Exo Roast Co. began in 2009, when Doug Smith and Chris Byrne, who first met in college, reconnected years later in Portland, Oregon. Chris had started roasting on a small machine in his garage there, drawn into the city's coffee scene, while Doug was already working directly with coffee farmers in Mexico. The two spent weekends cupping their own batches against Stumptown's lab roasts before bringing the project to Tucson. That Mexico connection still drives the sourcing: alongside lots from Guatemala, Colombia, Ethiopia, Burundi, El Salvador and Sulawesi, Exo buys direct-trade coffee from small farms in Oaxaca, Chiapas, Jalisco and Colima. The roast itself stays medium-light and developed slowly, built to draw out a bean's own sugar and terroir instead of pushing it dark. Exo's beans have also stocked the shelves of Food Conspiracy Co-op, a worker-owned market a few blocks away, for more than a decade.