

Our journey into the coffee business was not a straight-forward one and involved many years of twists and turns across different continents and provinces, as well as journeys in the mind through learning. We spent much of our 20s and early 30s working in BC as tree planters and living/studying in India, but our first humble peek behind the coffee curtain occurred in 2010 when we were volunteering at a bird watching preserve in Ecuador’s cloud forest, where we helped to both harvest coffee and bananas from their small plantation and then later roasted these beans up in cast iron pans for the staff, volunteers, and guests to enjoy.

Fast forward to 2018—we returned from India, bought a house in Smiths Falls with our tree planting savings, and decided we wanted to treat ourselves to a super baller coffee setup because we both love a good cup of coffee. This led to Jarryd roasting green beans in a cast iron pan (as we did in Ecuador years earlier) for our own consumption, then switched to a popcorn maker (which basically melted), and then to a small 1lb Behmor drum roaster in our basement. Basement coffee. We started to share the coffee with friends and family members who raved about the fresh beans and we thought, maybe we could make a business of this! 

Our first attempt came in the Fall of 2019, our friends at Milkhouse Farm & Dairy were having a Fall Farm Tourday and invited us to set up a table to serve up and sell bags of coffee. We even had a homemade sign that simply said “Coffee” … and it went really well! We decided in December 2019 to order a small commercial roaster (our 5kg Toper roaster) and our friends at 4 Degrees Brewing Company offered their space to us to install it. A few months of pandemic lockdown and delays later, and we roasted our first batch of coffee in June 2020!

Mighty Valley has been a community effort from the beginning. We are happy to be here roasting fresh and delicious coffee we can be proud of and bringing delight into your daily coffee ritual!

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