Monadnock Ledger-Transcript – BUSINESS: Parker Russell overcomes obstacles to build Black Ink Coffee

Six years ago, Parker Russell was deployed with the Air Force in Niger, and contemplating his future.

“I had a job back home I wasn’t entirely passionate about,” Russell said.

He had experience in law enforcement and IT, and in the Air Force, he was doing cyber security, but he said that wasn’t really what he wanted to be doing. 

“One of the things I’m passionate about is people following their dreams in life. It’s one of the first things I usually ask people. I wasn’t living the life I tried to pitch to people. I knew I wanted to do something for myself and others that I was passionate about,” Russell said. “Growing up, every memory I have there’s someone in the background holding a cup of coffee. When I was deployed, we had people send over coffee, and you sip that cup of coffee and it felt like home.”

Russell began spending his nights in Niger in his tent, researching how to start a coffee business. When he was preparing to exit the military, he started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to start the business. He raised $16,000, which paid for about half the cost of his roaster, and got started, launching Black Ink Coffee, selling blends of coffee beans from Ethiopia, Guatamala, Sumatra, Brazil and Columbia. 

Unfortunately, he said, just as the business was getting off the ground, COVID hit, and many of the cafes he was selling his coffee to closed, and he was laid off from his full-time position. 

It wasn’t a smooth start, Russell said, but he has a view on business.

“I don’t believe in failing in business. I think people just give up. I stop trying, or I’m going to keep trying; there’s no failing,” Russell said.

Indeed, the business did rebound, but two years ago, Russell found himself in another struggle. He and his wife decided to move from their home in Maine to Massachusetts. That’s when Russell found the current location for his coffee business at a business park on Sawmill Road in Jaffrey. He signed a lease in January of 2024, but that was just the start – the main obstacle for him would be installing the needed ductwork to be able to fully operate his roaster, which was a costly endeavor that ultimately took months.

During that time, Russell said, his Massachusetts house was ready to move into, and his Maine house sold, leaving him making a 300-mile trek to his old roasting location once a week to roast about 1,000 pounds of coffee at a time, loading it into buckets into an old car he’d bought to get by and sleeping in a Walmart parking lot overnight in order to spend the entire day roasting.

It was a weekly routine for about 100 days, he said. 

“It’s the times of struggle that shape those people and what they’re most proud of,” Russell said. “I’d be in those parking lots, saying, ‘This is going to be an awesome story some day.’”

Parker said his business has once again rebounded, and with his new roasting location in Jaffrey, he’s back to his pre-move levels. Black Ink Coffee sells coffee beans, mostly wholesale to cafes and restaurants around the country. He said he’d like to seek his brand grow, including running his own drive-through cafes featuring his coffee, and – as is important to him – supporting other people’s dreams through fundraising events and featuring other people’s stories on the Black Ink Coffee social media sites.

To purchase individual bags of Black Ink Coffee, or to make a wholesale order, visit blackinkcoffee.com.