Laura Sommers

Expertise: entrepreneurship, coffee brewing, coffee equipment sales

Coffee insight: When you purchase coffee pods, the coffee inside is pre-staled—otherwise the off-gassing from the grinds would cause the pods to explode.

Coffee fun fact: Laura is excited to have the chance to run a business with technology already baked into the operating system; when she first launched Espresso Supply, Inc’s website, all online orders had to be reentered by hand into the business software in order to be filled.

Laura is a 30-year veteran of the coffee industry whose career has one clear unifying thread: finding ways to support other coffee entrepreneurs. In 1993 she founded Espresso Supply, Inc, which provided cafés with the equipment they needed to thrive. At the time, coffee-shop culture in the States was just starting to gain traction, but Laura explains, “[equipment] was hard to get.”

Laura saw a unique opportunity to start a business that could support that burgeoning industry while also taking care of her young family. “The primary driver for starting Espresso Supply was I had a young child and was having a family,” Laura says. “So I needed employment that allowed me to have more flexibility… And I found a way to help people by giving them the tools that they need while providing me the lifestyle that I needed.”

Laura says there were a lot of naysayers when she was first starting her business—many people truly believed that cafés would never take off in the States and that her supply company was simply too niche to be successful. Of course, neither assumption proved true. Laura stayed the course and ran that business successfully until 2021!

Laura’s latest venture is her contribution to helping the specialty coffee market grow—by making it easier to brew the perfect cup of coffee at home. As CEO and founder of SimplyGoodCoffee, Laura’s on a mission to bring barista-worthy results to home brewers. Their one-of-a-kind brewer cuts through the complexity, allowing the true character of the roast to shine through.

This isn’t your average coffee maker. The SimplyGoodCoffee brewer adheres to the rigorous standards set by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA)—think precise temperature, optimal wattage, and even a dedicated bloom phase for perfect coffee extraction. Laura hopes that more brewing-equipment companies will start to embrace those same standards, for the good of the whole coffee industry: “I want to make that the rule, not the exception.”

Laura said that designing SimplyGoodCoffee’s brewer was her way of supporting specialty coffee roasters. While they were roasting up perfect whole beans, their coffees didn’t always have a chance to shine because many American coffee drinkers were using subpar brewing equipment at home, without every realizing it.

Laura says that presents a huge challenge for specialty coffee roasters because when someone brews a subpar cup at home, they tend to assume the problem is the coffee. According to Laura, “It’s very challenging if people buy [specialty coffee] and they brew it on an underpowered brewer, and it’s sour because it was under-extracted or bitter because it was over-extracted. They don’t become repeat customers. We’ve got to [help] them get good results in their cup.” By designing a coffee brewing system that took out the guess work, Laura hoped home brewers would be able to recognize how special the coffee truly was—and why it was worth the price.

Laura hopes all coffee lovers will hear this message: “Bad flavors are not the fault of the coffee for the most part.”

Most home brewers simply aren’t powerful enough to brew the best cup of coffee. Laura explains, “There’s 69% of people probably brewing on a 900- to 1100-watt heater. You should have 1400 watts or higher,” which follows SCA guidelines. Laura says it’s one of the easiest things consumers can verify since wattage information is included on every brewing machine. If yours is below 1400 watts, Laura says, it won’t matter how spectacular your beans are; you won’t be able to brew a really great cup of coffee.

Laura hopes that SimplyGoodCoffee’s brewer will be a way to bridge the knowledge gap between coffee professionals and coffee consumers about how to brew coffee—and help bring more coffee drinkers to the specialty coffee market. Laura explains, “There’s been a lack of education for the consumer about what actually creates a great cup of coffee and what’s necessary. … I have a lot of friends in the coffee business, and I want to and every one of them to be wildly successful.”

She hopes that her brewer will help each side better appreciate the other. She says, “…there are a lot of people who would truly appreciate having [specialty coffee brewed] in their homes, and they’re just unaware of how to get it or how easy it is.”

SimplyGoodCoffee: https://simplygoodcoffee.com

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