Estate Coffee Serves Local Line, Tower 15 Coffee
By LILY TINOCO | Reporter
Local fixture Estate Coffee, located on Via De La Paz, teamed up with Palisadian Isaac Kaplan to launch Tower 15 Coffee at the start of this year—and the blue bags are catching the neighborhood’s attention.
Estate Coffee opened the first of its three shops in Pacific Palisades in May 2018, igniting a collaboration between serial entrepreneur and real estate professional Rick Cunningham and chef and hospitality professional Jacob Spooner. Following the success of its Palisades location, Estate Coffee opened shops in Santa Monica and San Mateo.
Spooner said he met Kaplan in 2019 after the shop had been open for about a year. He noticed his frequent visits to the shop with his family, and discussed coffee and organic products with him.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Spooner said the shop began to have issues with its Bay Area-based roaster: supply chain issues, raised prices and more. Simultaneously, Kaplan had plans to enter the food production business to promote healthier foods.
These instances led to the collaboration between the two to create Tower 15 Coffee, named after a lifeguard tower at Will Rogers State Beach.
“We put a lot of time into research, roasting and tasting to understand and to create a brand that is going to differentiate us,” Kaplan said to the Palisadian-Post. “Jacob and I wanted to achieve that same goal. We instantly connected with our views about getting into this venture about creating something unique, something healthy.”
Tower 15 Coffee was officially launched January 1 in-store at Estate Coffee with a mission “to find the best green coffee beans from private-owned farms around the world and bring them to Los Angeles to become a part of a collection of flavorful craft roasts that we then share with the world,” according to its website.
Because coffee is not local to the United States, Spooner said the majority of green coffee that comes into the West Coast arrives from all over the world. They have sources from Africa, Asia and South America.
Tower 15 Coffee has different varieties of beans to choose from, including three single-origin coffees, three different craft blends, an espresso and decaf blend—offering coffee beans from the Huila region of Colombia, a small community farming co-op in the western Rwanda hills, the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia and more.
“We traveled the world to find our favorite, your favorite, their favorite coffees,” Spooner said. “In the Tower 15 line, we offer a variety of coffees that everyone can enjoy.”
Kaplan said he enjoys Daybreak, a roast that blends Ethiopia’s acidity, Colombia’s sweetness and chocolate notes from Guatemala.
The two said the favorable response from the community has been unexpected.
“I’ve sold 10 times the amount of retail bags that we would normally do from the other roaster,” Spooner said. “We went into Bob’s Market on Ocean Park [Boulevard], that was kind of our test market … and Bob’s couldn’t keep it on their shelves, especially the Ethiopia single-origin and Daybreak craft blend. It’s been amazing.”
“We’re surprising ourselves, we have created something awesome that the people love,” Kaplan added.
Tower 15 can be picked up in-store at Estate Coffee and Gelson’s. Spooner and Kaplan said the coffee is in the process of making its way onto the shelves of Erewhon.
“We stand by our product 100%, we strive for the best,” Kaplan said to the Post. “In just a short time, we’ve accomplished so much, and I think the future is going to be awesome.”
To learn more, visit tower15coffee.com.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that Tower 15 Coffee is a local brand, not Estate Coffee’s product.
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