We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alan Escalante. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alan below.

Alan , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

Twin Lens Roasters (TLR) started with family in mind. A year ago, my idea for TLR was to be a place where I could employ my sister since it is challenging for her to work elsewhere due to her disability. Also, my parents are getting older, and my father is close to retirement, so I wanted to create something where we could all work together.

So far, a year after starting the business, my mother, father, and sister have helped in many ways. On the weekends, they all support me at my pop-ups by pulling espresso shots or helping me take orders for customers. My father is a biochemist and assists me in learning how the moisture content and water density are in my green coffee, which allows me to know how to adjust my heat levels when roasting. Since his background is in food safety, he helps me keep all of my products safe from contaminants and suitable for consumption.

Without them, this company wouldn’t be where it is. We hope to build up TLR not only to be a thriving business but a safe space for employees and a generally fantastic place to work! I’m excited to see how the company evolves by this time next year.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I uprimarily consider myself a photographer. I love to go out and take photos casually, but my passion is portraiture. Before I started in Coffee, I was employed in the film photography industry, working at a start-up making products for scanning film with a DSLR (Negative Supply). Before that, I was interested in Coffee, and I regularly thought about opening my coffee shop, but I never thought it would become a reality.

Photography allowed me to join the coffee industry in the first place. I met a young man named Casey, who owns a coffee roasting company in Palm Springs (Vagabond Roasting Co.). We quickly became friends, and he inspired me to explore roasting, all while I still worked with my previous employer in Ventura. I would often come out to visit my partner in Orange County and go out for coffee. One day we visited a shop in Placentia, California, called Golden State Coffee Roasters. I spoke with the Director of Coffee at the shop and asked if I could take his portrait. Six months later, I left the film industry, and that connection opened the doors to the coffee industry. It was there I learned the skills of a barista in specialty coffee. My relationships while working there have helped me grow as a barista and business owner.

All my experiences at Negative Supply, Golden State, and learning to roast alone led me to start Twin Lens Roasters. Offering a variety of services, from a fully functioning espresso bar for events & pop-ups to a photographic film lab where I develop fil for people with the skills I learned over the last three years of using modern scanning techniques that produce better results than some film labs that have been around for the last decade.

I wanted to differentiate myself from the majority of film labs out there. The apparent difference is that I offer coffee. Eventually,
I’d love a space where you could drop off the film and have a lovely cup of coffee. Most of the film labs I’ve seen overcharge for their services, charging an arm and a leg for higher resolution scans; For me, I wanted to offer a lab with the most modern scanning technology and give the best quality up front. I always give my customers their scans in high-resolution converted jpegs and give the RAW negative scans so they can also mess with them.

I’m proud of our work with TLR with coffee and the lab. So far, I’ve been roasting for a little over a year, and there is still a lot to learn, but I’ve produced some delicious roasts. We’ve so far developed and scanned over 40 + rolls for clients, and I’m happy to say they have loved the scans we’ve provided. I’m always excited to develop people’s films and help them bring their work to life.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

It’s funny looking back on it now, but at the time, it wasn’t. In January 2020, I was in a car accident and broke my fingers. A year after, I received a settlement on my case for the accident since it hindered my work with me leaving my job, so it was the perfect time to invest. With that small amount of money, I bought the initial equipment I needed to start the business. If it weren’t for that misfortune, the event would’ve possibly been a slower start for the company

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I sell my beans and receive film orders through an online store on Squarespace. It’s handy, but it has its issues. So far, it’s worked, but I think it could be better. I’m happy with my website so far, and I’m excited to make it better!

Contact Info:

• Website: Twinlensroasters.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/twinlensroasters

Image Credits
Aj Holmes