Coffetería: The Origin Story

Coming soon: Picture of the high school drawing I did

If I can trace the beginning of the coffee dream to one thing, it's this drawing in the picture. As always, Regine, Fhedra, Rebeca and I were at our usual table at Super Cream 360, talking the evening away. That particular day though, we started talking about how much we appreciated having the space and time for us to unwind our high school troubles away. Even better that the four of us enjoyed coffee in equal measure. I started to doodle on a napkin, as I listened to what it was we enjoyed about coffee. It was during that doodle that we came up with the idea: if we all owned our coffee shop one day, what would it look like?

The first thing we agreed on was that each of us would have their own corner to decorate in our own style. Regine immediately said her would be ocean blue, and include sea elements. Rebeca's corner would be very comfortable, and Fhedra's would have to do with music. What did I say? I said I would make sure we served all the different coffee styles in the world.

My world was still rather narrow back then, so I could only come up with the type of coffees I knew about at the time: americano, cappuccino, viennese, mochaccino and frappuccino. That was my limited window into coffee back then, but even so, it opened up the outside world to my friends and I, something we didn't have access to back then in our small town life.

If I knew very little about different types of coffee, I knew even less about coffee blends and grains. Back then, I wasn't even asking myself where coffee came from or where and how it was grown.

Back then though, it was giving me both an experience and a sense of community that I have been struggling to find in the present day. The wonderful thing about that coffee spot was that every able you turned to was filled with people talking their evening away, like us.

I mean it when I say it was our hometown's "other sport." After fishing, tampiqueños went out for coffee. You could find the elder generations since early morning enjoying it at breakfast, businesspeople taking their time to discuss business ventures over a third or fourth cup and even find them enjoying the particular biscuits (cookies) served at the Chinese coffee houses tucked away in downtown alleys. Truly though, it was when the sunset hit the town that cafes came alive. As the sun started to go down, that was the town's cue to go out and enjoy their brews and conversations.

After all, we're coastal people, as as such, we know you drink warm beverages to help with the coastal heat. That's something that's come up for me later in life, non-coastal (or non-desert) people not knowing this. I just grew up with it.

I also grew up in that talking the evening away culture. I've missed it when I've lived n cities that don't have that in their DNAs.

There were few things that could compare to that feeling of a group of friends dissecting every word spoken to them by their crushes that day; of theorizing how each of us would do in our exams; of wondering what our full adult lives would be like.

Back then, coffee places refilled your cup for free. It was in one of those Super Cream 360 evenings that, with a sheepish look on her face, the waitress came to me after I asked for another refill and said: "I'm sorry, I can't do that anymore."

I was startled. It was a very common courtesy back then, I didn't understand why not, so I asked. "Well, we keep the refills free until the seventh cup - that was your seventh."

I was stunned! I had no idea so much time had passed that I'd managed to drink seven cups of coffee! What did I do? "I'll pay for another cup, please refill," and she did, with a look of relief.

I cannot remember if I managed to sleep that night or not, but stories, places, people and atmospheres like these are the ones that nurtured the particular dream that years later would become Coffetería. It is in that spirit that this company was born.