Local Highlight: YUP Coffee Roasters

Nestled between a revitalized silk mill and the Mill River, in Florence MA, is a coffee roasting company with a lot of heart. YUP Coffee Roasters is a family business which has been growing over the last 8 years into a thriving small scale producer.

With a focus on the process of roasting coffee, as well as only sourcing fair trade or co-op grown Organic beans, this dynamic company produces a consistently smooth and delicious cup of coffee.

The company can trace its origins back to an aspirational conversation on a bridge, back in 2012. On that walk Matt and Liza Bousquet speculated about their future endeavors. At that time Matt was working as a baker and Liza was working with a local non-profit. Together they dreamt up a business: perhaps they could sell bread wholesale, with a café for folks to enjoy the baked goods. And, if they were a Café and Bakery, then they should roast their own beans. After all, the most successful and long lived cafes in our area do just that. Who could have known how far that train of thought would take them.

Matt (Left) and Liza (Right) Bousquet and their original roaster

Matt would go on to take courses at the Coffee Lab International School of Coffee at the same time as diving deep into his own personal studies, reading and absorbing everything about the process of coffee roasting. They started gathering equipment and looking for their next steps.

As luck would have it, there was a vacancy in the mill building where Liza was working for Represent Us, in Florence. Unfortunately, setting up the roaster within the main building would have required cutting a hole in the roof and the wall, something the owners weren’t interested in. However there was an outbuilding right by the river. A building which would need a lot of work, but it was a spot where they could set up the roaster. The roof was caving in, there was no insulation, and the physical artifacts of the old silk business remained as obstacles to any other action. However, they now had a path forward.

In 2016 they registered their corporation, and over the next year Matt, with the help of Liza’s father, would take on the design and implementation of this incredible building project, transforming the space entirely. They had to build platforms over areas of concrete ribbing, which once held 50 gallon barrels of dye, turning it into usable floorspace.

From the barn board trimming and beautiful countertops around what would become the café space, they cut and milled wood from Liza’s parents’ land. There was a lot of sweat and long hours that went into making the space ready, but there were also nights with dim lights, good music, and dancing on their new platform. Their vision was finally coming together. They even practiced for their first dance together, on that same beautiful platform, before they got married in 2017. By 2018 YUP was ready for business, and they opened their doors, excited to jump into a new life together.

At first they just put out a few press pots of coffee, but soon things took off as folks from around the area would take their lunches in the welcoming new space with the sights and sounds of the Mill River and the roaster whirring in the background. They started offering bagels and soup, even pastries from Bread Euphoria, but it was just the family trying to keep up with roasting production and the café. Then 2020 came, and the café went into hiatus, while the coffee roasting business took off. YUP Coffee was fortunate to be among those businesses that experienced a boom in the wake of COVID. Since then the business has continued to grow steadily, and so did their family, with the birth of their child. The continued growth of the business was a welcome surprise as it could support both parents. Owning a small business comes with its own uncertainties, but week after week demand for their product continues.

They run the roasting machine roughly 12 hours a week, split between two days of production. They collect orders from local retailers and roast the beans to meet their needs, delivering the final product by hand. All told it’s about a four day process, from collecting orders to roasting to delivery, ensuring the beans are fresh on the shelves. Several local cafes and restaurants also brew their coffee for sale, including the café at the Old Creamery.

Back when they first opened they had a smaller roaster that required more manual adjustments, but with the growth, they invested in a larger machine with more sophisticated roast profiling abilities. Matt knows his machine and how to make it sing.

The roasting process starts with 40-45 lbs of beans, just 80% of the roaster’s capacity, which allows for more control and consistency. The benefits of the drum roaster include control of both air and drum temps—and the mass of the cast iron drum itself. Just like a good cast iron pan, energy is stored in the mass, and transferred evenly and consistently. The drum idles at approximately 400 degrees before Matt introduces the beans. The air and drum gently bring the beans up to temp, preparing for the first crack. The first crack is the stage of roasting when most of the moisture is released from within the kernel, which can cause a dramatic shift in the Rate of Rise, or how fast the coffee is changing temperature.

Matt’s goal is smooth transitions. A Rate of Rise that is too high too fast can bring burnt flavors, and a sudden shift down can leave you with bland, cardboard flavors. It’s all about control throughout the process, which can take 10-15 minutes depending on the roast level.

Matt is continually making adjustments in airflow and gas pressure to maintain a smooth, descending rate of rise throughout the roast. These adjustments affect the maillard reactions between sugar chains and amino acids, as well as caramelization, helping balance sweetness and acidity. Matt also avoids bringing beans through the second crack, when the oils inside cascade out and you begin to carbonize the coffee. Second crack does leave a beautiful shine on the exterior, but with all the oil on the surface it can spoil or sour the flavors with too much exposure to air. All this care and consideration is what makes a cup of YUP coffee so delightful, it’s the flavors of the coffee itself that are let to shine. It’s about giving the coffee the chance to do what it wants to do.

Of course another huge factor is sourcing these beans. YUP buys only organic, and knows which farms and cooperatives are growing their coffee. They have incorporated the names of the farms and grower co-ops into their coffee names. Each bag of YUP coffee also includes tasting notes, country of origin, the elevation at which the beans were grown, and even the processes for washing and drying. This additional information brings so much more to the table. Each cup has its own identity. Each roast is tailored to the needs of the bean.

And that’s the difference at YUP. They are a small but growing business, owned by a family who lives in Ashfield, who works hard, takes time to dance, and who jumps in the Mill River to cool down on those 95 degree summer days after roasting for hours. They are the family who starts roasting at 6am, on cold mornings, and who can come home together after a long day of work. They are the folks who revitalized a broken building that represents a piece of our local history, and turned it into a new and productive space. They support their suppliers by choosing organic, sourcing only fair trade or co-op grown beans, and passing so much information of the origins on to their customers

If you’d like to try their beans, or grab a hot mug, you can find them right here on the Old Creamery Co-op’s shelves and fresh hot coffees served at our coffee station in the café. Not immediately local? No worries, you can also order from their online store on the YUP website!

YUP Coffee Roasters


296 Nonotuck Street
Florence, MA 01062

(413) 570-4997

info @ yupcoffee.com