Do you visit every roaster in person?

No. Verification is remote and evidence-based: we confirm a live website, read ownership and product claims on that site (or a linked source page the roaster controls), and record the date and method. We do not invent badges from marketing language alone.

What does a Veteran-Owned badge mean here?

It means the roaster’s own site (or a clearly linked page they publish) states veteran ownership, and we store a source URL. It is not a government certification check (for example SDVOSB) and not a paid endorsement.

How do price bands get assigned?

Only from an observed bag price on the roaster’s site at verification time. Budget is under $15, mid is $15–25, and premium is over $25 per 12oz-equivalent. No observed price means no band.

How we verify roasters

This directory is not a scraped dump and not a paid ranking. Every one of the 80 listings was checked against the roaster's own public website. This page is the full evidence story — the short version lives on Methodology.

What "verified" means here

At curation time we confirm the website responds, capture the URL we used, and store a verification date on the record. We read what the business publishes about location, roast styles, origins, subscriptions, and ownership. If a field cannot be evidenced, we leave it blank rather than guess. That is why some profiles show a price band and others do not: 63 of 80 currently carry an observed sample price.

Ownership badges (example: Veteran-Owned)

Badges are evidence-linked, not vibes. A Veteran-Owned badge appears only when the claim is stated on the roaster's site (or a page they clearly control), and the badge links to that source. Mission language ("we support veterans") does not count as an ownership claim. Today 7 records meet that bar — see the veteran-owned directory and the deeper definitions on what veteran-owned means here.

We do not cross-check federal contractor databases or trade registries as part of the default pipeline. If a badge ever implied certification we did not verify, that would be a methodology failure — so we label badges as on-site claims with a source link.

Prices and price bands

When a shop page shows a bag price we can observe without logging in, we record the amount, size, and date. Bands are derived only from that observation: budget (under $15), mid ($15–25), premium (over $25) per 12oz-equivalent. Rate limits (HTTP 429) and missing shop paths mean we omit the band rather than invent one. Affiliate status never decides whether someone is listed.

What we exclude on purpose

Roasters without a live, reachable website at verification time.
Large vertically integrated brands that already dominate search and subscription shelves — the directory's job is indexing independents others skip.
Templated filler: city, roast styles, and origins come from each site, not a shared blurb.

Refresh and dead links

Cadence is monthly, including a dead-link sweep. Pages show a last-verified stamp; the dataset behind this build was last verified 2026-07-20. Profiles also mesh to same-state and same-origin peers so you can move laterally through real related listings — not auto-generated spam blocks.

Questions we actually get

Do you visit every roaster in person?: No. Verification is remote and evidence-based against public pages.
What does a Veteran-Owned badge mean here?: An on-site ownership claim with a stored source URL — not a government certification audit.
How do price bands get assigned?: Only from an observed bag price at verification time. No price, no band.