The launch of Opo Coffee

Opo Coffee is running a pop-up cart every Friday, 8-11am at 314 E. Howard Ave. in Decatur until construction is completed on the new roastery location.

For the past four years, East Pole Coffee Co. has been our roasting partner supplying Taproom with coffee to use behind the bar and on the retail shelves. Started by Taproom alum Jared Karr, East Pole has steadily grown to be one of the top Atlanta specialty coffee roasteries and is even expanding this year with additional retail locations.

With a fond farewell, this week we’re transitioning away from East Pole to welcome our new wholesale roasting partner… Opo Coffee!

Opo Coffee has been a personal project of mine that is the culmination of my last 16 years in the coffee industry, applying lessons learned after starting several Atlanta coffee shops, having founded and run Taproom for the last eight years, and having coached and consulted for dozens of coffee shops in the Atlanta area and around the world. At its core, Opo has a holistic mission “to use specialty coffee to make a positive impact on people’s lives throughout the world.” When fully launched later this year, the Decatur location of Opo will house operations for a roastery, a full retail cafe, and a coffee training lab. While Opo Coffee is its own separate entity, it will always enjoy a special status as a sister company to Taproom Coffee.

From Opo’s coffee origin trip to Honduras in March 2022.

The Opo launch team includes familiar faces: Jenny Burrell (previous Taproom store manager) as Director of Marketing, Chris Avirett (formerly of Thrive Coffee, with a short stint as a Taproom barista) as Director of Coffee, and Trey Boden (who has assisted with Taproom branding over the last few years) as Creative Director. It’s been an absolute joy to work with this team on Opo, and it’s so much more fun - and higher quality - than when I launched Taproom on my own in 2014.

For more details about the launch of Opo Coffee, keep an eye on the official Opo website, follow @opocoffee on Instagram, and follow my personal blog that I try to update more regularly than the one on this site.

This week at Taproom you’ll start enjoying Opo Coffee on bulk drip, in espresso drinks, on nitro iced coffee, and in bags of coffee to take home. Our initial lineup of coffees includes: “Upside”, a blend of Guatemalan and Brazilian coffees; “Ramirez Estates”, a red honey process coffee from the Dominican Republic; “Sweet Lilly”, a washed Ethiopian coffee; and a Swiss Water Process Decaf coffee from Peru.