Meet Powder Hounds Coffee, the new Park City-brand for skiers, by skiers

Powder Hounds Coffees. Photo: Courtesy of Mark Robinson

'I'm an avid skier, and we want to support local skiers with someone who makes fantastic coffee,' said Mark Robinson

PARK CITY, Utah — Mark Robinson left his career as a medical executive to pursue his true passion, roasting artisan coffee out of his home in Stagecoach Estates.

Robinson first gained his love for high-quality coffee when he traveled for work as a medical executive in an endoscopy company. His job took him to locations all over the world, including Australia, Asia and South America.

“Since COVID, and I’ve had children, I just finally wanted to follow my passion and I left medicine,” Robinson said. “My wife supported me a hundred percenet and was like, ‘hey, why don’t you buy this roaster we’ve been looking at?'”

Robinson bit the bullet and purchased the German-made Diedrich coffee roaster that he uses to make all of his blends, and that’s how Powder Hounds Coffee was born.

Powder Hounds is intended to be coffee for skiers, by skiers. The name is inspired by Robinson’s own powder hound, his 11-year-old beagle, Brady.

“I’m an avid skier, and we want to support local skiers with someone who makes fantastic coffee,” Robinson said. “I think everybody’s a powder hound in your heart. You don’t have to be a skier you can be a fly fisherman, but everybody likes a natural fuel source in the morning, and I think that there’s a ritual and a habit.”

Robinson began selling his coffee at the beginning of February, and currently offers four different blends, Warrior II, a light-to-medium roast, Backcountry Blend, a medium roast, Heli Drop, a dark roast, and BallZ Deep, an espresso. These blends have origins in Columbia, Brazil and Indonesia.

Robinson places a special emphasis on supporting local farmers in the areas that he sources his beans from, and ensuring that those beans are sold and used within 30 days for peak freshness.

“The nice thing about Powder Hounds Coffee, is it’s always gonna be fresh, it’s always gonna be smooth,” Robinson said. “And we’re going to source it from different players in the world and hopefully give them a little bit more money so they can actually send that home and have a relationship with a small account like myself.”

Robinson isn’t interested in making coffee for the casual drinker. Rather, his ideal clientele are those who want the ritual of making their morning cup of coffee to be an experience in itself.

“I only sell bean coffee because I don’t want people to just accept that there’s not a process to coffee,” Robinson said. “Coffee should be something you do in the morning, kind of like yoga, kind of like breathing and meditation. There’s a process to it, and if you’re serious about it, then you’ll grind your own beans and you’ll take the coffee experience seriously.”

Though building a startup can be challenging, Robinson’s coffee has already received some support throughout the community. Warrior II, named for the yoga pose, is inspired by Robinson’s time at the Park City Yoga Collective where he works as a yoga teacher for children. He said that the community at PCYC, where Powder Hounds has a kiosk, has slowly but surely embraced his product.

Robinson has also shared his coffee with the teachers at his sons’ elementary school, the Park City Fire District, and even other skiers on the mountain.

“I’ve done a little bit of a promotion where I just kind of fill up my backpack and ski a couple of days a week and just hand out coffee to people,” Robinson said. “It’s not really my company, I feel like it’s Park City’s company because there have been have so many people that have helped me refine my different copies along the way.”

Powder Hounds Coffee is available for local delivery within the Park City area, and can be shipped nationwide. For more information, visit powderhoundscoffee.com.