Looking back on our second full year of Canyon Coffee, we can’t believe how much things can change in such a short amount of time! The beginning of this year marked a big transition for us, as we moved from our home on the beach in Santa Monica to the hills of Echo Park.

While we miss the ocean air and proximity to the Santa Monica Mountains, we also love the pace of the “eastside” of LA, and are happy to be in a neighborhood in close proximity to friends like Tenzo, Honey Hi, Amara Kitchen, and many more.

Aside from our big move, here’s a look back on some of the big events for Canyon in 2018, and then a look at what’s to come in 2019!

EVENTS

We had a lot of fun providing pop up coffee service at events this year! While we didn't top our first year average of three events per month, we still got out plenty, and we always have a blast. Here are some events and friendly brands Canyon teamed up with for coffee service:

• Echo Park Craft Fair (May & December)
• West Coast Craft (June & November)
• Mercado Sagrado (October)
• Goop
• Outdoor Voices
• Citizens of Humanity
• Older Brother

COLLABORATIONS

We were so excited to team up with friends and artists to bring some ideas to life and introduce new items to our online shop! A few of the projects include:

• handmade wooden coffee spoons with Kelle Ramsey (Ventura, CA)
• ceramic Canyon mugs with Erin M. Karr (EMK Ceramics) (Venice, CA)
• handbuilt painted ceramic mugs with Michelle Blade (Portland, OR)
• commemorative 2 year poster and print with John Zabawa (Silver Lake, CA)
• our first Canyon t-shirt with Filth Mart (Los Angeles, CA)
• custom prints with Johnny Franck and Paper Chase Press (both of Los Angeles, CA)

In 2019, we're excited to continue collaborating to introduce more ceramics, art and home goods to our online shop!

TRAVEL

Travel was and continues to be a primary source of inspiration for us both, and we feel so fortunate to have had another great year of travels in 2018! Our highlights:

• Guatemala: Casey visited farmers who we've purchased beans from in the past, and met new farmers to try more coffees and begin new relationships
• London & France: Ally made a Paris coffee guide and a London guide is on its way 
• Santa Fe: We road tripped to Santa Fe for Casey's 30th birthday and to celebrate the opening of the El Rey Court, a hotel that re-launched with brand and design creative direction by our friends Jay & Alison Carroll (Wonder Valley), and art by John Zabawa (they're also serving Canyon Coffee!). 
• France & Italy: For Ally's 30th birthday, we went on our dream trip! We road tripped through the South of France, spent Ally's birthday in Florence, then roamed around Sicily before ending our journey in Paris, where we popped up with Echo Café, a cafe which serves Canyon seasonally
• Joshua Tree: We spent Thanksgiving in the desert hosted by our friends Wonder Valley!

In 2019, we're starting off the year with a road trip up north along the Northern California Pacific Coast all the way to Portland, OR! We plan to visit more coffee-growing regions later in the year. As always, we hope to produce more free coffee + travel guides for you to enjoy!

COFFEE

The big news with our coffee this year was the introduction of our freeze dried Instant Coffee! We fell in love with this product, produced in collaboration with Swift Cup coffee, during our travels. While we're big proponents of trying out local roasters during travels, we also have plenty of times where we need a good cup of coffee (and there's nowhere to get one!). That's why we developed our own Instant, and we've been so humbled and surprised by the response it's received, with features by Bon Appetit mag, The Strategist (NY Mag), and Cup of Jo! We will continue to produce our Instant and hope to develop more options for you soon!

As for our whole bean offerings, we kept our coffee selection pretty consistent this year with single origins from Ethiopia and Colombia. Part of why we like to stick with coffees is our mission: our goal is to form real, long-term relationships with farmers. And a part of that commitment involves sticking to farmers through multiple harvests. We don't want to pretend to have direct relationships with farmers until we can truly say we are consistent purchasers of their beans and have taken the time to get to know them! We know relationships like that take time, and we're happy to continue down that path!

That said, we're excited to introduce some new coffees to you in 2019! Due to popular demand, we are going to be bringing back Swiss Water Process decaf. We also have a Peruvian coffee about to land at port that we will roll out in early 2019. 

Finally, we've been keeping it under wraps, but we are excited to be introducing some new packaging in 2019! 

NEIGHBORHOOD

We are very excited that Neighborhood, a coffee shop that we have been a part of developing since the very beginning, will be opening in the New Year! This will be the first specialty coffee shop location serving Canyon in Los Angeles, and we are SO excited for all the opportunities this will bring us! From having a team of baristas to collaborate with on developing new roasts, having a larger team to weigh in on cupping decisions, and having a space to simply enjoy and send folks to when they want to know, "Where can I try Canyon in a latte/americano/pour-over/drip"? 

Of course, we are also so grateful for the list of nearly 50 accounts-and-growing that currently sell or serve Canyon, and we are excited to continue finding more shops, cafes and hotels that are a good fit for our coffees!

THANK YOU!

Thank you for following along on our journey! We hope to continue brightening your mornings with our coffee :)