Growing up, Todd Christy watched his father go through his early morning coffee ritual on a daily basis. “He would grab a mug of day-old coffee, nuke it, and slug it down. Then he’d be out the door,” Mr. Christy said. “And that was my early experience with coffee. Just something to get or keep you going.”

Now grown up and a father himself, Todd Christy, 46, the creator of the new Chilmark Coffee Company, savors his morning cup. As with all healthy relationships, he doesn’t need the coffee, he simply wants it. “No,” Mr. Christy smiled, “I don’t need it in the morning, I just really like the taste of it.

“It’s part of the routine, and I’m a creature of habit,” the planning board and housing administrator for the town of Chilmark said as he shuffled about the kitchen of his home near Five Corners. In honor of his interview with the Gazette, Mr. Christy had prepared a sampling of his four latest roasts, made with beans from farms in Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras and Columbia, respectively.

“In the wintertime I’ll get up, come out here,” he gestured toward the kitchen which opened up onto a living room with windows for walls, “and make a cup of coffee. Then I’ll start a fire in the morning, when there’s no one up. I like that aspect of that. I enjoy the time even thinking about drinking a cup of coffee.”

For the past month and a half, Mr. Christy’s morning routine has remained pretty much the same, except for a few tweaks. There’s no longer need for a fire, and now the father of three is roasting batches of organic, sustainably grown, Fair Trade-certified beans to sell at the stand at Chilmark’s Beetlebung Farm.

Why all the effort? “I just want really good coffee. On the Vineyard.

“Look, lots of people drink wine from a box and that’s cool, too. But I know there are also the people who want something more. They want to really know what they’re experiencing, and think about, understand, the coffee they’re drinking.”

Mr. Christy says the plan came together out of respect and admiration for his neighboring farmers. “I’m inspired by how young farmers are doing things on the Vineyard. Chris Fischer’s family’s been doing that farming at Beetlebung since ’74, which is a long time. Chris is unique; he wants to see people do something good and interesting and also afford to stay here. This all came about because I was talking to him about coffee, and he said to me ‘Just start your own company. Roast it and sell it.’

“So I did. But you can’t just have any beans, and you can’t just buy cheap beans. So we made a lot of phone calls and talked to a lot of wholesalers, and some of them were really helpful, while some of them were just selling coffee. But the ones that are really helpful and knowledgeable and work with really small sustainable farms are great. And it’s usually just a guy or a woman on a farm. And they buy direct and they wholesale it out and I really like that. I like that idea. It goes right in line with what I see people here trying to do. I think that people are trying to do that with coffee around the world too. So for me, it had to be organic, it had to be sustainably grown, and I like the idea of fair trade.”

Mr. Christy’s twin six-year-old-daughters came suddenly tearing through the kitchen, cackling and stomping. With his cat, Zeth, slinking around his feet, he noted that his wife and nine-year-old son would be home soon as well. In addition to an upstart coffee company, “This is a two bedroom, one bath house for the five of us,” Mr. Christy laughed. “I love it, but we’re going to have to think about that addition soon.”

Right now he uses his shed, with three small “sample” roasters that allow him to roast about nine pounds an hour. He’s talking to two large roaster manufacturers to see about delivery on a roaster that would allow him to roast 15 to 25-pound batches. “I want to keep the batches small so I have really good control over what I’m doing,” he said, nevertheless adding: “Eventually we’ll invest in a larger, take-your-picture-in-front-of-it roaster.”

Standing near a row of about six burlap bags, each full of 25 pounds of beans which sat on the wood floor of the Christy’s kitchen, he talked about his evolving relationships with different suppliers, trying to get the best beans available in their season, at good prices.

To keep his filled-to-the-brim life as streamlined as he can, Mr. Christy likes to keep the Chilmark Coffee Company simple as well. Very simple. “At the Beetlebung stand, you can go down and buy coffee I roasted two days ago,” he said. “You can put your money right in the can there. The coffee is $13, $14, or $15 bucks depending,”

And what can you expect when you get home?

Exactly what Mr. Christy set out to make: a really good cup of homemade coffee.

The Costa Rican, which was sampled first, was grassy, smooth, almost sweet, and almost nutty. “I like the sweet, soft aftertaste,” Mr. Christy said.

Next up was the Mexican roast. “I like this darker one. It has an interesting finish,” he said. “I could drink this one for a while.”

Then came the Honduran. “This is my favorite,” he said. “There’s just something about it. It’s got fruits and almonds, and I get this crisp taste in the back of my mouth. It’s smooth. It’s how coffee should taste.”

Lastly there was the Columbian, a strong, bold roast that Christy said he’s worked hard to get just right. “It’s not overpowering really, but just really smooth.”

Mr. Christy keeps customers of the burgeoning company up to speed via his Twitter account (ChilmarkCoffee). “People are aware, and becoming more aware,” he said of the stand at Beetlebung Farm. “I can just tweet, ‘Roasting a new batch right now, pick it up at Beetlebung in two days,’” he said.

Does Chilmark Coffee see expansion into other Vineyard stands and stores? “We’ve had talks,” he shrugged, “but nothing just yet.”

“It’s funny,” said Mr. Christy, “I don’t really think of this as like a business yet, I think of this as like, fun. I like artisan food and knowing where stuff comes from. And besides,” he smiled, “everyone I know drinks coffee.”