The Drink

A Taste of Roastretto

WOMEN-OWNED ROASTERY JOINS THE LOCAL COFFEE SCENE BY: JULIETA HERNANDEZ PHOTO BY: RACHEL BENAVIDES

Friends, business partners and new mothers Michelle Fraedrick and Sadie Lopez appreciate good coffee. To share the feeling with the Coastal Bend, they founded Roastretto, a local roastery offering coffee lovers two distinctive blends. It started a few years ago, when Fraedrick was looking to get a solid house coffee for her cafe and bakery, Bien Mérité. Lopez, the café’s head barista, worked closely with Fraedrick to find the perfect roast for their coffee menu. After sourcing, sampling and tasting blends, the two realized something was missing.

“We were looking for a different kind of coffee that we just couldn’t quite find,” Lopez said. “Something versatile — to use in our sweet coffee drinks, and to enjoy black. We couldn’t really find a good balance of those that would be good in every drink. That’s sort of what our goal was.”

As a longtime barista in Corpus Christi, Lopez’s passion led her to study the craft of roasting in Minneapolis, a city with a renowned coffee culture. With her knowledge and experience, she and Fraedrick’s mutual obstacle drove to a clear solution: creating the perfect roast for themselves instead of trying to find it elsewhere.

Fraedrick says that from the initial idea to a product finally being bagged, Roastretto has been about three years in the making. Even through the heavy months of COVID delays, and even with Fraedrick and Lopez both expecting children, Roastretto came to fruition in the end; now with a couple of extra small helping hands.

Now available for sale inside Bien Mérité and online, Roastretto currently curates, batches and sells two perfected blends: the Anexo and the Don Chilo.

An espresso-ideal roast, the Anexo blends beans from Columbia and Ethiopia and reflects notes of grapefruit, almonds and chocolate. The second blend is made of beans from the Chiapas region of Mexico, with chocolate, caramel and pear notes.

“The Don Chilo,” Sadie smiled, “is named after my grandfather. He’s super nice, and into conjunto music. I thought it was cool to name the batch from Mexico after him. If you were to meet him, he’s so full of life and character, and kind of embodies what coffee is supposed to be.” Through late nights, early mornings and everything in between, Fraedrick and Lopez have brought their version of the perfect cup of coffee to life.

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