Cool Beans

Young Entrepreneur Carves Her Local Coffee Niche

WORDS BY DAVID LEFTWICH | PHOTOS BY MARLEN MENDOZA

Sa turdays, rain or shine, Marlen Mendoza, owner of Amanecer Coffee Co., is selling coffee — beans she’s roasted and unique cold brews she’s created — at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market. She shares the tent with pastry chef Stephanie Velasquez and chef Nick Vera, mentors and partners in Ema, the Mexican café whose banner flies in the rear of the booth.

Mendoza’s approach to coffee is rooted in her Mexican heritage. She primarily roasts specialty-grade coffees grown in Central and South American countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Colombia. The bottled coffee and tea drinks she has developed incorporate Mexican flavors and ingredients such as Horchata Coldbrew, which combines horchata — a traditional Mexican rice-based drink — with coffee, Mexican vanilla and cinnamon; and Hoja Santa Matcha, which blends Japanese matcha with Mexican vanilla and hoja santa — a Mexican herb that expresses the flavor of sassafras with hints of mint, tarragon and nutmeg.

Mendoza’s entrepreneurial journey began with her parents, who both emigrated from Mexico. Her father, who is from San Luis Potosí, opened a small plastic recycling business. Her mother, who is from Monterrey, opened Nancy’s Cake Design in 2002, after learning her craft at Fiesta Mart.

“We lived in South Houston, pretty poor. We really came from nothing,” says Mendoza. “My parents taught me that you have to start somewhere, but to start you have to do it. They worked their way up with their jobs and their small businesses and were able to continue building a better life for all of us.” She still turns to them for advice. “Anytime I have a question about anything, I go to [my mom] or my dad. They’ll tell me, ‘if you’re in it for the long run, this is what you have to do,’” she says.

Her relationship with her mom goes beyond advice. Mendoza currently roasts in her garage but she and her mother will soon be sharing a production facility in South Houston, where Mendoza will roast coffee and her mother will make cakes.

Her parents' hard work also helped her attend the University of Houston, where she majored in public relations and minored in Mexican

American Studies. Both have benefitted her business. The public relations courses gave her the skills to build Amanecer’s brand, including designing the labels, which are inspired by Mexican artwork. Her Mexican American Studies classes gave her the framework to better understand and appreciate that art — and they also taught her a lot about herself. “It was a history of who I am,” she says. “I’m not from Mexico. I was born here but my roots come from Mexico. It’s a very different kind of identity. Growing up, you don’t really know who you are because people tell you, you’re this or that. I got to college and these are the people I was looking for my whole life.”

Mendoza’s journey in coffee began in 2015 when a job at a Whole Foods coffee bar introduced her to making espresso drinks. After a few jobs at area coffee shops and roasteries, she became serious about specialty coffee in 2019. Then, a pivotal moment came when she took a trip to a Honduran coffee farm. Visiting with the farmers and their families inspired her to start her own business.

This started a period of trial and error that Mendoza says resulted in roasting lots of bad coffee. “Starting in coffee can be so overwhelming,” she says. “There is just so much to learn … The more I went down the rabbit hole the more I went from thinking I knew what I was doing to thinking I didn’t. It’s a lot of learning and unlearning.”

Though there is now software to help roasters achieve their desired flavor profiles, coffee roasting is still very sensory-based, especially for Mendoza. She relies on sight, smell and taste. It took years of cupping — the practice of evaluating a coffee’s aroma and taste using special spoons and cups and a standardized brewing and tasting process — to develop her palate. She’s also had to learn what her customers enjoy and what pairs well with different foods. “For the most part, I buy coffee based on what my clientele likes. They are very big on comfort coffees — medium-bodied coffees with a lot of sweetness toward the end,” she says.

Mendoza had to overcome financial and access barriers and information gatekeeping, in part because she was a Mexican American woman. “When I stood my ground and said this is what I want to build for myself and for the people who are like me, these great opportunities started coming about … I’m just grateful I have determination,” she says.

She also found industry mentors that helped her navigate the coffee landscape. One was Jimmy Perez, who was the manager of La Chamba: Coffee + Careers, an enterprise dedicated to helping young adults develop business skills. They would regularly talk about the coffee business and he encouraged Mendoza to create her first bottled drink, the aforementioned Horchata Coldbrew, which became popular during the early days of the pandemic.

As the owner of a startup without the overhead of a brick-and-mortar, Mendoza was able to quickly adapt to the new business environment and focused on selling her products at pop-ups and online via social media. She was selling her Horchata Coldbrew by the gallon and was regularly selling out.

Despite that success, she still had a day job working at Henderson & Kane, the barbecue joint and local-product-focused general store in the 6th Ward, which was the first retail outlet to sell Amanecer’s bottled drinks. It was there that she met Velasquez and Vera, who were also selling their Papalo Mercado-branded products such as heirloom corn tortillas and queso fresco at the general store. The three talked when Velasquez and Vera dropped off their goods. Those conversations led to a series of successful pop-ups and eventually to the shared booth at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market, which they opened in May 2021.

Mendoza credits the couple’s love of Mexican food and cooking as an inspiration. “They really respect all the ingredients we use from Mexico and their history,” she says. “They have introduced me to this world of gastronomy. Teaching me this is what this is supposed to taste like and this what it’s not supposed to taste like. Teaching me how to fit myself into and respect this culture, and they have taught me how to do a bunch of really cool things.”

Their collaborations have led to some unique pop-up offerings such as a Cookie Cortado. Inspired by an Oaxacan coffee shop, Mendoza developed a cortado made from espresso, Mexican vanilla and oat milk that was poured into a marranito (Mexican gingerbread) cookie cup made by Velasquez. The trio are now in the process of finding a more permanent home for their creations.

Since those early days of working in her garage, Mendoza has managed to carve her niche in the local coffee scene. And while her journey is ongoing, she is also at that place where she can now help others build on her experience. “I’m hoping to teach as much as I can to anybody who wants to learn,” she says.