Interview with Josef Mott, Director of Coffee Quality & Operations at Ministry of Coffee
For our subscribers just getting to know you, tell us a bit more about the Ministry of Coffee and how it began.
The Ministry of Coffee has been around since 2013. We started as a multi-roaster café and eventually grew to five locations across Ottawa. Unfortunately, the pandemic really hit the city’s hospitality industry hard, and we had to close a few cafés between then and 2022. It’s definitely been a journey, but we’re starting to see signs of recovery in the local scene, and we’re doing our best to be part of that comeback. At the end of last year, we opened a new café in downtown Ottawa, and it’s been getting busier and busier. We also launched our roasting operation at the beginning of 2022, as we wanted to move beyond being just a café. Over time, we’ve refined our style and branding, and now the goal is to grow the specialty coffee market here in Ottawa, a city that can be a bit challenging for that. We want to show people just how good modern coffee can be!
What is Ministry of Coffee’s approach in promoting specialty coffee to Ottawa and the general public?
We’ve really focused on service, especially in our cafés. It’s all about meeting people where they’re at, giving them options rather than telling them what they should or shouldn’t be drinking. We always make sure to offer something more classic alongside a lighter, single-origin option in our cafes for customers. We’ve also recently added a number of coffee classes to what we offer—from classes on coffee tastings or brewing, to roasting. It’s all part of our effort to educate the market and help people get more excited about specialty coffee.
What is your personal coffee origin story?
I’m originally from England and have been working in coffee for close to 15 years now. I started out just outside of London, training with some great roasters before moving into the city where I really fell down the specialty coffee rabbit hole. After that, I spent a year in Melbourne to get a feel for its café scene, then moved to Berlin, and eventually ended up in Canada. Around that time, I was also writing for Perfect Daily Grind, and I did that for about five years. When I arrived in Ottawa, I realized the city didn’t really have the kind of specialty coffee focus I was used to, and I saw an opportunity. I connected with the founders of Ministry of Coffee, who were looking to start a roasting operation, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Since then, I’ve just been trying to bring that vision of specialty coffee into the city as much as possible.
What do you love most about your job?
I enjoy the challenge of bringing a product I’m so passionate about into a market that isn’t as developed as I’d like it to be. I also really love the sourcing side of things and seeing how quality shifts from year to year in the raw material we’re able to get our hands on, and tasting the results of new, modern processing styles. The kinds of flavours now available in coffee, and the level of consistency that producers are able to achieve at such a high standard, it’s what’s kept me interested in this industry for over a decade now.
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