Jason Scott is a former teacher who likes to tinker with things as a self-taught engineer. So, it makes sense that he’ll be opening a coffee shop in downtown Olathe, right?
Actually, it does. It makes complete sense. Sort of.
“It’s just like a lot of businesses,” Scott said with a smile. “It’s just a hobby that got out of control.”
His hobby turned into Hermetheus Coffee, and they’ll be opening their storefront early 2025 at 101 S. Kansas Ave.
The story behind the creation of Hermetheus Coffee is just as cool as the state-of-the-art, one-of-a-kind coffee shop will be here in the heart of downtown Olathe.
“I was a home roaster, loved roasting coffee, and I also dabble a bit in engineering, so I got into the science of roasting coffee,” he added. “I had the coffee roaster that a lot of roasters use, but coffee roasters are manual, so you have to manually control the heat throughout the whole roasting process, which is very hard to do.
“I developed this little robotic device, like is literally a robotic knob that controls the heat. Instead of manually controlling the heat, the device does it for you.”
Simply, the Hermetheus Roaster Co-Pilot Automation Kit takes the dirty work out of roasting coffee.
“I developed it purely just as a side project. There’s an algorithm that runs on the software,” he said. “I map out what I want the coffee roast to be, and then, hit ‘go’ and then the robotics look at what the temperature is, and adjust the heat, accordingly, two times a second. It’s an incredible system.
“That doesn’t matter if you’re roasting one pound or 12 pounds of beans. It accounts for all of those variables.”
A friend told him he should package the product and sell it to other coffee roasters, even though Scott thought it may be too cost prohibitive.
“I just put it on Facebook,” he said. “Other roasters found out about it, and people started buying them and when I say, ‘people started buying,’ I’m talking around the globe.
His Co-Pilot is on roasters in New Zealand, Romania, Wales, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, dozens of roasters in Canada and nearly all 50 states.
“The largest manufacturer of fluid bed roasters, in Idaho, saw my device,” Scott said. “I gave the owner of that company a demo, and as soon as he saw it, he said, ‘This has to go on every roaster I sell.’
“Now my device goes out the door with every Coffee Crafter roaster.”
Scott then started selling his coffee at the Olathe Farmer’s Market and developed quite a following.
Enter the first brick and mortar Hermetheus Coffee, because in addition to his passion for roasting coffee, Scott realized something when he was selling his Co-Pilot and selling coffee at the Olathe Farmer’s Market – he’s a people person.
“The interaction with the people is actually what drives me,” he said. “I enjoy the engineering side and I enjoy the roasting side, but what really gives me life is interacting with the people that are enjoying the coffee.
“Roasting the beans is just roasting the beans. If you just roast and it goes on a grocery store shelf, you never have any interaction with people. When you have a farmer’s market set up, or a coffee shop, you’re seeing the people, and you’re getting to talk about it.”
That’s where the teacher in him shines through.
“I still miss teaching, and so this also gives me some semblance of that, just being able to talk to people about the process and what makes it different,” he said. “I love talking to them about why this cup of coffee is different than that cup of coffee.”
That’s what led him to open a coffee shop in the suddenly burgeoning downtown Olathe. Scott wanted to capitalize on the momentum he’s seeing in downtown.
“Some people are already seeing it, but there’s a lot more momentum that people aren’t even seeing yet,” he said. “There is a wave coming, and we just want to be here.”
Olathe is home to the Scotts.
“We’ve always been Olathe-based. We live in Olathe. We taught in Olathe. Our daughter graduated from Olathe schools,” he added. “Being in downtown Olathe felt the most authentic, like we’re not just buying into a retail space. This felt more emotional than that. It’s so cool seeing all the businesses that are coming in and we wanted to be part of that. We wanted to put our best foot forward, and try to make this something really, really cool.”
It certainly will be cool. Not just as a cool new coffee hangout in Olathe, but the experience in Hermetheus Coffee will be like no other in the area, the region, even across the country.
It starts when you walk in the door and see the one-of-a-kind, self-service coffee roaster. It’s a German-built machine with hand polished chrome, glass and is LED backlit with a touchscreen, according to Scott. It’s one of only three of these machines that made their way over to the U.S. about seven years ago. Shortly thereafter, the company went out of business.
The unique roaster will allow people to do is choose any of their green, unroasted coffee beans.
“They choose whatever they want,” Scott said. “They could do half Colombian and half Ethiopian, or whatever and pour it in the top of this machine. Then, on the touch screen, they select the roast level that they want, and then they close the door, the magic happens. It’s roasted right there before their eyes. You see beans dropping from one chamber to another.”
Scott got the machine from Virginia, brought it back to Olathe and let his engineering mind take over. That roaster isn’t the only unique item that will make Hermetheus a one-of-a-kind destination. A bit farther back is another marvel of modern (or not so modern) technology, an Alpha Dominche Steampunk. Not only will customers be able to roast their own coffee beans, they can brew themselves a cup in this steampunk machine.
“The Steampunk is beautiful to look at,” Scott said. “They have these glass chambers, a couple of feet tall, with like tap handles on the front of them. It’s two, stacked, glass chambers, and there are four within this whole machine.
“The uniqueness of the Steampunk was that it uses computers and touch screens. It uses steam to heat up the water to the perfect temperature, and then uses vacuums. You’ll see the bubbling of the coffee and vacuums lifting it up into another chamber. “
The brewing process is explained here.
Like the roaster in the front of the house, this machine is one of just a few that are left, according to Scott. The company also closed several years ago.
While the roaster makes Hermetheus coffee a unique stop, the combination of the roaster up front and the Steampunk in the back make Hermetheus truly one-of-a-kind.
“There’s one other place with the Steampunk, one other place with the roaster, in Central America, but nowhere together,” Scott said. “So, it’ll be a destination coffee shop for that reason alone.”
