A trio of locals are putting together a specialized coffee pop-up this summer in Vancouver, bringing beans straight from Colombia to Mount Pleasant.
Matthew Beker, Jorge Martinez, and Mauricio Lozano each run different small businesses in the food industry. Now they're working together to bring something new to the neighbourhood with a coffee pop-up.
A unique coffee spot
Martinez and Lozano are friends and have been for a while.
Lozano is the founder and owner of Faculty Brewing, the craft beer maker that's been at the corner of Ontario Street and Third Avenue for nearly a decade.
Martinez, who is Colombian-Canadian, is in the coffee industry; his family owns a small coffee plantation in Colombia called Café Casita.
"One morning we were sitting here [at Faculty] after biking, and Mau [Lozano] points out to the building across the street, which he also has," says Martinez. "He goes, 'You know, you can just put a coffee shop over there.'"
"And I go, 'Mauricio, I'm not interested in a coffee shop. I need a barista and a very expensive machine, and someone that takes care of that.'"
That's where Beker comes in. He's behind Edann Coffee, a specialty coffee roaster that holds coffee pop-ups around Vancouver.
Born in Canada but raised in Melbourne, Beker worked as a barista in the Australian city before coming to Canada and wanted to bring some of the city's famed coffee scene with him. When he arrived, he decided he wanted to roast his own beans, and more.
"I do coffee tasting. And [Martinez] attended one of those, and that's how we got talking. And he said that he had a pop-up location," says Beker.
The location was at his friend's brewery. Given the brewers are working weekdays and the taphouse is only serving beer in the afternoons and evenings, it's essentially vacant on weekend mornings.
For Martinez, Beker checked a lot of boxes.
"He's not only an enthusiast, but he's a roaster, he has a brand, and he has a machine, and he's been a barista. So that's perfect," says Martinez.
A trio of strengths
With Beker as the barista in Lozano's location with Martinez's coffee, the three had all the ingredients for what they're calling Edann Coffee Pop-Up Featuring Café Casita Specialty Coffee.
Lozano notes that craft breweries are community gathering spaces (not dissimilar from coffee shops). At the same time, it can be difficult in Vancouver to find space. At Faculty, there was space at a specific time; in the past, they've done other pop-ups like yoga or run clubs.
With Martinez's beans, straight from Colombia, it gives Beker something special to work with.
"He does a single-variety, single-origin, really nice coffee, and it's high altitude. It's hand-picked and everything," says Beker.
Look for the Edann Coffee Pop-Up at the end of spring
The actual pop-up is planned to start June 7 (though growing conditions in Colombia may delay that, Martinez says).
It'll run Saturday and Sunday mornings starting at 8 a.m. and into the afternoon at 1830 Ontario St.
Beker is planning a classic V60 pour-over with just the Café Casita beans. There will also be Melbourne-style espressos, flat whites, and long blacks, all featuring the Café Casita beans.
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