Coffee brewer calls Anderson County a good home
Cory Herb shows off products from his company, Coal Creek Coffee Roasters. (photo:Ben Pounds )
Cory Herb, founder and roaster at Coal CreekCoffee Roasters, told the crowd at Calamity’s Coffee that he drank coffee in the Marine Corps to stay awake during his service in Afghanistan.
But back then, he said, the quality of the roast didn’t matter to him.
His company’s website describes that military coffee as “black sludge.”
Now, though, he’s made getting coffee right his mission, starting his company after a grocery store discontinued his favorite coffee beans.
He and his sibling Meesh Herb talked to the crowd about the different flavors that can come out of different climates in which coffee grows, and the different ways of roasting and preparing it.
“With all of the large companies out there, Black Rifle, Starbucks and all that, you kind of get lost with the overly roasted, overly dark, stale burnt taste that everybody in America is used to,” he said.
His company aimed for “a coffee we consistently enjoy,” he said.
Meesh, Cory and Cory’s wife, Katie Herb, run Coal Creek Coffee Roasters at 777 Oliver Springs Highway, an address not open to the public.
They purchase beans from around the world and roast them. People can get Coal Creek’s coffees at Calamity Coffee, the same Oak Ridge coffee shop where the three of them led their November presentation, or on the company’s website,
drinkcoalcreek.com.
The company’s name is solidly Anderson County, referring to Coal Creek, the original name of the community currently known as Rocky Top. But Cory Herb previously ran his coffee business in South Florida. He said he loves Anderson County, despite not growing up here.
“We don’t have any real ties other than the fact that we came out to Pigeon Forge for a trade show one year and literally fell in love with the area,” he said.
“There’s something enchanting about it. You can’t find it anywhere else.”
He said he appreciates the hills, mountains and natural world of East Tennessee more than the flat ground, palm trees and hurricanes of Florida. Also the rent and overhead are lower in East Tennessee than South Florida.
“It’s home; that’s the only way I can explain it,” he said. “We’re not leaving anytime soon. We’re locked in, and we’re happy here.”