It’s a start-up-venture pace that would seem lethargic or almost dormant in the city, but in the country, it seems just about right.

Photographer : URSZULA MUNTEAN

Subjects : LUC ALARY AND STEPHANIE JACK

Just as it takes time to enjoy a great cup of coffee, Luc Alary and Stephanie Jack have a similar slow pace to their coffee business.

The idea came to Luc in when university. Inspired by a friend who was roasting and selling coffee in British Columbia, he wrote the business plan for Bluebarn Coffee way back in 2006. A couple of years later, after graduating, he purchased a 30-acre rural property near Wakefield — an area he canoed and cottaged in as a youth.

It took another two years before Luc built — or rather, rebuilt — on the property. Perhaps your definition of a slow build, he disassembled a 150-year-old farmhouse in Renfrew County and moved it to Wakefield.

Luc met Stephanie in 2012, and a year later the couple got around to building the blue barn, where they would roast their coffee. Once again, it was a rebuild. Took two years.

The final step was ordering a state-of-the-art Probat roaster from Germany. “These machines have been around for more than a century and last a lifetime,” says Luc. In 2016, the couple got down to the business of roasting. It’s a start-up-venture pace that would seem lethargic or almost dormant in the city, but in the country, it seems just about right.

“It’s been a process, but it’s one we’ve really enjoyed,” says Stephanie.