our story

Our story starts with our founders, Shahen Halebian and Catherin Newmann. An Armenian and a Colombian who began dating soon after they met in 2013. Each coming from coffee loving cultures, they naturally bonded over their love for a good cup of coffee.

They would visit Colombia often and bring home gifts of specialty roasts to share with their family and friends. Unbeknownst to Shahen or his brother, Shaunt (founder #3), one of the largest and best coffee growing regions in Colombia was actually named Armenia.

As the story goes, Jesús María Ocampo, nicknamed "Tigrero," due to his love of hunting jaguars, came to the mountains of Colombia looking to build a trade center. The city was initially called Villa Holguín, but the name was later changed to Armenia to commemorate the Armenian people after the Hamidian Massacres of 1894–97 and the Armenian Genocide of 1915.  

This really peaked our interest. For all the times we’ve had Armenian coffee growing up, why not brew it with beans from the region named after our nationality.

The more we researched the more we discovered that Armenians, much like Colombians, have a deep history of introducing coffee into Europe. As a matter of fact, the first registered coffeehouse in Europe was opened by an Armenian merchant and courier named Johannes Theodat in 1685 in Vienna (it was not the blue bottle coffee shop by Franz George Kolshitsky). The first coffee shop in Paris was also opened by an Armenian called Pascal in 1672 followed by another Armenian, Maliban, that same year. 

Having spent our childhood and adolescence visiting relatives who served Armenian coffee at every visit, we grew accustomed to the cheap dark, bitter, and burnt sludge that defined our early coffee experiences—a taste we never truly enjoyed but came to expect. Our goal was to find the best tasting bean and roast for Armenian style coffee. We connected with specialty growers that shared our vision, met our quality standards, and had sustainable practices. Once we were happy with the product, Coffee Armenia was born!  We want to honor our cultures and their involvement in coffee history by sharing it with the Armenian community and Coffee lovers.