Inside the cupping and quality control lab at the Angelino’s Coffee roastery in Los Angeles. All images courtesy of Angelino’s Coffee.
In an unprecedented high-end buying spree, California roasting company Angelino’s Coffee has purchased all 11 top-scoring coffees from the 2024 Cup of Excellence (CoE) program.
In the process, the 22-year-old Los Angeles roaster has shelled out more than a quarter million dollars while breaking the all-time CoE auction price record last month, spending $445 per pound for 198 pounds of a natural-process coffee grown by Basha Bekele Botusha in the East Sidama Bensa woreda in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopia purchase sits along 10 other 90-plus-point COE-winning coffees from Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and other renowned countries of origin. All of the coffees are heading to Angelino’s climate-controlled warehouse in Los Angeles.
The Angelino’s warehouse.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to consolidate the best coffees on earth and share them together as a collection,” Angelino’s Coffee Founder Kirk Bedrossian recently told Daily Coffee News. “With this CoE series, we’ll be offering coffee enthusiasts the opportunity to experience the most coveted coffees from around the globe, all at once.”
If nothing else, the buying streak represents a remarkable case study on value creation in specialty coffee. Furthering that study, Angelino’s Coffee is planning high-end tasting sets of C0E-winning coffees while self-producing a coffee-origin-focused documentary series called “Where Coffee Takes You.”
Plans for the Prize-Winning Coffees
After shipping to Los Angeles, the green coffees will be roast-profiled by Angelino’s Coffee Roast Master Angel Bedrossian, Kirk Bedrossian’s mother.
While the majority of Angelino’s production roasting volume takes place on a pair of four-sack Probat machines, the CoE winners will be roasted on smaller Diedrich-made machines that the company reserves for smaller-volume or “ultra-special” coffees.
Once roasted, the coffees will be sold online in neatly packaged sets featuring 100 grams of each coffee.
One of the smaller Diedrich machines (red) next to a Probat industrial roaster.
Said Kirk Bedrossian, “We can’t think of another category — whether it be wine, scotch, tequila or anything else — that has managed to compile all of the best offerings in one hand like this.”
Bedrossian told DCN that while some invoices have yet to come back, the total investment in the CoE sourcing initiative has so far reached more than $300,000, including an average of more than $150 per pound for the winning coffees.
“We bought every lot on our own — no partnerships or split lots,” said Bedrossian. “It’s been a serious investment, but one we’re incredibly proud of.”
The company has not yet set a price for the high-end tasting sets, although Bedrossian said the company is committed to making them “accessible,” particularly to consumers in the United States.
“What excites us the most is being able to share these extraordinary number one coffees with the USA and beyond,” he said. “It’s quite rare for an American roaster to claim the top spot, especially since many of the best lots have historically gone to Asian and Middle Eastern buyers.”
Origins of Angelino’s
Kirk Bedrossian’s professional life started in consumer software development in his 20s, which coincided with the dot com boom of the 1990s. He established a domain name acquisition venture, acquiring names such as gourmetcoffee.com, coffeebeans.com, coffeepods.com, frenchroast.com and more.
Angelino’s Coffee Founder Kirk Bedrossian
Financial success through this and other subsequent tech ventures provided the capital for Bedrossian’s self-funded coffee ventures.
Bedrossian made a decisive leap into coffee beginning in 1998, when he started traveling to the coffee-growing belt with his father, Vic Bedrossian, who owned a green coffee processing and export business, with operations in Vietnam, Costa Rica, Indonesia and other countries.
At age 27, Bedrossian invested several million dollars to launch Bradford Coffee, a direct-trade-focused independent roastery. The name was a nod to his father’s export business, Bradford International. Vic Bedrossian died in 2019.
Vic Bedrossian
“Guatemala will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the last origin trip I took with my dad before he passed,” Kirk Bedrossian said. “Winning three number one coffees in this year’s Guatemala Cup of Excellence auction is deeply personal for me. It’s a way to honor my father’s memory and the passion we shared for discovering and supporting the best coffees in the world.”
Bradford Coffee remains the parent company of Angelino’s, which Kirk launched in the early 2000s. Angelino’s continues to rely on the refined palate and years of tasting experience held by Angel Bedrossian. The company’s name pays dual homage to Angel and the City of Angels.
“Angel’s influence not only shaped the quality of the coffee but also the family-oriented culture of the company,” Kirk said. “A memorable tradition she started was making Armenian coffee in a cezve and serving it to the team in demitasse cups. This act of warmth and care became a cornerstone of the company’s culture, where everyone was treated like family.”
Angel Bedrossian
‘Where Coffee Takes You’
The first episode of “Where Coffee Takes You” (WCTY) premiered on YouTube in early 2023. Four more episodes have come out since then, with several more planned to come out throughout the coming year on a roughly quarterly basis.
Kirk Bedrossian is now attempting to travel to the farms where Angelino’s CoE-winning were produced.
“WCTY is an homage to my father, Vic, who inspired me to explore the world, immerse myself in different cultures, learn languages, and appreciate the richness that the world has to offer,” Kirk Bedrossian told DCN. “I look forward to one day sharing this adventure with my kids, showing them the world’s beauty through exploration and appreciation.”
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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