California is emerging as an unlikely hub for premium coffee production, led by Jay Ruskey and his company Frinj Coffee, based in Goleta. With over 65 farms now growing coffee between Santa Barbara and San Diego, Frinj is helping turn Southern California into what some are calling the “Napa Valley of coffee.” According to the Los Angeles Times in 2024, the region’s unique coastal climate, combined with meticulous farming techniques, is yielding high-quality beans that are gaining international recognition. Although still small in scale, California-grown coffee is now being featured by elite baristas and high-end coffee shops worldwide. They write:
It’s a Sunday afternoon at the San Francisco Coffee Festival at Fort Mason, and Jay Ruskey, founder of Frinj Coffee, is standing at his booth in front of a row of lush green plants wrapped in burlap. He picks up a Chemex and pours some of the aromatic, freshly brewed coffee into small cups. Ruskey and Frinj’s head roaster, Richard Masino, look up to see a long line of customers snaking out past several other booths.
They’re all waiting to taste coffee from beans produced in California — yes, California — not Ethiopa or Colombia or Peru but Frinj’s coffee grown in Goleta, north of Santa Barbara. The coffee in the Chemex is from Ruskey’s own trees, planted at his farm Good Land Organics, also Frinj headquarters. […]
Frinj is on a mission to make sure coffee crops, previously grown only in tropical climates, can thrive in the Golden State. Before 2000, little to no coffee was cultivated in California. Now, 14 varieties of coffee are being carefully tended on more than 65 farms in Southern California from Santa Barbara to north of San Diego.[…]
It took Ruskey several attempts from the first planting of coffee trees in 2002 to learn best practices for growing coffee in Southern California. While tropical climates average above 60 degrees year-round and have generally high precipitation, he and other California coffee farmers are focusing on working with weather patterns, multilayer farming with other crops and careful use of water. […]
“Ideally, we want to be celebrated as top-shelf coffees,” Ruskey says, “and be served in coffee shops that have customers who want to experience some of the best coffees in the world.”
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