About Us

Denim Coffee is a Pennsylvania specialty coffee roaster with shops in Central Pennsylvania.

We are passionate about quality coffee, so working with coffee is a pleasure. It is our mission to roast and brew with excellence to showcase the coffee's origin and efforts of the farmers as we supply individuals and businesses with delicious coffee.

-Matt Ramsay, Head Roaster & Founder

 Denim's backbone and northern star has always been Matt Ramsay's passion and zeal for roasting and serving great coffee; a passion whose roots date back to Matt's days studying at Shippensburg University, when he first began experimenting with roasting via a humble counter-top roaster he had setup in his dorm.

After graduation, Matt and his wife Kristin went to work at a coffee shop in the small town of Huntington, PA. There he and his wife had the opportunity to develop their coffee expertise and steep themselves in the culture of a coffee shop hinged around serving beautifully crafted coffees and cultivating a welcoming space for relationships to flourish outside of work and family. After several years it became overwhelmingly clear that the natural progression for Matt's curiosity and drive to bring incredible coffees to others meant launching his own coffee roasting business and that the place to do it was Central Pennsylvania.

In December of 2011, Matt & Kristin founded Denim Coffee Company and began roasting coffee beans in a small space at The Thought Lot Contemporary Arts Center in Shippensburg, PA. This location served as the headquarters, roaster and bakery until a permanent headquarters was secured in nearby Chambersburg, Pa which now houses all three operations and allows ample room to grow for many years to come. 

At first glance Central Pennsylvania may seem an unlikely home to a startup coffee roaster, yet the character of this region has shaped and supported the growth of Denim Coffee Company in curiously becoming ways. Central Pennsylvania, almost unintentionally, serves as a bridge between people's, cultures, and ideologies; a role that one can sense as they wander through the modern Mayberry of a towns and cities. From bantering locals, to corporate big-shots; tractors and horse-n-buggies, to soccer mom minivans; all embraced by an air of small town warmth and the certain electricity of ambition and anxiety emitted 8 months out of the year from various local universities. Coffee as a drink, an art form, and a subculture serves similarly as a bridge where cultures, ideas, worldviews, and both public and intimate moments can be shared in a supportive and welcoming environment. Almost as a surprise unto itself, Central Pennsylvania has provided just the sort of fertile social soil to allow Denim Coffee Company to grow.

The company's roots extend much farther than its physical location and history, as the company takes an intentionally holistic approach in the way they go about the coffee business. Denim's view of the coffee it sources, roasts, and distributes to consumers is firmly grounded in a deep respect for the farmers who grow the coffee. It's the farmers who expectantly cultivate, meticulously care for, and exhaustingly harvest the coffees that are responsible for its quality. Denim's role is to then honor their efforts by showcasing the beauty and character of each bean through the roast. This is done not by roasting dark roasts like those of major coffee chains that destroy much of the coffee's natural sweetness and character for the sake of mass production , but rather by roasting each individual coffee uniquely. In this way both producer and consumer are best served and honored through Denim's work.

At Denim, we aspire to create something beautiful with the coffees we roast and through the greater role we play in our customers' lives and in our community. While this brief bio offers you a glimpse of our humble beginnings, our story is far from over. We invite you to join us as the next chapter of our story unfolds. As each bag you buy helps to craft the next lines of our narrative, we hope in the same way each experience you have with Denim Coffee serves as a line verse and caesura in your life.