Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb2016

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Southern pecan roast and the Mexican Fox latte, which
are both delicious. But on our official coffee article visit, I
tried a little something new: the raspberry white mocha,
made with espresso, steamed milk, raspberry syrup and a
lot of love. Then I enjoyed it outdoors while feeling
happy and inspired. You might say it was “berry” good.
Brown Fox Coffee Co.
307 Simmons St.
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Cooper river CoFFee roasters
Brian: Is there any better way to spend the final hour
or so of a magnificent Lowcountry morning than filling
your belly with coffee and filling your brain with useful
information?
That was the case when Denise and I took a short
drive down to Cooper River Coffee Roasters. Co-owner
Paulette Sullivan made me four pour-overs from coffee
grown in four different countries: Peru, Ethiopia, Bolivia
and Columbia. Meanwhile, her husband, Sean Sullivan,
showed me how he roasts coffee beans.
“We like to think of ourselves as a coffee roaster with a
small coffee shop up front,” Sean explained during the
12- to 15-minute
roasting process.
Cooper River
Coffee Roasters,
open since late
October, sells to
local restaurants
and boutique
shops. Sean and
Paulette ran a
coffee roasting
company in
Ohio before they
made the move
to the Carolina
coast.
The Sullivans,
who import
green beans from
Brazil, Rwanda, Sumatra, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Costa
Rica, Bolivia, Mexico and Columbia, are passionate about
coffee, of course, but Paulette also takes great interest in
the efforts of companies that supply them with coffee
from around the world. For instance, Organic Products
Trading Company, which imported the coffee I tried from
Bolivia, financially supports women who produce coffee
“in various fundraising activities that go directly to help
women, their families and their communities” through
the Café Femenino program, which empowers “female
farmers using the production and sale of their own
product as the vehicle to create social change.”
Denise: I left Cooper River Coffee Roasters pretty
much feeling like I could fly – meaning, of course, that I
tried the variety of pour-overs that Brian tried, except,
unlike Brian, I’m sensitive to caffeine. I’m happy to
report that my favorite of the bunch was the Ethiopian
variety, which was smooth enough that I did not even
require cream. Brian said he was proud of me, which
made it all totally worth it.
Cooper river Coffee roasters
1303 Ben Sawyer Blvd., Suite 5
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
843-810-7917
vintage CoFFee CaFe
Brian: Vintage looks more like a stately old home
– complete with a porch that doubles as a spacious
outdoor seating area – than it does a coffee shop. In
business since mid-September, it’s the kind of place you
go when you want to relax, sip a steaming hot cup of
coffee and enjoy the Lowcountry sunshine.
Vintage offers breakfast and lunch, including a kids’
menu, but the star of the show here is coffee. Manager
and Art Director Powers Gray considers part of her job to
be to teach local residents about the wonders of coffee.
“I want people to love good coffee. I want them to
realize what the differences are,” she said. “We’re focusing
on educating people about coffee.”
The day Denise and I visited Vintage, Powers brought
me a pour-over of Bonta, a coffee grown on family farms
in Papua New Guinea and purchased from CounterCul-
“I want people to love good
coffee. I want them to realize
what the differences are.”
“We like to think of ourselves as a
coffee roaster with a small coffee
shop up front.”