Hi!
This is my first reddit post, but I am Chris O'Brien, founder of Coffee Cycle Roasting.
We have two locations- one in Pacific Beach and one in Ocean Beach. I started with a coffee cart on a modified pedicab I built with the help of friends. It took three years to build while I was working as a barista at the original Bird Rock Coffee. After selling espresso mobile for a year, we parked the cart inside our current Pacific Beach shop location and built the shop around it. It's been there almost nine years!
Our Ocean Beach location has been open close to two years, and that's where we roast our beans. I love the space in our OB shop- we've got a skylight, big windows, and a private back patio with lots of space and plenty of quirks.
While our name comes from our origins of a cycle-based coffee cart, it was also meant to evoke my ideal of coffee sourcing and business. We support our coffee producers by paying prime prices for the best beans, and they support us by providing us with incredible coffee to help improve our daily lives. This, to me, is the true Coffee Cycle.
Q&A:
What did your earliest days of enjoying coffee look like? Also, was there a specific moment early on that flipped the switch for you from “this is interesting” to “I want to master this”?
Absolutely! I was working at Phoenix Coffee Roasters in Cleveland, Ohio as a teenager taking a year off from college. To me, it was just a job, until I overheard a few of my coworkers talking about what coffees were going to be served later in the week. They were talking about coming in on their day off so they could enjoy some of the coffees that didn't get put on as often. I think one of them was talking about preferring a Hawaii Kawaii over the more expensive Kona. I realized there was something to this whole coffee thing that was more than just being a positive part of someone's day. There was a whole rabbit hole of complexity and preference to learn and experience. I remember taking beans home from Tanzania and Sumatra and experimenting with them and seeing how they were different from the Mexico Chiapas beans. And now here we are!
At Bird Rock, you were exposed to high-end green sourcing and a very structured roasting program. What specific systems or principles from that environment still influence how you approach roast profiling, cupping, and consistency today? And where have you deliberately pushed beyond that framework in your own roasting with Coffee Cycle?
Chuck, the founder of Bird Rock, and the two head roasters that were there during my time there (Tony and Heather) have been hugely influential on me. Foremost is the intentionality of the sourcing. The ethics and transparency were an important reflection of my own moral code, but the sourcing team was Always tasting and evaluating. Chuck would finish a cupping and then ask us to make a pourover of one or more of his samples. That devotion to a thorough evaluation has definitely stuck with me.
As far as ways we go beyond Bird Rock, I wouldn't presume to claim to go beyond them in any significant way. But one change that we've done that I'm proud of is our focus on single-origin espresso. Most shops will craft an espresso blend to ensure consistency of flavor as seasonal components come and go with availability. But we accept that our espresso will change over the seasons. So we'll find a single coffee that we think produces a solid reliable espresso that's worthy of serving with all of our drinks.
In regard to sourcing green coffee, how often are you taking chances on lesser-known producers or lots versus sticking with proven coffees?
Maybe too often! We have had some amazing experience working directly with a few producers. Notably our friends in Honduras. We've committed to buying coffee from our longtime producer, Juan, essentially since we started roasting. By committing to this, we recently were able to access some incredible coffees from his brother, Pedro! Roasted by us, Pedro's Geisha has now been listed as the highest rated coffee from Honduras ever evaluated by Coffee Review and was honored with spot #9 on their list of top coffees of 2025. So committing to our relationships while being open to new coffees has Really paid off.
How do you view the rise of heavily processed coffees like co-ferments? What about the trend of roasting lighter and lighter? Have we gone too far or not far enough?
I think one of the beauties of the coffee scene as it is now is that there is room for all of this. There are coffees roasted lighter than I prefer out there (despite feeling like my roast is quite light), and there are plenty of well-done co-ferments out there. Just because they're not my favorite doesn't mean they're not worth trying or roasting. I think that innovation like this pushes our industry forward, which is a great thing. Making more people aware of the incredible work that goes into any coffee is so important, and fun tools like unusual coffees can help us get that message across.
That being said, I don't enjoy many co-ferments I've tried. I haven't yet found one I really wanted to drink regularly myself, and so I haven't offered any on my menu. I remain open to being surprised by one someday, but it hasn't happened yet. We did launch our first anaerobic coffee in November, though, and it's actually easily one of my favorites. So being open to change is provably the right call.
What’s a “rule” in roasting that you think is worth breaking, and when does it actually make sense to do it?
Plenty of 'rules' in roasting are worth breaking! The only 'rules' I see out there are taught to us by industry experts, and I think the best experts will admit that there are exceptions to most things. Having that mindset makes me feel like I don't really break any rules, I just use the coffee to tell me what to do on the roaster. That might be dropping the coffee at a bean temp that is pretty different from my other coffees, or not worrying about the exact development time ratio percentage. Or it might be bucking conventional wisdom and taking an origin like Indonesia that's traditionally roasted darker and giving it a chance with lighter profiles. Regardless, it's the coffee telling us what's best by constantly evaluating and being willing to make changes.
How much of your roasting today is data-driven versus instinct? Has that balance changed over time?
I think it's always shifting. One of my mentors strongly recommends learning to roast without software. I love data, and I want our coffees to be consistent. But I'm also happy to have his influence, because the laptop screen only shows part of the picture. Looking at and smelling the coffee as it roasts gives a whole picture of the process in progress that's not at all represented by numbers and graphs on a screen.
Can you walk us through how you approach cupping from start to finish? How you set it up, what you’re tasting for, and how you use those notes to guide your roasting or buying decisions? What are a few key things you’re always paying attention to in the cup?
As a younger coffee professional, I was always looking for what notes I could find in the cup. How to describe the coffee was my priority in evaluating it. And I'm glad to have that as my foundation. Now I look for flaws and problems first, then to evaluate qualities. When cupping lots of coffee and making decisions based on my sense of taste and smell, it's very helpful to be able to eliminate option and narrow down my focus. If it's a coffee I've already bought, I want to evaluate those flaws and think about how I can modulate those flavors in the final cup. After finding flaws, I look at sweetness, balance of flavors, and clarity of flavors. Does it have natural sweetness? Are flavors like florals and fruits balanced with each other, or does one dominate overmuch? And can I taste all the different flavors separately in the cup?
San Diego tap water is pretty hard. How much does that factor into your roasting decisions, considering most locals probably brew at home? And do you think having “ideal” coffee water is essential to getting the best out of a given bean?
I'm not as much of an expert in water chemistry as many in our industry, but I'm certainly well-aware of how much water quality will impact coffee taste. And water like San Diego's is pretty bad. Like, really bad. Not only will it taste worse, but it will kill coffee machines and corrode kettles very easily. The best I can do is roast the coffee as well as I think it can be roasted. I don't do regular evaluations of brewing our coffee with tap water, but I have tried it. In my experience so far, I don't see much benefit to trying to roast for a specific water mineral content. I use the best water I can to get water that allows me to evaluate the coffee accurately, so I can roast it to its peak of flavor. It's altogether possible that I might be able to tweak a roast to get something more out of a coffee with different water, but if so, it's probably beyond me! Best I can do is roast it really well and source great beans.
Rapid Fire:
One origin you trust almost every time.
none. always be open to surprise in either direction
One origin that’s the hardest to get right.
Kenya. One of my faves but can go savory or tomato-y when not done just right
Washed or natural if you had to pick one forever?
controversial opinion: Natural for life!
Most overrated tasting note you see on bags.
everyone loves to hate on seeing bergamot or candy, but I say go for it. But 'overrated'? Gotta be chocolate. Any kind. It's totally legitimate, but too easy. Pretty much every coffee has some sort of chocolate note.
First crack is more about sound or feel?
I've been identifying first crack visually more often lately. Sound is great but depending on the roaster it can be unreliable. Some beans are quiet to crack inside a loud machine.
One processing method you’re skeptical of.
Carbonic maceration. Anaerobic methods have their place and can contribute to great results, but carbonic seems to be trying too hard to do something that isn't usually that great. I think we're learning what coffee can do, and that's awesome. But I don't necessarily want to drink it.
One thing that instantly tells you a coffee is high quality.
Does it still taste good when it's fully cooled.
Favorite Coffee Cycle bag right now?
How could I have favorites? They're like my children.
But the Honduras Geisha and the Colombia Diviso Double Anaerobic Caturra :)