Smalley: Coffee with connections

When Josh Premuda considers a new coffee to add to his collection at Smalley Coffee, he looks for connections.

Points of purpose flowing from a particular vibe accented by the flavor, aroma and moment of a cup of coffee, all adding meaning in memories to each sip.

"I’ve said in the past that coffee is my medium, like, if you want to think of it in terms of an artist's canvas or something," Josh said. "I’m the kind of guy that can't look at a blank page and put something together. I have to start with a bunch of stuff and then put it on the page. So coffee is what I need to start."

Each single-origin coffee has a story.

Farm Hand is the easy-drinking coffee you take out on the porch with you as you face a new day of work or fun in the dirt. Josh describes it as an homage to the hardworking agrarian Midwest culture he's grown up in. Drinking it is like putting on a worn pair of leather gloves before heading out to get some work done.

Night Moves, an Ethiopian roast, is an afternoon cup of espresso. Light and florally, it can be used as the key ingredient in an espresso martini in the evening.

Soul Sessions is the Jack Johnson of Josh's coffees. "It's just kind of chill, and everyone likes it," he said. "No one ever has anything bad to say about Soul Sessions."

Speaking of music, Josh has even created playlists around the coffees he roasts and sells through his website or local retailers. You can listen to Soul Sessions here.

Dawn Patrol also has a playlist. The Colombian-sourced light roast is maybe closest to Josh's heart. It has a camping, outdoorsy feel — take a moment and think of coffee in the early dawn in front of a campfire — but is connected to the Airstream. You may remember the original Smalley Coffee operated out of Josh's restored Airstream at the intersection of Newton Street and Northwood Avenue on Jasper's northside.

Birthed from love and admiration for his grandfather, Wayne Smalley, who operated a diner in Horton, Mich., before serving in World War II, the renovated 1966 Airstream opened to drive-thru and walk-up traffic in 2014 and closed as the pandemic started.

The Airstream is gone, but the ideals of creating community around great coffee remain. Josh transformed Smalley into a roasting company after he teamed up with an Evansville roaster, Nate Templeton, who operates Joe Brewski Coffee. The pair invested in a roaster and now split the output from the 10 kg. roaster between their two businesses.

Through the partnership over the roaster, Josh has been able to take ideas and bring them to fruition to build relationships and a steady growth in subscription mailorder and retail customers, as well as white labeling blends for local businesses like Café Pina and Emerald Greens.

While he loves the connections his coffee has in his own life, Josh is also using it to find out about the stories around him.

It begins with doodles in the myriad of notebooks he uses to capture his flow of creative ideas. They range from scratch pads to old checkbook registers, anything he can write in that is handy and abides by his personal rule to never purchase a notebook.

"I have a notepad of names of things that l sort of fall back into that and sort of start to like, and it can go from. Some can just be names that I think are kind of clever together," Josh explained.

Others have connections to specific cultural and social constructs. The blend he created for Café Pina is comprised of beans from El Salvador and Mexico in recognition of the owner, Claudia's, heritage. It is a bit of her personal story, and the coffee can become part of it.

Which is something he is seeking to bring more to light.

"I would love to be able to tell your story, why you drink the coffee, listen to the music while you do it, and where you’re trying to go with it," he said. "The coffee is a vehicle to get to know people, share with people, and work with people."

If you want Smalley to be a part of your story or are looking for a locally produced coffee, information is available online at https://www.smalleycoffee.com/ and on socials at Facebook and Instagram. He also has white-label options and is working with Meyer Distributing, providing office coffee being shipped around the country through their network.