Candice Wagener
Tony Bitner (left), Manny Figueroa and Tom Koren of Rusty Dog.
While the Madison area is still not the coffee mecca that Seattle and Portland are, it is coming into its own with a growing number of roasters and producers.
In Middleton, Tom Koren, Manny Figueroa and Tony Bitner are family guys passionate about their side gig roasting beans. Koren is founder of Rusty Dog Coffee, the label under which he has been small-batch roasting for about five years. Figueroa and Bitner recently came on as co-owners. Still working day jobs and raising families, the three are often roasting late at night and on the weekends.
They’ve been selling their beans via rustydogcoffee.com and at Miller and Sons, Jenifer Street Market and Bill’s Food Center. Rusty Dog also offers coffee services to businesses, including beans and brewing equipment. (Full disclosure: Isthmus has recently signed on as a client.)
Rusty Dog also has a repair business for fixing industrial brewers for restaurants and cafes and larger-scale equipment like roasters — several of which they’ve restored for their own purposes, including an 80-year-old Jabez Burns four-barrel sample roaster (which Koren says “every roaster in town would die to have”).
The Rusty Dog roasters like to try out different takes on a bean’s profile, from light to dark. A lighter roast might produce flavors of citrus, berries and plum, whereas a darker roast could present richer chocolate or smoky undertones — all from the same bean. “We cup everything,” says Bitner. Cupping means tasting the variations side by side and noting their unique qualities. “It’s very important to us to understand the coffee we’re bringing in,” says Bitner. Consistency in their roasts is also “super important to us,” says Figueroa.
Another priority for Rusty Dog is freshness. They roast a limited number of orders a week and immediately hand-pack their signature brown bags, which feature a nitrogen valve to prevent the beans from off-gassing.
Rusty Dog currently sells eight coffees; one of those is a decaf. Four are blends; the others are single origin coffees from co-ops located in Honduras, Colombia, Peru and Sumatra.
Brook LaBar Hanson, founder of MOMbie Coffee, began roasting her own coffee beans in her Sun Prairie kitchen with a $15 air pop popcorn machine two years ago. She hadn’t been “a huge coffee drinker” until after giving birth to triplets. She already had a 3-year-old and a full-time job. Suddenly coffee became a much bigger part of LaBar Hanson’s life.
She had the idea to add electrolytes, commonly found in exercise drinks like Gatorade, to her coffee. Muscles and neurons are activated by electrolyte activity; replenishing them is crucial after a heavy workout, major illness, or “to help you through a hangover, workout, playdate, volunteer appointment, tough meeting or your 3,000th diaper change,” as MOMbie’s website puts it.
LaBar Hanson says she uses electrolytes in both powder and liquid form, made from all-natural ingredients. They’re added during roasting (she no longer roasts her own beans; MOMbie is roasted by a local company).
MOMbie sources beans from woman-owned farms in Honduras — it’s important to LaBar Hanson to help women who are enduring hardship. And part of the proceeds from MOMbie go to Madison-area women’s shelters. MOMbie is sold through its website, mombiecoffee.com, and at Prairie Athletic Club.
