San Antonio coffee vendor Olla Express’ bottled raw piloncillo syrup now on H-E-B shelves

Coffee vendor Olla Express Café may not have snagged the top prize at last year’s H-E-B Quest for Texas Best contest, but the San Antonio-based business is still making its mark on the grocery giant’s shelves.

Olla Express was the sole Alamo City-based contender in last year’s contest, which lets homegrown food businesses compete for cash and shelf space. While Olla Express owner and head coffee guru Andrea Ley’s bottled raw piloncillo syrup was bested by other products, the item appears to have made a lasting impression.

Olla Express uses the piloncillo syrup — a Mexican ingredient devoid of refined sugars and artificial flavors — as a sweetener in its many caffeinated concoctions. Ley also is credited with introducing café de olla, a Mexican coffee prepared in a traditional earthen clay pot, to San Antonio in 2019.

“After I got the awesome experience of being one of the 20 H-E-B Quest for Texas Best finalists, I had amazing people from H-E-B contact me later to follow the process to get into the stores,” Ley told the Current via email. “This process took some months, [but] we finally made it to the shelves, so our star product, raw piloncillo syrup, is in select local San Antonio H-E-Bs.”

The business’ piloncillo syrup can be found at the following H-E-B locations:

• 20935 US Highway 281 N
• 8503 NW Military Highway
• 11551 West Avenue
• 300 W. Olmos Dr.
• 5601 Bandera Road
• 9255 Grissom Road
• 10718 Potranco Road
• 4100 S. New Braunfels
• 6818 S. Zarzamora St.

The sweetener also is available for sale at Olla Express’ shop at Los Patios, 2015 N.E. Loop 410. The shop is open Thursday through Sunday 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

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This article appears in Jun 1-14, 2022.