I made sure to check out Identity Coffees on my way thru Sacramento a few days ago and was very impressed with the whole experience, particularly getting to know a bit more about one of the co-owners, Lucky Rodrigues and his efforts to make this business a reality. They built their cafe in a large space in Midtown.



Lucky did the vast majority of construction for the cafe, including laying and forming all the cement, and hand crafting all the beautiful redwood furniture, tabletops, benches etc. He's a busy family man, with a good heart for his company and his employees. He instills his staff with skills from day one, integrating them into the roasting and production process along with the bar work very early on. He and Ryan Rake are the owners of the cafe, but I didn't get to meet Ryan the day I stopped by. Also on staff is Tony Serrano, a veteran of bay area coffee as well. His unique voice has often been utilized to emcee the US Barista Championships. All in all, Lucky and Ryan have a very good team of passionate staff behind him. For a small and new business, they already have the experience and capabilities of businesses much larger. They source from farmers they've built strong relationships with and visit often.



The space is enormous! It was formerly a massive wholesale carpeting warehouse, so there's no lack for space. It was a blank slate for the build out and I think there's more to come in terms of design and decorating. The layout is still in development but it strikes a impressive, modern and sleek look. I got there at a lull in the workday, and was fortunate to get some good chatting time with Lucky and some of his staff.






Their gear is straightforward and simple, A 3 group Linea, a K30 Twin and a nice Fetco XTS batch brewer provide the lions share of beverage making. They offer pastries from a nearby bakery (quite good too).









They also have cascara tea and cold brew on draft. The nice redwood handles tie in well with the rest of the bar's woodwork. A Probat P12 is central to the roasting area.





Their space is so vast, they plan to eventually begin importing and distributing green coffee. For a small company, they've very well entrenched in the coffee world. Lucky, and many of his staff travel regularly to source and work with key farms and have many long established relationships. Lucky worked previously for Insight Coffee and built many of their retail expansions. So he has a lot of experience in a vast array of the coffee world to draw from.

His vast amount of redwood brings warmth to the otherwise sleek bare layout.








Their roasting approach is one that is slowly catching on elsewhere, in that there's a growing market of consumers who want specialty coffee quality, but served in a fashion that won't dissolve your tooth enamel. Lucky roasts his coffee into deeply sweet, complex well developed coffee that is easily extracted. They don't fear the term "roast" and actually embrace it. The 3 coffees I had that day were all quite good, very sweet, clean and deeply imbued with chocolate notes, none were over-developed and none were sour or distractingly bright. Their capps are spectacular. They're using a new line of ceramics, I don't recall the name, but they looks more like coffee mugs but are comfortable to hold and apparently there's some sort of very thick segment in the base that is meant to help keep the beverage warmer longer.





Here's Lucky pulling a nice crisp cold brew.



All in all, I think they're one to check out. I imagine with the backbone they've already laid down, they'll see future growth and development happen rather easily. Their site currently only links to their Instagram and Facebook accounts http://identitycoffees.com

Thanks for that, Tom. They're on my radar screen. In fact, they just messaged me today via Facebook to say that their online store should be up later this week. I'm sure I'll check their coffee out before long.