About:

her-e-tic     Origin: 1300–50; Gk hairetikós able to choose (LGk: heretical), equiv. to hairet(ós) that may be taken (verbal adj. of haireîn to choose) + -ikos -ic

My name is Mark Overly. I am President and Coffee Buyer for Kaladi Coffee Roasters in Denver, Colorado. I have been in the coffee industry for over 30 years now. I began my career in Anchorage, Alaska with a small, fledgling coffee company at the beginning of what we now call the “second wave” in a Specialty Coffee revolution. That company grew to become the largest roaster in Alaska.

I left that company in the late 90’s because I became disillusioned with the direction of the industry and my own company. What began as a revolution for quality coffee devolved into a marketing exercise promoting surgery, milk-based drinks. I wanted to return to the original intent of sourcing and promoting specialty coffee.

Specialty Coffee has entered its “third wave” and has since evolved its own orthodoxy that increasingly disparages critique. I have been around just long enough to remember that what we now call Specialty Coffee initially struggled to differentiate itself from cheap, commercial coffee. Many helped create this niche, forging new paths to quality. Some of these voices have since been forgotten. I am a product of those voices.

A coffee friend once described me as a “known contrarian” to which I replied, thank you! After pondering it for a while I concluded that I am not so much a contrarian, nor am I some sort of iconoclast. Instead I am a coffee heretic. I use the term heretic in its original sense, as one who chooses amongst several choices, rather than simply rejecting a norm. My aim is not to reject outright, or to be some curmudgeon who dismisses outright any new idea. Rather, one who looks deeply at what is offered and makes his own choice.