Who We Are

Devil’s Head Coffee, like so many other businesses was born out of passion. Being active outdoor enthusiasts, we were always spending our spare time figuring out what our next objective was. Backpacking, mountain biking, climbing in the summer, and ice climbing in the winter we found ourselves awake very early heading for the hills with really horrible coffee. We decided to change that and started roasting coffee on a small pop-corn popper. Quickly realizing that we could only roast a few grams at a time, we upgraded to a little electric drum roaster. It was awesome! We now always had freshly roasted coffee, but our friends and family soon caught on and we found ourselves roasting 50 lbs a month on a tiny little machine in our laundry room in a basement suite in Bowness. Haha, We were venting the smoke out behind a sketchy little faded pink curtain, and every so often a neighbour would come knocking and ask what the heck was going on! So I showed them and they would buy coffee from us.

Once we moved to our home we graduated to a garage! We got a 1 kg roaster, and were starting to do a bit of volume for folks we knew. We quickly realized that we needed a space to do this professionally so we could attend markets, and really start to get our name out there. We found a space to get us started and grow a little bit, and we immediately upgraded our roaster to our current size of 5 kg. It has been quite the journey moving from our laundry room so many years ago!

Now, we have our own space to hang our hats, and take that next step for our business. We couldn’t have done any of this without our supporters, so thank you for everything, and we look forward to serving you into the future!

Meet The Team

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  Chris

  Is the founder and head putterer at the shop! Chris does all of the roasting, sourcing, system and process design, customer service and support. He also manages our mobile cafe, develops custom roast profiles for our customers and kind of does it all. Chris started his professional life in Environmental Consulting, and has worked on several high profile projects through the duration of his career. He really found a passion for coffee once he got injured, and couldn’t rock climb. Realizing that it would be prudent having a hobby that didn’t require a level of physicality, he quicky fell in love with coffee roasting. He was able to apply the scientific methodology to learn how to roast, and loving the ‘taste what you make’ mentality made it a tantalizing pursuit. Chris can be found at the roaster daily tinkering with roast profiles and dialing in espresso. Come down to the shop and say hi!
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  Tanis

  Tanis has always loved coffee, and relies on it every morning, taking 15 minutes of quiet time getting her day sorted. Chris was…. a morning person, and snapped out of bed everyday with a shot. They both used to work downtown, and the commute was her least favorite part of the day. She thought one day, staring into her cup of serenity while Chris was babbling on about whatever, “He needs a hobby so I can get my mornings back!” Fast forward 10 years, and she inspired him to do just that. Now, she manages all of the books, events, and keeps everything on track for the business, all the while working full time in human resources and being an awesome Mom. Superhero is the term!
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  See you in the hills