Josh Clement, freshman in physics, has started his own coffee shop Black Flag Coffee, in the first floor kitchen of Harper Hall of the Quad dormitories.
Clement became interested in making coffee during his junior year of high school.
"The summer just before starting here I built my own coffee roaster and kind of started getting into it," Clement said. "Espresso is a lot harder to make though so I got a job at Caribou in the library just to get a little bit of experience."
Clement got most of his other coffee making supplies on eBay.
The coffee beans that he uses are Sweet Maria's coffee.
Clement makes various types of coffee including espresso, lattes, mochas and regular coffee.
He has peppermint, caramel, vanilla and pumpkin flavored syrups that he can add for flavor.
Clement says that he can have anywhere from 10-20 customers each week.
James McKelly, associate professor of English, is one of Clement's regular customers.
"He just does a really great job," McKelly said. "I think he'd be a really great small town entrepreneur."
There was a question of whether Clement should be roasting and selling coffee in a dorm,
However, Clement is not technically selling it.
He doesn't put a price on the coffee, but instead leaves out a jar for tips from willing customers.
Clement said as long as customers tip well he makes money off of every cup of coffee.
"One thing I think he does is he locates online really good places to source the beans and that's key with coffee," McKelly said. "If you can source your beans from really high quality growers you're in business. It costs a little bit more that way, but the way josh does it I believe he's able to keep his costs down pretty far because he's just one person."
Syler Liu, junior in business, met Clement at Caribou Coffee last semester and goes to get coffee from Clement almost every week.
"I would recommend it for everyone on campus because I'm a business major and I see this as a business that he started," Liu said. "Everything he does is by himself, it's really good, and the coffee is good."
Liu's favorite coffee from Clement is the iced mocha.
Clement's customers come and go at different times throughout the day.
"Some of the people live here, other people just come and knock on the door and come in," Clement said. "I'm usually here in the afternoons and anyone can call me."
Clement said that he can't make coffee as fast as Caribou does, but that he makes it well.
Clement plans on continuing to make coffee after college, but said he doesn't plan on continuing it as a business. Instead, he plans on being a physicist.
McKelly described Black Flag Coffee as "dynamite" and said he and his wife love it.
"He can really custom roast the stuff for you," McKelly said. "If you mention you like a certain kind of bean, he's able to go and find that kind of bean and roast it to your specifications and it's not super prohibiting or expensive for him to do because he's so small scale."
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