Bolton couple brews a cleaner cup with Wavelength Coffee Roasters

My wife and I started it just last year. We’re obviously roasting coffee, but we’re coming at it with a focus on sustainability.

Ninety-nine percent of roasting [has been done] the same way since the 1850s: on drum roasters fueled by mostly natural gas, sometimes propane, but certainly fossil fuel. Even the machines themselves look like old steam engines — extremely traditional. It seemed like there was an opportunity now, when the industry is starting to shift. You’re starting to get some new models, and some new manufacturers, offering all-electric, commercial-scale coffee roasters.

We take a three-pronged approach to sustainability, with innovative producers who are on the cutting edge of coffee production around the world. We roast on all-electric, air-roasting commercial roasters powered with solar power, and we package using circular steel containers that are 100 percent recyclable.

How does someone start a business like this, midcareer and midlife?

That’s a good question. I’m very lucky. I was working at a design and engineering consulting firm called Product Insight. We were primarily in biotech, life sciences, med-device equipment. We also did a lot of consumer goods as well. My background is in industrial design. I went to Syracuse University for a degree in industrial design many years ago, and I always had a technical bent.

I was able to work my way up through the ranks and got to become a partner in the business. In 2024, my partner, who’s older than me, wanted to retire. Basically, there was an exit plan. I was able to sell the company with him. That gave us a little bit of a cushion.

We really wanted to make sure we were building this from the start the right way with the right focus, because it’s almost impossible to change direction if you don’t set things up from the beginning correctly.

Also, I think my previous experience in entrepreneurship and running a business, and even in the design and engineering industry, gave me a leg up in knowing how to build and design a business from a technology standpoint.

Why coffee?

At Product Insight, we had dabbled in coffee products over the years. Back in my school days at Syracuse, I worked in a coffee shop for several years and really did love the experience.

When I got out of my previous company, I loved what I’d done for 25 years, but I really wanted to do something very different. I really wanted to focus on sustainability. This was something that my partner and I had been trying to focus on over the last several years, but it’s difficult when you’re trying to work with a client.

When I left, I was like: What could we do that has a more direct impact on people’s daily lives, and that’s more hands-on?

The ritual of coffee was certainly a big part of it. Coffee is the perfect example of why sustainability is important. It’s so directly impacted by climate change; the actual plants themselves are extremely sensitive. The whole coffee industry is very aware of climate change and is actively looking for solutions. It wasn’t something that we needed to convince people was important.

For somebody who has no familiarity with the coffee industry beyond auto-ordering their venti iced coffee every morning, what’s the problem environmentally?

Most of the coffee that we drink is Arabica coffee. It’s a species of coffee. Arabica itself, as a plant, is very sensitive to the environment. It doesn’t like too much water or not enough water, or too hot, or too cold. So when things get out of whack, the plants really suffer, and they don’t create coffee cherries. This is something that the coffee industry has been aware of for a couple decades, and there’s been projections showing that maybe upward of 50 percent of land currently used for coffee production could be unsuitable for coffee in the next, say, 20 years.

It’s a huge issue doubled up by the fact that the people affected most by this, farmers, generally live in poorer countries. They don’t necessarily have the ability to just start growing something different or moving someplace else. They have to mitigate it, they have to adapt, or they have to find something else to do.

Also, the demand for coffee consistently keeps going up, yet the area available for growing is constantly going down and putting a lot of price pressures on the producers.

There are all these micro-innovations that are happening all over the world: There’s a producer in El Salvador, for instance, using what’s called mycorrhizae, introducing a symbiotic fungus to the roots of his coffee trees to help pull up more nutrients out of the soil and help the soil hold more moisture, so that he doesn’t have to use as much pesticides or irrigation.

The coffee from El Salvador that we carry is from a farmer called Carlos Pola, and his farm was something that I actually heard about just from coffee research, from the work that they were doing with mycorrhizae and agroforestry. I bought coffee from them directly. That was a very interesting experience as a young company, to become an importer with a lot of hoops. But it was very rewarding: Getting to know and talk to people who are actually part of the farm is fantastic.

What’s it like to work with a spouse?

My wife was in education, working for the Sudbury school system for the last several years. She went to school for a library science degree and raised our kids over years. When it came time for this kind of career change, she was also ready for something different.

She’s a lot more willing to take risks. She was very encouraging. Her background in education and understanding of storytelling and communication is a big part now of what we do. So much of what we’re doing is storytelling: bringing people out to the shop and showing them our roastery and doing events.

This past weekend, we actually had a cupping event where we invited people to come out and sample several coffees from all over the world. It went super well. I have to say, the area here in Shirley, Ayer, and Groton has been amazingly supportive.

Any advice for people working with a spouse? How do you keep business and personal life separate?

That can definitely be challenging, but honestly, it’s a lot of fun. You bring in whatever good dynamic you’ve got as a couple. Obviously, you have to have a good relationship at home. If it doesn’t work at home, it’s not going to work at work.

We have our own jobs: Deanna handles more of the finance side of things. I would call her more of the general business manager side, which is not something she has experience with, but it suits her skill set very well, as it turns out. I tend to focus more on the technical: roasting, importing, choosing the beans.

I’m not the best at doing cold calls or reaching out to people individually. She’s much better at being a nice conversationalist, walking into a store and saying, “Hey, this is what we’re up to.” I get super nervous in those situations. She’s just much better at doing that than I am. It’s nice to have a business partner who is more comfortable at that sort of thing. Some of these things, we knew we were good at ahead of time. Other things organically happened: “Oh, hey, I’m actually good at this, and I think I could do this.”

That’s been fun, too. We’ve been together for over 20 years, and you think you know everything about somebody. When you work with someone, it’s a little bit of a different environment.

What’s the number-one thing that perhaps you didn’t know about her before?

Oh, boy, that’s a good question. Deanna did a lot of work in education before our career change, but it was never something that I ever ever saw. Seeing her in a group environment, leading a talk or a discussion, or making people feel comfortable, is something that I think I hadn’t fully appreciated. It’s such a huge part of a small business.

What’s the signature Wavelength taste? How do we know we’re drinking your coffee?

We’re not super light or super dark, but we do carry a range of things within the medium-roasted range. Our roaster is an air roaster, from a company called Air-Motion Roasters — very descriptive — from South Africa. It’s a pretty new company, and I think we’re the first company in New England that has one of their machines. We’re one of the few, if not the only, company that’s roasting in New England right now using an all-electric air roaster.

What air-roasting brings to the table is a very clean-tasting coffee. It’s very smooth, very clean, no bitter aftertaste, no acrid flavors. We like that, because it really highlights what the bean brings to the table.

Where do you eat and drink with your family?

For almost everything, we tend to hang out in downtown Hudson, which is great. It’s seen such a huge renaissance in the last several years. Rail Trail Flatbread has been our go-to since we’ve moved here, and it’s a favorite of grown-ups and kids alike. We also share a facility with their [New City] Microcreamery across the street, out here at Phoenix Park in Shirley. They do some of their operations out here, so we’ve gotten to know some of the folks that run that side of their operation. It’s a great company, a great group of people. And we like Less Than Greater Than, which is their little speakeasy. We love hanging out in Hudson.

Any food or drink that you absolutely cannot stand?

It’s funny. My wife and I aren’t strict vegetarians at all. We’ll eat chicken and fish and stuff like that, but we definitely have avoided red meat. My wife is always trying to introduce things, and I’m kind of a stickler: Man, I really hate eggplant and zucchini and summer squashes — but during the summer, when all of those things are in season, that’s what’s available. She’s always trying to sneak in some kind of summer squash or zucchini thing, and I can’t do it.

What’s your favorite treat?

Deanna would probably know better than I do. We always have cans of mixed nuts lying around, and just little pretzel things and stuff. I’m a huge sucker for chocolate and desserts. I definitely have a sweet tooth, which is something I’ve had to be careful of as we all get older.

My daughter is a fantastic baker. She’s home on break this week from UNH, and the first thing she did when she got home was bake this amazing chocolate orange cake with pistachio cream icing, just on a whim. And it’s the best thing I’ve ever had.

Iced coffee or hot coffee? Some people drink iced coffee all winter, like me, but people have definite opinions.

I will drink iced coffee at all times. I also drink black coffee as well; but usually in the summer, I’ll be drinking iced coffee, all the time.

What’s your coffee order? Sugar, cream, milk?

Always black, unless it’s my favorite espresso drink, a flat white.

Interview was edited and condensed.

Kara Baskin can be reached at kara.baskin@globe.com. Follow her @kcbaskin.