Stephen Ezell, Sequential Coffee
Sometimes learning what we are not good at leads to discovering what we really want to do with our lives. Just ask Stephen Ezell, who accidentally landed in the coffee roasting business after a short stint working with QuickBooks at Boot Coffee, a California-based coffee roasting school for professionals and hobbyists. While accounting was not necessarily his forte, his boss Willem Boot, the founder of the school, recognized Ezell’s aptitude for working with the students and offered him an opportunity to become a coffee consultant. That sounded great to Ezell and launched his career as a coffee roaster.
After training at Boot Coffee as well as in Panama, Hawaii and other locations, Ezell received his certification from the Specialty Coffee Association. “I went from not knowing how to roast coffee at all to teaching 40-year veterans how to improve their techniques,” he says. Ezell expanded his knowledge by building and maintaining handmade, cast-iron coffee roasting machines at The San Franciscan Roaster Co., then training clients how to use the machines.
When his mother needed assistance due to health issues, Ezell moved back home to Jacksonville while simultaneously continuing his career in the coffee industry. He spent time consulting with businesses around the country to help set up cafés and grow their business. At some point he realized he could do that locally with his friends, so Ezell and partner Jonathan Shepard launched Sequential Coffee in 2019. The small batch roaster sells coffee online and at local retail outlets, including their kiosk in Riverside.
Coffee beans are only part of Sequential’s enterprise. “My most favorite thing to do is teach, then roast,” says Ezell. “Along with selling wholesale and retail coffee, we’re also going to offer educational programming. We’re setting up a coffee school with all the know-how I have gained to help people understand coffee a bit more, see it from different angles, from farm to cup.”
Ezell is enthusiastic about the coffee community in Northeast Florida. “Jax has wonderful people and I’m excited to be part of this scene, supporting each other,” he says. One of the first people Ezell met when he returned to his hometown happened to be another roaster. “I was drinking a great cup of coffee at Southern Roots and asked who roasted it. The person behind the counter told me I was sitting next to the roaster – JP Salvat, owner of Paco’s Coffee. That was a lucky meeting. Sequential wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for JP and the help he gave me,” Ezell says.
Located in the Springfield neighborhood of Jacksonville, the coffee school is in conjunction with The San Franciscan Roaster Co. and will have international attendees. “We’ll be able to bring in a lot of coffee experts from all over the world that I can share with the local coffee professionals, with lectures, workshops, Q&A, etc.,” says Ezell. “It’s going to be fun to see that in action.”
Coffee, Ezell believes, can make big differences in people’s lives, from growers to consumers. He is eager to be a part of the community and to help others understand the whole chain of the process, from growing conditions to roasting and brewing, so they can make better choices and help support a more sustainable coffee industry. And of course, to make a really good cup of coffee.
Find Sequential Coffee at the kiosk at Park & James in Riverside, Juniper Market in St. Augustine and online at sequential.coffee.
