About Us

Our Story

I love coffee! My love for coffee began when I was in high school working at a Tim Hortons. Okay, not the best coffee in the world, but I was hooked! The aroma, the warmth of a cup in your hands, the taste on your tongue as you sip, the hot liquid slides down your throat invigorating you.  As I grew so did my love for the dark, rich, elixir. I tried many brands, many roasts, many flavors, many ways in many places.

I have been fortunate to have lived in several countries around the world, sampling coffees as I went. In 2016 my wife and I moved to Conakry, Guinea; what a place.  Unfortunately this amazing country was missing something…that's right, COFFEE!  Now, the country was not completely void of the deep brown liquid I craved but the only way to get my fix was with instant coffee. Instant coffee is truly not the hot, rich, dark nectar I was used to, it was looking to be a long year. After suffering for a few weeks a colleague of my wife’s had come to our home to do some planning for the semester, sadly I could not offer our guest my favorite libation. I asked him if he knew of a place where I might be able to purchase fresh coffee so as to no longer endure the painful instant cup daily. With a mischievous smile he assured me he did, the region he was from was known for growing coffee.

Africa’s forest region, where he was from, grows copious amounts of coffee, so much so that much of it, which does not make it to the ports of Sierra Leone, sadly, goes to waste. Through a fortuitous turn of fate and miscommunication the next time we saw him his arms were filled with, you guessed it, coffee. However, it was not the coffee I was expecting… He arrived with about fifty pounds of coffee cherries, that is as fresh as it gets. I knew enough about coffee beans to know I had some work ahead of me if I was hoping to enjoy the real deal while in Africa. So began my true journey into coffee  and what it was worth to achieve my goal of a hot, steamy cup of the black gold I had been missing.

                                 

Processing coffee is an arduous task. One must soak the cherries to soften the husk ultimately exposing the treasure inside, the almighty coffee bean. After soaking comes peeling, working my hands almost raw. 

             

Then, the next layer, a skin which was difficult to remove while wet.  After three days of drying the beans the skins flaked away leaving the flavorful nugget clean. 

               
Now came the roasting, a pan over a propane stove and crossed fingers I was almost there.  A few attempts, some searching on the internet, smoking us out of the apartment briefly, my day had finally arrived. I had fresh, clean roasted, whole coffee beans. There was a problem, though, the beans were whole. A mortar and pestle may have done the trick but fortunately we had a juicer, which alternately became my grinder

                 

I managed to “McGuyver” and create a pour over drip contraption for my precious beans. As the boiling water washed over the grounds the aroma tickled my nose and the outlook was promising. As the last drop of liquid fell I struggled to not want to guzzle it down. We poured and allowed the redolence to envelope us. Finally the moment of truth, I brought the mug to my lips and tasted the fruit of my labor, Africa and one of the best damn cups of coffee I had ever savored. As time went on I was able to source the coffee peas stripped from the casing and ready for roasting, thus making my pursuit of coffee less painful and faster. 

As the days moved on and my coffee habit continued we were invited to Thanksgiving at the US Embassy.  Not wanting to arrive empty handed I decided to bring along a jar of my coveted reserve, believing there might be others who had sustained the disappointment of instant coffee.  After dinner we brewed some up and people were grateful and astounded, not realizing what they had been missing all this time. The Deputy Ambassador introduced me to the Embassy’s commissary director who proclaimed that many of the embassy employees would love to get their hands on a great cup of coffee.  A week later I was making my first sale and for the next eight months I roasted, ground, jarred and sold fresh locally grown coffee to the employees of the US Embassy in Guinea.  

For me it was the pursuit of a real, hot, flavorful coffee and it morphed into a small business putting smiles on the faces of the folks like me, coffee addicts.  I have since consumed many more cups of many different varieties of coffee and my mind often wanders back to that apartment in Guinea roasting beans in a pan on the stove and the flavor they would soon deliver and so was born Angry Rhino Coffee for all to enjoy. 

We, at Angry Rhino, strive to bring you a superior blend of coffee, silky, dark, aromatic, lucious and full bodied. The hard work is done by us allowing you to simply brew, sip and appreciate!