Between the Trees is a micro-bakery in the heart of the High Country in Boone, NC. We bake a variety of breads, most naturally leavened with a long, cold fermentation for flavor and digestibility.
Most of our breads start with three things: flour, water, and salt. We mix the dough, give it a long bulk ferment, shape it, and tuck it into cold retard for up to two days before it sees the oven.
That extra time changes the bread. The natural leaven keeps working, slowly. Wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria break down starches and proteins that are otherwise hard for our bodies to deal with. The flavor of the grain comes forward. The crust gets darker. The crumb opens up.
It is not a faster way to make bread. It is not a cheaper way to make bread. But it is the way we choose to bake, because it makes the kind of bread we want to eat.
We are a micro-bakery, which means everything is small on purpose. Every loaf is mixed, shaped, scored, and baked by hand. The bake schedule fits in a single oven. The week's menu fits on a single Instagram post.
We do not ship. We do not have a storefront. We bake what we can bake well in a week, and we sell it to the people in Boone, the High Country, and the mountain communities around us.
Real sourdough starter. No commercial yeast.
Up to 48 hours in cold retard.
Spelt, einkorn, kamut, and rye.
Mixed, shaped, scored, baked in batches.
We source heritage and ancient grains from people who farm with care. Each one brings a different flavor to the bread, and each one shows up depending on the loaf and the week.
An ancient cousin of wheat. Nutty, mellow, gentle on digestion.
One of the oldest cultivated grains. Sweet, golden, packed with character.
A heritage durum. Buttery, rich, with a distinct yellow crumb.
Earthy, deep, and a workhorse in our seeded rye loaf.
"The ultimate purpose of business is not, or should not be, simply to make money. The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy."Paul Hawken
For us, baking bread is not separable from the rest of how we live. We try to source grains from people who steward their land. We try to pay ourselves and anyone who works with us fairly. We try to make bread accessible.
That last one is why we accept Double Up Food Bucks at the Watauga County Farmers Market, which doubles the value of any federal nutrition benefit. Good bread is not a luxury. It is a thing people should be able to eat.
We are not pretending we have everything figured out. We are a small bakery in the mountains trying to do this thing well, slowly, and on purpose.
Four places to grab a loaf this week in Boone and across the High Country.