From origin to transformation: William & Sons Coffee Co. brings a flavorful experience to Concord
Published: 01-03-2025 2:17 PM
Modified: 01-03-2025 2:21 PM |
For Jonathan Hutchins, coffee is far more than a drink. It’s an ideology, an ecosystem, a source of connection between people and the natural world.
“I enjoy finding out where things came from and how they work and how they came to us,” Hutchins said. “So the whole concept of coffee origin, to me, is amazing, especially farmers.”
Two decades ago, he and his wife, Patty, moved from Concord to Brazil, where they lived for 15 years and became immersed in the coffee economy. They visited numerous coffee farms and observed the growth and harvesting processes up close. During this time, Hutchins obtained a Master of Business Administration and opened the first William & Sons Coffee Co.
After moving back to the Concord area a few years ago, the couple opened their first American coffee shop in Manchester, under the same name as their Brazilian one. Now, a year and a half after the start of the Manchester location, they have brought William & Sons Coffee Co. to Washington Street in Concord.
Hutchins values the experience economy, bringing coffee to people through a life cycle of origin, commodity, product, service, experience and transformation. He wants people to not just appreciate the physical drink in front of them but to understand where that coffee came from, how it was harvested, whose hands played a role in the process, and why it matters.
“Latte art is beautiful, but that doesn’t touch you like the farmer, or even the botany or the origin of coffee, the fact that something grew from the Earth, that someone had to manage in very difficult systems and climate of weather, life struggles, and money and all these types of things to bring out a fruit that we depend upon for our coffee every day, without which we wouldn’t get up tomorrow morning and have a coffee shop,” Hutchins said.
Coffee begins as a flowering plant whose cherry-like fruit gets harvested and de-pulped for its seeds: coffee beans. The beans are dried –either in the sun or by machine – before being packaged, shipped, and roasted, a process which augments flavor and leads the beans to expand. Only then do the beans get ground and turned into coffee through a process of filtration.
“I’ll never drink a cup of coffee the same way,” said Patty Hutchins, who works as a first-grade teacher at Abbot-Downing Elementary School and helps at the coffee shops when she’s not in the classroom. “Having seen the process from the baby plants to how they care for them, it’s amazing.”
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For Jonathan Hutchins, who is a certified Q grade roaster and roasts his own coffee in Loudon, the end goal in bringing coffee to his customers is always transformation.
“That’s when people realize, wow, this coffee was made by a farmer,” he said. “In our shop, we try to bring people as much as we can back to origin by showing the farmers’ faces on all of our bags.”
He especially enjoys seeing people who don’t like coffee discover a newfound appreciation for the drink and its flavors. He and his staff make an effort to engage in coffee conversations with their customers and make the experience of drinking coffee at William & Sons feel personal. The coffee counter features a pour-over station, designed not only to produce the drink of people’s choice but to give them an opportunity to witness coffee in the making and learn about the process from a member of the staff.
“Every time someone comes to work here, their first responsibility is to watch a movie called “A Film About Coffee” – it’s a documentary – and then there are a few courses that we work through. But the biggest thing is to have a passion for the coffee farmer, coffee itself, coffee flavor,” Jonathan Hutchins said.
Patty Hutchins explained that serving coffee, to her, means seeing the client “almost as a friend.” She relishes the community connections she and her husband have made through the coffee shops and finds the feeling of family behind the coffee counter. Her sister bakes for William & Sons, and several of her nieces and nephews work alongside her and her husband.
“You have to enjoy what you do,” she said.
When serving coffee, the staff strives to bring drinks to the customer rather than calling out names for pickup at the counter to create a more intimate experience. For Emma Denis, who first started working at the William & Sons in Manchester then moved to the Concord location once it opened, coffee provides a source of connection. She studied agriculture in college and enjoys talking to customers about coffee’s place at the beginning of the food chain.
“I love the personal experience of bringing something good to someone during their day, something they can enjoy,” Denis said. “For me, this is what I look forward to when I wake up in the morning.”
In addition to building those strong customer relationships, Jonathan Hutchins also wants the shop to be a space where the community can gather. The interior adopts a cozy, minimalistic style, with molasses brown walls, clear canisters of coffee beans on display at the counter, large armchairs with floor lamps at their sides, and ample table seating for people to work, chat, or read a book.
Hutchins had his eye on the Washington Street location for a while. It was slated to become an Indian restaurant, but the business never got off the ground. He drove by every once in a while to check on it. Then one day, he called the realtor to ask about the status of the property. It happened to be the day they’d decided to open the space to lease to a new tenant.
Now, reflecting on his coffee shop journey, Hutchins hopes the business, named for his father, William, will continue to grow to a few other locations in the area over time. He has his sights set on Penacook next, while also aspiring to host coffee tastings and talks at the Concord shop in the future.
“Take a risk,” Hutchins said. “It’s not the end of the world. People think, ‘What if I fail?’ And we’ve dealt with it. Even if we had to close tomorrow, even just after the weeks we’ve been open, it would have been worth it. We’re full. We’re fulfilled. It’s been amazing already.”
For more information about William & Sons Coffee Co., visit www.wsonscoffee.com.
Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@cmonitor.com