![]() Pasarj’s brewing was such that he finished first at the Canadian AeroPress Championship and National Brewers Cup in 2019, and placed fifth among baristas at the World Brewers Cup in Milan in 2021. “That kind of got me hooked into looking at different varieties in the coffee industry.” “It had this wonderful Mandarin bouquet of floral and it was like wow, so amazing, so good,” says Pasarj. It was from Transcend, one of the many roasteries in competition with Rogue Wave, which Pasarj co-owns along with Dave Laville and David Walsh. By contrast, Ply Pasarj can emphatically recall the moment he realized coffee could be more than an energy booster. Huber doesn’t recall having a eureka moment with good coffee but admits to being hooked on her own company’s Highland Grogg, a medium roast made entirely of Arabica beans. We do a lot of blends as well, and they’re very yummy.” “We buy from so many countries, like South and Central America, Cuba, Africa and Indonesia. “The smaller roasteries that have popped up in the last 10 years or so don’t really have the variety of coffee we have,” says Leona Huber, who with business partner Michael O’Brien bought the company in 2009. They’ve weathered many a storm in the world of coffee, including the price hikes of the mid ’80s, when Edmontonians were confronted with upwards of an extra $2 tacked on to a pound of beans. Unlike many of the roasteries which are also coffee shops, Edmonton Tea & Coffee is now primarily a wholesale supplier, shipping out to local retail and hospitality spots around the world. Transcend has been around for close to two decades but it stands as one of the oldest city coffee roasters in Edmonton after the Tea & Coffee Company, which opened its doors 65 years ago under the name The Java Stop. We’ve learned a lot in the last decade and a half.” We weren’t roasting dark, which basically obliterates flavours. Early on people would have described our coffee as weird because they’d never come across those flavors. “We definitely felt like we had to create a market because people just didn’t really understand what we were doing,” sighs Mark, who opened three other retail locations through the years before scaling back to their spot at the Ritchie Market in 2023. The first few years were tough for Mark and his crew, however. Now we spend probably three months training our staff before they’re really ready to go.” “Before I started Transcend I went to Vancouver for one day of espresso training. “These days you can go to a university like UC Davis, which has both a wine and a coffee program, but back in the day you couldn’t get training anywhere,” says Poul Mark, owner and founder of Transcend Coffee, which opened in 2006 on Argyll. ![]() At the turn of the century, it wasn’t quite as cohesive a scene as it is today. Instead, many establishments are complimentary of each other’s work and, like local craft beer companies, often check in with each other. ![]() If conversations with many of today’s current roasters are true then the battles of the bean appear to have subsided. A zip around town with its mushrooming coffee bars shows clearly that owners are not shy to spend good amounts on interior decor.Now? There are plenty of roasters with accompanying coffee shops, including southside shops like Ace Roasters, NXT, Kaffa, Sorellina, Anecdote and Aspen, and downtown establishments like The Grizzlar, On the Edge and Credo. "We believe in the age-old formula for success - good food, good service, good ambience," says Madnani alluding to the taste-fully done interiors and the American, European and Indian snacks on the counter. There are three Java City cafes in the city. Each cup is priced between Rs 25 and Rs 40 and has at least 10 gms of pure coffee in it making sure these coffees are the strongest in the city. We achieved it by blending the European cafe culture with the feel of American Espresso bars."Īimed at the 20-40 age group, Java City offers nearly 80 different types of coffees. Says Raj Madnani, the MD of Java City, "After staying for 20 years in the US, I wanted to have a place with an international ambience. Art sales, literary events and more bring in the savvy people, while the strong aroma of coffee and choice snacks makes sure they succumb to temptation. Java City keeps itself in the news with frequent activities luring citizens into the cafe. Magazine - Hotel and Foodservice - VOL 16 NO 6
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