They really do wake up and smell the coffee

Above from left: James, Kevin, and Zachary Dean Conzo with co-owner Bill Wright. Below: James and Kevin at the roaster. (photos by Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)

WALTHAM - Waltham resident Kevin Conzo used to stop for takeout coffee all the time. He took his last sip the day he realized the weak brew didn't satisfy him much more than a glass of water did. He purchased a bag of beans from the supermarket and started brewing his own coffee at home. Then he happened to see a television show about people who roast coffee beans themselves.

"I can do that," he remembers telling his wife, Kristin.

That led to Zachary Dean's Coffee Bean Co., a bean-roasting business that is less than two years old. It began when Conzo rigged a popcorn tin with a metal rod and poured unroasted beans inside. He held the tin over a 500-degree grill in his backyard and spun it so the beans would roast evenly. "The first batch caught fire, and I had to throw it on the ground," he says. He and his wife laugh about it now.

In the fall of 2007, when their son, Zachary Dean, was born, Conzo passed out bags of his home-roasted coffee beans instead of cigars. Friends asked for more and the family business was born, too. Kristin became the co-owner, and Conzo's father, James, started helping with roasting and packaging. After burning out two small roasters, Kevin Conzo invested in a commercial machine and moved operations to Littleton. Every week Zachary Dean's sells about 150 bags of beans (12 ounces each, $9.99 a bag) at Donelan's supermarkets, through free deliveries within Route 128, and on the Internet. Conzo is focusing on small-batch roasting and local distribution. His organic beans, sold through fair trade practices, come from Bolivia through Invalsa Coffee, importers in West Newbury.

Kevin, Kristin, and Zachary, now 16 months old, became fixtures at the Waltham Farmer's Market last summer, where they handed out free coffee samples and sold about 30 bags of beans a week. "Most coffee that you buy sits on the shelves for too long," says Conzo. Because of his fanaticism about freshness, the entrepreneur makes home deliveries in the Boston area. "If people can deliver $10 pizzas, why can't I deliver a $10 bag of coffee? The whole thing with coffee is that it has to be freshly roasted. Home delivery is the best way to ensure that."

Customers are starting to take notice. Susan Katcher and Brad White ordered a bag of French roast beans for an informal blind coffee tasting in their Newton home earlier this year; 10 tasters chose Zachary Dean's the winner among six brands. Tasters commented on the "wonderful aroma," the "brightness," and the "smooth, caramel taste, with slight chocolate flavors." Zachary Dean's also comes in medium roast, espresso, and limited quantities of decaf.

Conzo's months of experimenting with small coffee roasting machines have given him confidence in his commercial roaster, which can roast 22 pounds of beans at a time. It looks a bit like a Rube Goldberg contraption with a shiny metal funnel on top, a roasting drum that turns like a cement mixer, and a tub where the hot beans are cooled.

The light brown, raw coffee beans look something like peanuts, though they smell more like grass as they roast. As the machine whirs, Conzo can peek into a window that's about the diameter of an espresso cup, or pull out a sample of beans as they roast to tell if they're done. Mostly he goes by aroma and the sound of the beans cracking.

Small-batch roasting is different from a large-scale business. "I'm more like a microbrewery," says Conzo. "I can tell if I have over-roasted a batch, and I will throw [it] out and start again."

While the coffee business grows, the Conzos have kept their day jobs - Kevin is a police officer in Waltham and teaches anti-gang programs in the schools; Kristin is a speech pathologist. Bill Wright recently joined them as a co-owner, so now the fledgling company has four (five if you count Zachary Dean).

They all see potential in the market. "On the West Coast, coffee roasters are everywhere. It's kind of new in Boston. We want people to develop their palates, and raise the bar on coffee here," says Conzo.

Zachary Dean's Coffee, 781-583-1474 or go to www.zacharydeanscoffee.com.