It's a Sunday afternoon at the San Francisco Coffee Festival at Fort Mason in San Francisco, and Jay Ruskey, founder of Frinj Coffee, is standing at his booth in front of a row of lush green plants wrapped in burlap. He grabs a Chemex and pours some of the aromatic, freshly brewed coffee into small cups. Ruskey and Frinj's head roaster, Richard Masino, look up and see a long line of customers snaking past other festival booths.
Everyone is waiting to try coffee produced from beans grown in California (yes, California), not Ethiopia, Colombia or Peru, but Frinj coffee grown near the University of California, Santa Barbara. The coffee at Chemex comes from Ruskey's own trees, planted in Goleta on his Good Land Organics farm, also based in Frinj.
Frinj is on a mission to ensure that coffee crops, once only grown in tropical climates, can thrive in the Golden State. Before the year 2000, little or no coffee was grown in California. Now, 14 varieties of coffee are being carefully tended on more than 65 farms in Southern California, from Santa Barbara to north of San Diego.
The results are gaining popularity and popularity in the coffee world, and more California coffee than ever will be ready to harvest starting in May and continuing throughout the summer.
“Over the last six years, we planted more than 100,000 trees in the ground,” Ruskey says. “We suspect that by the summer of 2024 we will have between six and eight times the coffee we obtained [in 2023]about 6,500 to 8,000 pounds.”
That's a drop in the coffee bucket compared to the several million pounds grown annually in Brazil alone, but the quality of California coffee is receiving international attention. Recently, Blue Bottle founder James Freeman featured Frinj's California-grown Gesha variety at his own coffee tasting menu experience in Los Angeles. He poured himself a pour-over of Goodland Organics Gesha, with fresh, fruity notes of peach, jasmine and strawberry, along with two exceptional coffees, a Panama Finca Deborah Interstellar Gesha and a Yemen Hayma Kharijiya Aljidan Xi.
“It is a privilege that so close to where I live there is a coffee crop as good as any farm that I would have to travel around the world to get to,” says Freeman.
Tokyo-based champion baristas Hide Izaki and Miki Suzuki visited Good Land Organics to try Frinj coffees at a recent tasting to sample California-grown coffees. Izaki and Suzuki travel the world to find rare, highest quality specimens to serve in their coffee tasting experience, Cokuun. The two expressed that they were impressed, as they sipped from the cups enthusiastically.
“At first I was hesitant about California Gesha, but my perception changed after experiencing an omakase course at Blue Bottle Studio Kyoto and tasting California Gesha blind. [at Frinj]”Izaki says. “I was pleasantly surprised by the sweet, rich texture of it.”
California coffee is gaining international fans. Hide Izaki, left, founder of the Cokuun coffee tasting experience in Tokyo, visits Good Land Organics in Goleta with farmer Jay Ruskey.
(Julia Wolfson)
It took Ruskey several tries since first planting coffee trees in 2002 to learn the best practices for growing coffee in Southern California. While tropical climates average over 60 degrees year-round and generally have high rainfall, he and others California coffee farmers are focusing on working with weather patterns, multi-layer farming with other crops and careful use of water.
“I've always been passionate about crop adaptation,” says Ruskey. “I was working with the UC Cooperative Extension Service to plant lychee and longans when Dr. Mark Gaskell, an expert in small berry crops, gave me 40 coffee plants and encouraged me to try planting them next to other plants.” .
Good Land Organics' 42 hilltop acres are located along the western edge of Goleta, with 10 lush acres and more than 35,000 coffee plants along with avocado trees providing shade and protection. The farm also grows ice beans, persimmons, pomegranates, passion fruit, dragon fruit, custard apples and caviar limes in soil that has become more fertile thanks to the biodiversity of the crops.
William Ristenpart, director of the UC Davis Coffee Center and professor of chemical engineering, has been following Frinj's progress. “I love the idea of having a Napa Valley coffee right here in California. That's what Jay and [other] the farmers are working,” says Ristenpart. “The idea of having a dual use, growing avocados and coffee on the same land and having two sources of income for a single farmer, is fantastic.”
Ruskey sold his first crops as roasted beans at the Santa Barbara Farmers Market and on the Good Land Organics website.
When Daily Coffee News blind-tasted Ruskey's coffee in 2014 and named it 27th in the world, it gave him the confidence to consider his project as more than just an experimental crop. Over time, he began offering roasted Frinj beans through a few coffee shops from Bird Rock in San Diego to Burnside in Sacramento and beyond, such as at Make Worth Coffee in Bellham, Washington. Frinj is served at the Steward Hotel in Santa Barbara as part of its efforts to highlight locally sourced ingredients.
In Los Angeles, Goodboybob included Frinj coffee on its menu and included it as part of a rare coffee subscription. CEO Marcus Young has consulted with Frinj and, as performance increases, intends to offer more in the future.
Once coffee trees are established, the trees can produce coffee annually for more than 25 years. “We are still in the early stages of the development phase of the California coffee industry,” says Jay Ruskey of Frinj Coffee.
(Jonah Perkins)
“We're always excited to have it on our menu,” Young says. “Jay has been part of our speaker series and we love it when he brings coffee trees with him, tying the conversation to something local.”
Frinj is also exploring uses for other parts of the coffee plant. Coffee leaves, flowers and cherries (the fruit) were highlighted in a tea-style course at Blue Bottle Studio, brewed into elegant infusions.
“We've really gotten caught up in this bean,” Ruskey says. “Being a fruit grower at heart, processing this beautiful fruit with these complex flavors, antioxidants and all these healthy products within the fruit that is usually composted, I feel is a waste and a tragedy. So I think there are opportunities.”
When Ristenpart took a camping trip with his students at Good Land Organics for a hands-on experience, they tried a batch of fresh husk syrup (dried coffee cherry). “We made blueberry pancakes in the morning and poured them on like maple syrup,” she says. “The best pancakes I've ever had in my life!”
Coffee flower tea? Jay Ruskey uses various parts of the coffee plant, including the leaves and flowers, to prepare infusions.
(Julia Wolfson)
Frinj also supplies plant material, cultivation support and sales opportunities to other coffee producers.
“None of this infrastructure was available seven years ago,” Ruskey says. “Coffee is essentially a fruit tree crop, which means that establishing it can be a long process, as it can take 4 to 5 years to produce a first crop,” he adds.
Once coffee plants are established, the trees can produce coffee annually for more than 25 years, “so we are still very early in the development phase of the California coffee industry.”
Frinj processes post-harvest coffee, sells green beans, roasts beans and offers sales channels in its own web store and directly to coffee companies.
Currently on the website, roasted coffee of various varieties from various farms is priced between $15 and $125. A coffee called Sundays at Toro, grown in Santa Barbara County by Chris and Kristina McCausland, is a Pacas variety with flavor notes of black cherry, passion fruit, cocoa, and port wine.
Frinj coffees were featured at the US Brewers Cup 2023, a prestigious competition highlighting the art of brewing filter coffee, in Portland, Oregon. Elika Liftee, director of barista education at Onyx Coffee in Arkansas, competed in the finals with a blend of coffees. grown at Rancho Delfino in Carpinteria.
“Ideally, we should be celebrated as premium coffees,” says Ruskey, “and served in coffee shops that have customers who want to try some of the best coffees in the world.”
