Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Coffee & Tea Collective teams with a juicer

Place

Coffee & Tea Collective

2911 El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego

East Village continues to attract specialty coffee shops. On November 12, North Park’s third-wave torchbearer Coffee & Tea Collective announced it would be opening a second location in early 2015, at 631 Ninth Ave. Technically, C&T will only occupy half the space — it will be shared with Juice Saves, the recently opened cold-pressed juice bar by restaurant group Consortium Holdings.

Coffee & Tea Collective began small-batch roasting in 2010, initially serving their product at art and cultural events. Founder Daniel Holcomb and brand strategist Michael Spear met as classmates at Point Loma Nazarene. Their interest in coffee grew post-college in part due to visits to shops in San Francisco, where roasters such as Blue Bottle and Four Barrel were busy garnering national reputations for their approach to coffee sourcing and preparation.

Sponsored
Sponsored

At that time, according to Spear, the two felt “There wasn’t a conversation about specialty coffee in San Diego.” So they bought a five-pound sample roaster and got to work, he jokes, “spreading the good news of the coffee gospel.” In 2012 they secured a small storefront on North Park’s El Cajon Boulevard, at 30th. They got a bigger roaster — a 25-pound San Franciscan — and brought in Stephen Freese to serve as head roaster.

Freese honed his roasting skills in a small town outside Topeka, Kansas. He keeps detailed notes throughout the roasting process to ensure quality and continuity, roasting in 16- to 18-pound batches — below the San Franciscan’s capacity — to maintain greater control over the variances in heat applied to roast the beans precisely.

C&T serves between six and nine single-origin varieties at a time, roasting twice per week to ensure their in-stock beans never age past a week to ten days.

The Boulevard shop occupies a blank white space, interrupted by occasional decorative accents, rotating artwork, and small shelves displaying coffee products for sale. There’s no overhead menu, which Spear understands can be “a little offputting” to the casual coffee drinker who comes through their doors. This is by design, he says, a prompt “to make customers engage.” He hopes customers will ask questions, so their baristas can talk about the coffee, maybe convince someone to approach coffee a different way. Say, to taste a latte without sweetening it first. The tricky thing, he adds, is to do this “without seeming condescending.”

They will maintain the same approach with the new East Village shop. The shared space will be conceptually split down the middle: juice to the right, coffee to the left. Separate staff, separate registers, even separate design elements.

Consortium Holdings will continue to enlist the design of Paul Basile, responsible for the distinctive look of CH restaurants, including Ironside and Polite Provisions. Coffee & Tea Collective will stick with Shawn Benson’s SIDEYARDprojects, who set up their first shop. Spear suggests the result may be reminiscent of the Batman villain Two-Face, but figures East Village residents will benefit from the unlikely pairing. “When you start off your day there are two beverages you go straight to,” he says. It may be interesting to see which has longer lines in the morning.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego Reader 2024 Music & Arts Issue

Favorite fakers: Baby Bushka, Fleetwood Max, Electric Waste Band, Oceans, Geezer – plus upcoming tribute schedule
Next Article

2024 continues to impress with yellowfin much closer to San Diego than they should be

New rockfish regulations coming this week as opener approaches
Place

Coffee & Tea Collective

2911 El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego

East Village continues to attract specialty coffee shops. On November 12, North Park’s third-wave torchbearer Coffee & Tea Collective announced it would be opening a second location in early 2015, at 631 Ninth Ave. Technically, C&T will only occupy half the space — it will be shared with Juice Saves, the recently opened cold-pressed juice bar by restaurant group Consortium Holdings.

Coffee & Tea Collective began small-batch roasting in 2010, initially serving their product at art and cultural events. Founder Daniel Holcomb and brand strategist Michael Spear met as classmates at Point Loma Nazarene. Their interest in coffee grew post-college in part due to visits to shops in San Francisco, where roasters such as Blue Bottle and Four Barrel were busy garnering national reputations for their approach to coffee sourcing and preparation.

Sponsored
Sponsored

At that time, according to Spear, the two felt “There wasn’t a conversation about specialty coffee in San Diego.” So they bought a five-pound sample roaster and got to work, he jokes, “spreading the good news of the coffee gospel.” In 2012 they secured a small storefront on North Park’s El Cajon Boulevard, at 30th. They got a bigger roaster — a 25-pound San Franciscan — and brought in Stephen Freese to serve as head roaster.

Freese honed his roasting skills in a small town outside Topeka, Kansas. He keeps detailed notes throughout the roasting process to ensure quality and continuity, roasting in 16- to 18-pound batches — below the San Franciscan’s capacity — to maintain greater control over the variances in heat applied to roast the beans precisely.

C&T serves between six and nine single-origin varieties at a time, roasting twice per week to ensure their in-stock beans never age past a week to ten days.

The Boulevard shop occupies a blank white space, interrupted by occasional decorative accents, rotating artwork, and small shelves displaying coffee products for sale. There’s no overhead menu, which Spear understands can be “a little offputting” to the casual coffee drinker who comes through their doors. This is by design, he says, a prompt “to make customers engage.” He hopes customers will ask questions, so their baristas can talk about the coffee, maybe convince someone to approach coffee a different way. Say, to taste a latte without sweetening it first. The tricky thing, he adds, is to do this “without seeming condescending.”

They will maintain the same approach with the new East Village shop. The shared space will be conceptually split down the middle: juice to the right, coffee to the left. Separate staff, separate registers, even separate design elements.

Consortium Holdings will continue to enlist the design of Paul Basile, responsible for the distinctive look of CH restaurants, including Ironside and Polite Provisions. Coffee & Tea Collective will stick with Shawn Benson’s SIDEYARDprojects, who set up their first shop. Spear suggests the result may be reminiscent of the Batman villain Two-Face, but figures East Village residents will benefit from the unlikely pairing. “When you start off your day there are two beverages you go straight to,” he says. It may be interesting to see which has longer lines in the morning.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

March is typically windy, Sage scents in the foothills

Butterflies may cross the county
Next Article

Centennial Salute to San Diego’s Military, East Village Block Party, Birding Basics Class

Events March 29-March 30, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.