Throughout my life—from the years at school, to travelling the world, to later becoming a sound engineer in a recording studio in Dublin—coffee has always been in my hand and in my cup.

That said, it wasn’t until 2006 in Perth, Australia, that a friend made me my first "drip" coffee. I began to realise that coffee offered a vast spectrum of flavours impacted by each link in the coffee chain. Eventually, my wife Sarah-Jane and I moved back to Dublin to start our own café with two goals in mind: one, our shop would be a place of artistic community, and two, the coffee would be brilliant.

Up until this point, I hadn't made much coffee myself, so I got a job in my hometown at a café called The Happy Pear. I worked there for four months trying to improve my shots and perfect my presentation. After that, I opened my own cart, selling coffee at train stations and markets. We landed an epic gig at The Point Village Market in Dublin City where I ended up working right next to Brock from Badger and Dodo Coffee Roasters. Even though we were competitors, Brock taught me some of the most valuable things I know about coffee to this day—from the bean to the cup. Brock became my coffee supplier and we earned a pretty good reputation travelling around the country doing events.

Over time, we decided it was time to find a brick and mortar shop of our own. The very day after making this decision, I got a phone call from Colin Harmon at 3FE asking if I’d be interested in opening a café in Temple Bar, as he knew of an available space. Four days later, we had a deal with the landlord and we started buying our coffee from Colin and Steve at Hasbean. 

It had always been the plan for us to roast our own coffee, so I took a course in London where I made friends with Fabio Fareiera, co-owner of Notes Coffee. We agreed that whoever got set up first would help the other. Fabio beat me to the post and in November 2013 we began roasting at his place in London to supply our own shop, along with a growing number of wholesale customers around Dublin and Wicklow. Having learned to roast and build a wholesale business, the time finally arrived for us to set up our very own roastery in Ireland.

Since September 2015, Roasted Brown has been roasting locally in Delgany, Co. Wicklow.

Ferg Brown, Founder