San Diego Roaster Highlight: Spesh Coffee with Founder Matt Prior

Matt Prior is the founder of Spesh Coffee, an online-only roaster working out of Vista. He started roasting at home around 2013, learning everything he could from the internet, then walked into the back room at Lofty Coffee right as they were launching their roasting program. Four years as Director of Coffee later, he went out on his own. Spesh began in 2020 as an experiment: what if you sold coffee direct to consumers at the same wholesale prices you sold to businesses? Six years later it is still rolling, built on low margins, an obsession with efficiency, and green buying that chases value rather than the highest cup score. Spesh is part of Ghost Roast, Matt's private label roasting operation. Find them at speshcoffee.com or on Instagram @spesh.coffee.Hello! I'm Matt and I started Spesh in 2020 as somewhat of an experiment. "What if we sold coffee for the same wholesale prices we sell to businesses, direct to consumers?" 6 years later, it's still rolling. I'm terrible at marketing and sales (as evidenced by our lack of posting on our social channels), but stoked to roast and send out coffee everyday. I sometimes trip out that there are hundreds to thousands of people drinking coffee I roasted on a daily basis. It's nice to put out a product that has a small positive part of peoples day. Spesh is part of Ghost Roast, a private label coffee roasting operation. A big update and new project for Ghost Roast is coming soon. Hopefully, I will be welcome to come share about that when the time comes. Happy to answer any questions or comments. I try to be as transparent as possible about business.

You spent years roasting at Lofty Coffee before launching Spesh. Looking back, what are the biggest lessons you brought with you from Lofty? Also, what prompted you to want to start an online-only roasting operation?

I was pretty lucky to get a job at Lofty Coffee. I’d been roasting at home for about a year and learning everything I could from the internet around 2013 and 2014. Then I happened to walk into the back room at Lofty right as they were launching their roasting program. I grew with the program while learning on the job. I got exposure to everything from sourcing and profile development to traveling to origin. After four years as Director of Coffee, I decided to go out on my own. Spesh Coffee is actually part of my larger business, Ghost Roast, where we do private label roasting for people who want to launch their own coffee projects. Spesh grew out of that experience and gave me a way to build something directly for coffee drinkers.

You also run Ghost Roast, a private label coffee roasting company. As this experience gives you a unique perspective on the industry, what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about what goes into building a successful coffee brand? Have you noticed common mistakes that new roasters tend to make?

One of the biggest mistakes people make when launching a coffee brand is not having a clear, unique selling point. There are thousands of specialty coffee brands across the country and around the world, and a lot of them end up offering very similar things. It’s hard to grow in such a crowded market if there’s nothing that clearly sets you apart. I always tell people they should be able to answer one question: why would someone buy from me instead of Company X? If you can’t answer that, you probably need to rethink the business model. If it’s meant to be a hobby or a fun side project, that’s totally fine. But if you actually want to build a business, you need something that makes you stand out. With Spesh, that differentiator is low prices.

One of the biggest questions surrounding Spesh is how you're able to consistently offer coffees at prices that are well below much of the specialty market. Without revealing anything proprietary, what are the biggest factors that make that possible? Is it sourcing relationships, buying strategy, operational efficiency, lower margins, or something else?

The honest answer is that we just don’t make very much money per order. Our margins are quite low. Spesh originally started as "Specialty Coffee Wholesale". When COVID shut everything down in early 2020, a lot of our wholesale customers closed, and many of the businesses we were planning to work with never opened. We were still roasting coffee, so I started wondering if we could sell coffee directly to consumers at the same wholesale prices we were offering businesses. It started as an experiment, and over the years it evolved into what Spesh is now. I eventually changed the name because people assumed Specialty Coffee Wholesale was only for businesses. I’m also pretty obsessed with efficiency and finding high-value coffees. That doesn’t always mean buying the highest-scoring coffees available. It’s more about finding coffees that are better than most of what’s on the market without paying for the absolute top tier. We try to find that sweet spot where the quality is excellent, but the value is still there.

If someone handed you the exact same green coffee as three other respected roasters, what do you think would make your roast profile different? In other words, how would you describe your roasting philosophy without using words like "light," "medium," or "dark"?

I’ve always viewed the roaster’s job as finding the right balance for a particular coffee. You can control a few main things through the roast: body, sweetness, and acidity. How long you spend in different parts of the roast, how high you take the temperature, and the total roast time all affect those qualities. I don’t necessarily focus on forcing specific tasting notes. Instead, I try to bring out what makes sense for that origin and processing style. For example, with a natural Ethiopian where we really want to highlight the fruit, I’ll roast it quite a bit faster and lower temp. A washed Guatemalan might have a great balance of sweetness, acidity, and body, so I’ll take the roast a little longer and give it more development to get the best profile for that coffee.

When you're dialing in a brand-new coffee, what's usually the first sign that tells you the roast profile isn't where you want it yet? Is it something you notice on the roasting machine, at the cupping table, or later when brewing espresso and filter?

I usually compare the production roast to the original sample roast. I’ll sample roast a bunch of coffees, find something distinctive that I really like, and then source that coffee. When I move it to the production machine, my goal is to preserve that quality. It might be the brightness, fruit, sweetness, texture, or body. If the production roast doesn’t have that same defining quality, I know pretty quickly that the profile needs more work. From there, we adjust until we find what makes that coffee special.

San Diego tap water is pretty hard. How much does that factor into your roasting decisions, considering most locals probably brew at home? And do you think having “ideal” coffee water is essential to getting the best out of a given bean?

San Diego water is pretty rough for brewing coffee. At home, I usually just use regular bottled water. Crystal Geyser has a mineral profile that works really well for extracting coffee. I’ve never personally gotten into the whole distilled-water-and-added-minerals approach. I know there are a lot of great recipes and systems that people swear by, but that’s more effort than I want to put into my own coffee routine. I think you can get most of the way there with pretty simple solutions. Everyone has a different tolerance for how much effort they want to put into making great coffee. If you want to go the extra step and build ideal water, you absolutely should, but it’s not necessary for everyone.

Over the past decade, specialty coffee has gone through countless trends, from ultra-light roasting and heavily processed coffees to chasing ever-higher cup scores. Which trend do you think has been the most overrated, and which one deserves more credit than it gets?

I’m not sure I’d call any one trend completely overrated, because coffee is such a subjective experience. There are objective standards, like scoring green coffee, but personal taste is still personal taste. I think people should find the coffee they enjoy, use the brewing method they like, and put whatever they want in it. If you want to add milk, sugar, or even Tabasco sauce, go for it. Trends will come and go, but the important thing is enjoying your coffee instead of worrying too much about what’s currently considered “correct.”

You now see specialty coffee from three different angles: roasting for Lofty, building your own consumer-facing brand with Spesh, and helping other companies through Ghost Roast. What's a truth about the coffee industry that became obvious only after seeing all three sides?

The coffee industry is wonderfully competitive and collaborative at the same time. Everyone is working hard to put out a product that’s part of people’s daily lives, and after 12 years, I still genuinely enjoy working on it. Coffee is a really positive product to be involved with. People can point out things in the industry that could be handled better, but at the same time, most people are working incredibly hard to make something great in an industry that generally isn’t making anyone particularly wealthy.

What's one thing consumers consistently overpay for?

I think people can be a little heavy-handed with how much they spend on equipment. Even baseline Breville espresso machines and Baratza grinders can produce top-quality coffee. You really don’t need the most expensive setup to get excellent results at home.

What's one thing consumers should actually spend more money on?

From my very biased perspective, coffee beans.

What's one coffee opinion you've completely changed your mind on over the last five years?

In 2026, I made it a goal to question some of my biases about sourcing and roasting. I had mostly dismissed ultra-light roasts and co-fermented coffees, but this year I decided to experiment more with different processing methods and sourcing strategies. The results have been really positive. They still aren’t my personal go-to coffees every morning, but I’ve realized there’s a large audience that genuinely enjoys them. I’m happy to be able to offer coffees that appeal to people even when they aren’t necessarily my own first choice.

What's one coffee you wish more people would buy?

High-grown washed coffee from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, is probably my favorite coffee, and I wish more people bought it. If I could only drink one region and processing method to drink for the rest of my life, this would be it. It has this great balance of acidity, body, and sweetness, with really nice stone-fruit flavors. It can get overlooked next to more unusual coffees, like Panama Geishas, natural Ethiopians, or heavily processed Colombians. But Guatemalan coffees are incredibly reliable. They taste good across a wide range of brewing methods, and they tend to have a much longer shelf life after harvest. Our Guatemalan coffees can often last through the entire year without fading much.

Rapid Fire

If you could only roast one origin for the rest of your career, what would it be?

Same answer as above. I love Guatemalan coffee.

Natural or washed? Flat or conical? Light or medium?

Washed, conical, light.

What's the most underrated coffee-producing country right now?

Probably Peru. There have been so many great coffees coming out of Peru over the last few years.

Thanks to Matt for joining us on the subreddit. Browse the current Spesh lineup at speshcoffee.com, and keep an eye on ghostroast.com for the new Ghost Roast project he hinted at.