It’s Adriana here—yes, the one who keeps sending you those emails.
My husband Guillermo, my brother Alejandro and I run Crickle Creek Coffee here in Calgary. If you have ordered from us for a while, you may know our favourite coffees or even recognize one of us from a market. But I realized I have not properly told you why we do what we do.
Our family’s story with coffee began well before we owned a roastery.
Coffee was part of our lives before it was our business
Alejandro and I grew up in a family that has farmed coffee in El Salvador for generations. Harvests, weather and decisions about the farm were part of family life. Guillermo also knew coffee from the farming side: his father owned a coffee farm, and Guillermo later spent years helping manage it.
So when we talk about the work behind a cup, we are thinking about real people and real decisions. We know what it means to wait for a harvest, to care for trees through difficult weather and to hope the coffee you have worked on all year will taste as good as you intended.
We still grow coffee at our farm in El Salvador. Here in Calgary, we also roast coffees grown by other amazing producers around the world. Owning a farm has made us more curious about their work, not less. Every origin has its own people, challenges and ways of making something wonderful.
How did we end up at Crickle Creek?
We were preparing to build a coffee roastery in Calgary when we learned that Crickle Creek Coffee was available. It had been roasting coffee here since 1994, with a commitment to small batches and freshness. In 2022, we became its new owners.
I remember how much the opportunity made sense to us. We could bring our farming experience into a roastery that already had relationships with people who cared about their coffee. We did not have to invent a reason to be there. We had plenty of ideas, of course—Alejandro probably had a spreadsheet ready before I had finished describing the first one.
Today, he helps guide coffee quality, selection and roasting. Guillermo builds relationships with wholesale customers, community partners and fundraisers. I look after much of the brand, marketing, operations and customer experience. In a family business, those lines overlap regularly. If you have worked with family, you probably know exactly what I mean.
Why do we roast to order?
Because we want you to receive coffee with plenty of good brewing days ahead of it. We roast in Calgary on our roasting days, Tuesday through Thursday, and ship directly from the roastery the day after roasting. Freshness matters to us, though “fresh” does not mean you must drink every bag the moment it leaves our roastery. Coffee changes after roasting, and we want you to have the chance to enjoy that journey in your own kitchen.
Selling directly to customers and businesses online keeps us close to the people drinking and serving our coffee. We hear what they enjoy, answer their questions and help them find the right cup. Sometimes that means recommending the chocolate and brown sugar notes of our family-grown El Salvador Bourbon. Other times, it means finding a coffee the whole household agrees on, like MacLeod—a small victory when everyone has strong opinions about coffee. Those conversations help us build a business rooted in a shared love of great coffee and the community growing around it.
We want to help you find your coffee
At markets, people sometimes ask, “Which beans are for espresso?”
My first question is usually, “What do you like to drink?” Espresso is a brewing method, and you can try different coffees in an espresso machine. But the roast, blend and tasting notes matter if you are hoping for a particular flavour. A rich latte and a bright straight shot may call for different recommendations. We would rather learn what you enjoy than point to a label and end the conversation.
The same is true of roast level. We make room for balanced medium coffees and unapologetically dark ones because our customers genuinely love different things. You do not need to prefer the lightest roast—or the darkest—to be a “real” coffee person.
I want you to feel comfortable saying, “I like coffee that tastes like chocolate,” or “I tried that one and it was too fruity for me.” That gives us something useful to work with. Finding your next bag should feel like a conversation, not a quiz.
What are we trying to build?
A roastery where the coffee is carefully chosen and roasted, and where the people behind it are easy to reach.
We bring four generations of coffee farming experience to Crickle Creek Coffee. We know the work behind a harvest, we choose and roast our coffees with care, and we listen to the people who drink them to excel in customer service.
By the time a bag reaches your kitchen, many steps have shaped what is inside. Then it becomes yours: the first cup of the morning, coffee shared with friends, or ten quiet minutes in a busy day. We make coffee worthy of those moments.
Thank you for making room for us in those moments and for reading another one of my blog posts.
If you are new here, you can meet the family and explore our story. And if you already know what you love, find your next coffee. We are always happy to help you choose.
Warmly,
Adriana
Brew boldly. Live fully.