Adam Nagelvoort’s journey has been anything but ordinary. A University of Michigan graduate with a degree in kinesiology, he explored a variety of careers — from UPS worker to IT professional — before finding his late-in-life calling as a coffee roaster. Along the way, Adam dabbled in community music, raised four children and even pursued a Master of Divinity while working night shifts. After life-changing events, including a spiritual epiphany and a career layoff, Adam, now a grandfather, embraced the challenge of running a coffee roasting business in South Carolina, which he calls AnnieGamps.

We sampled his “Morning Radiance” blend, a bright and lively coffee balanced by a smooth depth, which is vibrant without being overpowering. (In other words, his coffee is really good.) 

OBLIVIONI: Is your coffee-making business a sudden new thing, or did you build up to it for a while?

ADAM: No, it was very sudden, not planned. My son owned a coffee business and a candle business, and he decided to become a general contractor. He was selling his coffee business, and he just happened to mention it to me. I had just finished up a stint as an IT system admin in downtown Greenville, and I was like, “OK, enough IT; going to do something different.” So, I was just looking for something, and that just fell in my lap. So, I bought his coffee business from him. I basically picked it up right away and just rebranded it. The Knack Shack was the name of his business. I rebranded to AnnieGamps. And the reason it’s AnnieGamps is my wife is Anne, and I’m Gramps, but our grandchildren can’t pronounce their R’s. So they call her “Annie,” and they call me “Gamps.” And so, I was like, OK, no-brainer. AnnieGamps.

Was there a Eureka moment when you realized, “This is exactly what I should be doing,” or did you just kind of fall into it, like someone offered you a job?

I don’t know. I was very excited about getting into it—about learning all about coffee—because my son became very well-educated on roasting coffee, and he was able to transfer a lot of that knowledge to me. And then I did a lot of research and just — I’ve learned so much about it.

Plus, I love coffee, and people like the coffee that I make. I am selling at a market in January in Greenville called the Frosty Farmer Market. It’s an indoor market where they have over a hundred vendors, and I’m the only coffee guy at this thing. And it’s every Saturday for four months, and I’m hoping it just shoves me into a more lucrative position where I can upgrade my roasters and maybe get out of the house and into a facility where it’s more conducive to that kind of thing rather than just in my backyard on my picnic table.

You’re roasting in your backyard on your picnic table? Even in the wintertime?

That’s correct. Yeah, I don’t have any ventilation coming out of the house that’s good enough. So, I have to do it outside. So, I carry the roaster outside, put it on a picnic table, get it all set up. I’ve even roasted in the pouring rain. I have an umbrella out there, and you know, people put in an order, and I’m here, the “all-weather roaster.”

Tell me an example of what you’ve learned about beans.

The Morning Radiance blend is a blend of a bean from Africa and a bean from the Dominican Republic.  And the reason I blended those two is because the bean from Africa is very fruity, very acidic, very sweet. I had sent it to my brother to try, and he’s like, “It’s like drinking bubble gum,” and he didn’t like it. And I was like, OK, so I could tone it down a little bit with another bean that’s really good, that’s not quite as strongly fruity-flavored. So, I took Dominican, I mixed it with the Ethiopian, and I started selling it, and people really liked it.

I named it Morning Radiance because my first granddaughter, her name is Radiance, and she’s the one who started calling me Gamps and inspired the name of my business. So, in honor of her, it’s Morning Radiance.

What did you need to learn about roasting? 

Because they’re all from the Arabica bean family, beans all basically roast in a similar fashion. You can tell by looking at the beans what roast level they’re at. The bean actually goes from kind of a pale green in its raw form, and it turns yellow, orange, light brown, brown, dark brown, almost black, depending on how long you roast it. 

I’ll preheat my roaster to 240°C. I’ll add the beans, then as the beans roast—and after 12 or 13 minutes— we come to a step called the “first crack.” It’s a great marker, and it’s amazing how this naturally comes about. All beans will have this first crack at a certain temperature. So, as I’m roasting beans, it’s somewhere in the high 180° to low 190°C when this first crack occurs.

And it’s kind of a heavy, low thud of a crack, and it’s basically the bean expanding. And it gets to a point where, “OK, I’ve gone as far as I can go. I need to crack out of my shell a little bit.”

So, as the gases and everything inside the bean expand, there’s this crack. Right at the first crack would be when you end the roast for a light roast. From the first crack on, for another few minutes, is basically your light roast coffee. The light roast would be sort of lighter brown. 

A light roast can maintain the unique flavors of the coffee bean based on where it was grown. So, for example, if I had a light roast for the Ethiopian coffee, it would be very fruity, very floral, very sweet.

My favorite is what I’m drinking now—a Colombian light roast. And I really like the light roast. I didn’t drink light roast before. I thought “light” just meant “weak.” But what it actually means is it’s just a stronger natural flavor of the original bean itself.

So, I just found I really like this Colombian light. I also liked the Haitian Blue light, and most of the reason is because it’s very smooth. It’s not bitter, there’s no real sharp taste, it’s just solid coffee flavor that’s very smooth.

I would liken it to a bourbon kind of thing. You know, people who drink bourbon, sometimes they’ll drink and be like, “Oh, man, that’s harsh, you know—it’s hard to swallow that.” Then some bourbons would be very smooth and easy to swallow and taste really good. So, it’s a similar kind of thing with coffee.

But then, as you progress through the roast, a second crack happens. In between the first crack and the second crack, somewhere halfway in there, would be a medium roast.

Somewhere in the 215° to 220° range, the second crack happens, and it’s more like Rice Krispies—just a little crinkle as it happens.

During that second crack you would get to the dark roast. If you go beyond that, you get to Italian roast, which would be as dark as you get. At that point, all the oils start oozing out of the bean, it gets very oily.

As you roast the bean, the unique flavors start to disappear. And if you did a taste test of five or six different dark roasts, they taste very similar compared to their light roasts. Your light roasts would be very different.

Their dark roasts, especially the darker you get, they lose the nuance of that unique flavor and start to taste the same. Some people just like dark roast coffee, and it doesn’t really matter what bean it is—they just want it dark. They think the dark roast has more caffeine in it, which is not true. The level of caffeine doesn’t change with the roast.

I want to ask you about making the perfect cup of coffee.

What it comes down to most is the bean. After that, I would say that coarse grinding, water temperature, and how long you leave it in the steep are three critical aspects of making a really good cup of coffee.

To make the perfect cup of coffee, you need to press. You need coarsely ground coffee. 

How much you put in would be up to your taste as far as the strength or weakness of your cup. I would say 15 grams of water for one gram of coffee is the ideal ratio. For me, that would be two scoops per cup of coffee. So, if you have a one-cup press, two scoops of coffee. You need the water to be the right temperature—around 205°F. Just below boiling. You don’t want it boiling, You want the steam coming off then, but not boiling.

You know, the coffee bean is very sensitive to temperature. There are actually chemical reactions that happen. The coffee bean is full of so many different chemicals and things that it absorbs from the soil as it grows.

When I make the press, I let the coffee steep. I would say about 8 minutes. And then press it and drink it right away, because the water would cool down quickly. For me, I just like it piping hot. And I think that’s the best way to drink it, you know. I remember my mom sipping coffee when I was in grade school, and she’d just sit there and take little tiny sips. And I’d be like, “Why are you taking such little tiny sips?” Because she liked her coffee piping hot. And that’s just the way I like it.

Also, never put anything in your coffee if you want a perfect cup of coffee. It’s the same thing with bourbon, right? You don’t want to add too much water, ice, or any of that. You want to drink it straight because it’s what you’re looking for.

Coffee is a big part of everyone’s life, right? What is your “coffee memory”?

I used to work night shift. So, my shift would start at 9:00 at night, and I’d basically sit in a cube, monitor systems and make sure they were functioning properly.

On my way to work, I would always buy two large coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts. And it wasn’t the greatest-tasting coffee, but it was strong, and it just helped keep me awake.

I remember I was going up the elevator with my bag and these two cups of coffee. I was balancing everything in one hand, and something happened, and I dropped one of the cups of coffee inside the elevator. And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” As it fell, I was concerned about making a mess in the elevator because, you know, it’s carpeted and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, “Oh, the only person that works here at night is me, and everyone’s gonna know.” But it landed on its base, standing straight up, and didn’t spill. I was like, “How in the world did that happen?”

Anyway, that’s my coffee story.

What is the secret of a terrible cup of coffee?

Coffee doesn’t like light, it doesn’t like oxygen, and it doesn’t like water.

So, if you grind your beans and you put them on a shelf and you let them sit, they’re going to lose everything and go stale. And for me, drinking stale coffee is the worst. It doesn’t matter what the blend is. If you leave it on the shelf too long, it’s going to taste like any other stale coffee.

So, if you go to a store and you’re like, “Oh yeah, I want this big jug of Folgers ground coffee,” who knows how long that stuff’s been ground? It’s never going to taste as good as it should because it’s been ground for too long.

So, for me, a terrible cup of coffee, in addition to what you describe as a burnt cup that’s been sitting on the pot for too long — which happens at the workplace, you know, people make these giant things of coffee, or coffee for one cup, and then it just kind of sits there — is stale coffee that’s been ground and it’s been sitting for too long. The shelf life of ground coffee really is only a week or two.

So, you really want to keep whole beans, and you want to keep them in a dark cupboard. That’s really the ideal way to keep your coffee, and then grind it as you drink it.

What about freezing whole coffee beans?

Keep the condensation off. Because if you take them out and there’s some frost on it, it’s going to condense, and it’ll ruin your coffee. It’ll just go stale quickly. So, you’ve got to figure out some way to keep the oxygen and the moisture off the beans that you put in the freezer. It really has to be vacuum-sealed in the freezer.

You’ve had some health problems for some years. Has this helped, making coffee?

It’s basically depression that I’ve had all my life, which was just made worse by circumstances and relationships and things like that. And not, you know, not knowing what to do next kind of thing. And the challenges that come with that, and the ability to think clearly through making important decisions when you’re struggling with mental health.

And now, I have definitely hit on something very good for me. People really enjoy my coffee. I’ve got a lot of repeat customers.

And yes, it’s very uplifting to sit there roasting beans. And you know, because on a beautiful day, I like to be outside. And you know, there are woods in the back of our house, there are bird feeders and stuff, and then I have my dog with me.

And it’s a pleasant place to roast coffee. I definitely get a lot of satisfaction out of, “OK, I’m dropping this roast, I hit the temperature correct,” and then I bag it at this roast level, this bean. And people are buying it, and it’s very satisfying.

^^^

Photograph of coffee mugs by Kalyee Srithnam.