We can’t look to the future of coffee without taking a quick step back and remembering the pioneers of our local coffee scene. San Antonio Coffee Roasters launched in 1983 and still has a presence on wholesale shelves and at Pearl Farmers Market. Smaller, boutique roasters weren’t found until the mid-2000s, but even then San Anto couldn’t support the likes of Espuma, Ruta Maya or The Foundry and Grassroots Coffee (which shuttered in 2012).
We’ve obviously come a long way, with 28 thriving local coffee shops in town and more on the way (Fairview opens this week while Joseph E. Coffee and the latest Revolucion Coffee + Juice launch in September). With the growing competition, some shops are finding ways to stand out from the crowd by getting into the roasting game. We catch up with longtime roasters as well as with newbies trying to make their mark.
Merit Roasting
This past March, Local Coffee owner Robby Grubbs turned a roasting dream into a reality. After converting a 2,500-square-foot former electrical motor company at 2001 S. Presa St. (across from Freetail Brewing’s Taproom), Grubbs turned to industry pros he’s long admired to help nail his new roasting operation.
“We’re a multi-roaster shop … always carried five or seven at a time in our shelves. If I was ever going to roast, I was going to have to be as good or better as what was on our shelves,” Grubbs said.
He enlisted the help of Scott Rao of Rao Coffee and co-author of The Professional Barrista’s Handbook and The Coffee Roasters Companion. Grubbs also sought out Ben Kaminsksy, a well-connected coffee consultant and roaster, as well as Dan Streetman, CEO of Irving Farm Roasters in New York. Each provided insight into the coffee world and helped connect Grubbs with great equipment (customized for his operation) and primo green coffee sources.
The opening of Merit was a long time coming, considering the idea began percolating in Grubbs’ head years after he opened the first Local Coffee in Stone Oak, of all places. After three additional locations — Alamo Heights, the Pearl and Merit’s service window — Local Coffee is now poised as the most ubiquitous independently owned coffee chains in town as it readies for its latest shop, opening this fall in the Medical Center. At 2,300 square feet and with a giant patio, Medical Center will be the largest Local yet and will feature a decompression room for visiting doctors, nurses and families visiting sick loved ones in neighboring hospitals.
But let’s get back to roasting. Head roaster Andrew Schulz — who previously worked with Streetman in College Station and has a storied coffee resume of his own — fires up the German Probat roaster several times a week. A blind quality control cupping session follows the next day and screenshots of that day’s brewing are used as guidelines for the next batch. Always in pursuit of greatness.
Though Grubbs spent most of 2014 globetrotting in search of green coffee in Colombia, Nicaragua, and then some (fair trade is out, direct trade is in for these coffee nerds), the father of two – 11 and 14 – is delegating discovery duties to new hire Jamie Isetts. A Q-Grade cupper who grades coffee roasts from across the world, Isetts also speaks four languages and will come with connections of her own.
Grubbs was coy about news he’ll be able to share within the next few months on more Local locales, but keeps Merit’s mission of helping the coffee shop grow with quality beans (they’re up to 15 types of roasts now, all dubbed with train-related names) in the foreground.
“I wanted to build something I can open in L.A. or New York … but I want to stay teachable and learn as much as I can in this business. I knew more at 25 than I do at 46,” Grubbs said.
Fairview Coffee Bar & Grub
Though they’re days from opening, Fairview will also be roasting imported beans on site (technically next door). Owned by John Sanchez and Whitney Collins, the shop is packing in a custom mint-colored Slayer Espresso machine. The shop as a whole rocks a 1960s throwback vibe.
They’ll originally brew for their own operation, the couple is looking to expand in the future. In the meantime, Sanchez — who previously owned a coffee shop in Houston, worked at Nordstrom’s EBar and Local Coffee — will concentrate on coffee, while pastry chef Travis Bligen whips up drool-worthy breakfast options including crisp waffles with house-made compotes, artisan toast, Texas and Czech-style kolaches and more.
Mildfire Coffee Roasters
Over on the North Side, as Aaron Blanco worked on Brown Coffee in 2005, husband-and-wife team Mark and Tricia Sobhani opened Wildfire Coffee Roasters (“Then a steakhouse chain in Chicago gave us grief over the name. So we turned the W upside down,” they explain on their website). To their credit, the Sobhanis helped introduce in-house roasted beans and brews in the Starbucks-filled nooks of the area.
Their second shop off Fredericksburg and Wurzbach in the Medical Center opened in late December and the pair is figuring out the ropes of a newer, larger, much busier location … while also parenting a feisty 2-year-old.
“It’s a totally different beast, there are many more different faces we’re seeing,” Mark said.
The couple roasts beans from Ethiopia, Brazil, Colombia, India, Sumatra, Guatemala and a 1836 Texas Blend.
“Customers are getting much more sophisticated … educated in what they’re looking for,” Mark said as Tricia added, “They’re also trying a lot more.”
As one of the first stores in town outside of Starbucks, Mildfire sees the insane growth coffee shops have witnessed within the last few years as a way to recalibrate their offerings.
“I think it’s a testament to the changing coffee culture in San Antonio and it lets us do things we couldn’t do 10 years ago [such as pour overs],” Mark said.
Brown Coffee Co.
A simple tweet can change everything and when Alton Brown of Good Eats fame proclaimed a cup of Brown Coffee to be the best he’s ever had, that’s as good validation as any. After leaving a corporate gig at Starbucks, company founder Aaron Blanco decided to focus his efforts on small-batch craft roasting and relocated his family from Philadelphia to his parents’ home in San Antonio. It’s safe to say his hard work paid off.
But it wasn’t easy then and it’s still hard work today, particularly toiling as an independent small roaster (he started with a 5-pound capacity machine inside his mother’s garage).
“It was hard to get brokers to pay attention because I didn’t want a 150-pound sack. I wanted five pounds,” he recalled.
Business picked up even with early hiccups and Blanco soon relocated to Brown Coffee’s HQ at 1702 W. Kings Hwy., where the rustic, 900-square-foot — and air-conditioned! — space helped expand Brown’s operations.
Nowadays, the father of five is still as passionate about coffee as ever. Brown has also expanded its footprint to include a minimalist café on the ground floor of the 1800 Broadway apartments, where you’re taking your coffee black — and you’ll like it. After traveling and building relationships with growers in Central America, Blanco tasked himself with finding green beans from Kenya back in February. Those results, an alluring blend sourced out of the Githembe Cooperative in the Thirika Mill in Kenya, are melodic with grapefruit tones and black currant once it cools.
“It’s a powerhouse Kenyan … it’s one of the gateway drugs for coffee,” Blanco said.
Enthusiasts will have a chance to see the process of directly sourcing beans from Kenyan farmers after Labor Day as Blanco convinced filmmaker Lee Eubanks to document the journey. Kenya Coffee Hunting will screen at the Alamo Drafthouse.
Craft coffee nuts can have similar life-changing experiences at Brown, which roasts four to eight varieties of beans three times a week. A Costa Rican Pilón, which sees more of the coffee fruit make it into the cup, will be released soon at $8.50 a cup or $20 for a 7-ounce tin.
“We’re working really hard to make it pristine,” said Blanco. “It has to be the most clean and explosive fruit you’ve ever tasted in a cup.”
White Elephant Coffee Company
New coffee shops continue to pop up, even as we worked on this feature on the local coffee scene. Over Fourth of July weekend, Jose Carlos de la Colina finally opened his blue-hued passion project at the corner of South Presa and Carolina streets, where he’s roasting beans sourced through coffee importers using a 12-kilo Probat roaster.
A former corporate cog in the world of finance, de la Colina now geeks out over his time spent visiting fincas, or farms, in Chiapas; attending coffee conventions in Seattle; taking on a roasting internship in Monterrey; attending a workshop with Mike Perry of Klatch Coffee in L.A. followed by a three-hour training course with champion barista Heather Perry.
At White Elephant Coffee Co., de la Colina is roasting out of a 15-by-25-foot room with adjacent bar — so folks can take in the roast show. Expect a rotating cast of beans from Kenya, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico. Cold brew fans can look forward to WE’s “beaker brew” or Kyoto-style coffee, a vertical system of glass beakers, pipes and then some that drips cold water through a coffee filter for something like four to 10 hours.
“If you ever come in and see us on a ladder, we’re measuring drip count variations,” de la Colina explained.
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This article appears in The Coffee Issue 2015.