Neighbor Coffee & Friends

“It’s like biting into a strawberry.”

One weekend, I decided to drive up to Abilene, TX where a friend of mine started a pour-over coffee stand, doing regular pop-ups at storefronts and markets. I helped him shoot some promotional videos.

And that’s where everything changed.

He handed me a cup of coffee — a Costa Rica Natural.

And I didn’t even know how to process it.

Not “kind of fruity.”
Not “notes of something.”

It was literally like biting into a strawberry, and it changed my life. I didn’t know coffee could do that, and I also knew I wanted more.
I drank more coffee that weekend than ever before and couldn’t wait to drive home and tell everyone about it.

If you talk to many coffee professionals, we all seem to have a story like this. A cup of coffee we’ve been chasing and trying to recreate ever since that first mind-blowing sip.

If taking the job at Starbucks was dipping my toe, now I was ready to dive full tilt into the coffee river.

At my next shift I tried to recreate what I had experienced.

Which… was a tall order, no pun intended.

But this idea stuck with me – that coffee could be simple, but also vivid, delicate, and juicy.

That’s what I kept chasing. And it’s the driving force behind the coffee we choose to roast and share with you, one small-batch at a time.

“I have 12 Venti Frappuccinos for Karen on the bar!”

This is where my coffee journey started.

I was 23, new to Austin, about to get engaged, and needed a job.

After graduating from college with a passion for filmmaking, I was eager to find a company where I could plant for a few years and build a freelance career on the side.

I landed a video production job for a local consulting company. I was poised and ready to apply myself so that I could provide for my family by doing what I love.

Then came my first layoff.

After a major conference, they let go of the entire creative team — something I’ve unfortunately seen repeated more than once.

Blindsided, I picked up two part-time jobs — a food runner at Alamo Drafthouse and a barista at Starbucks.

At the time, I wasn’t even really a coffee drinker.

But something about it started to pull me in.