After enduring some entrepreneurial growing pains over the past two years, Frinj Coffee is back and preparing to dazzle the world.
The Goleta-based pioneer of growing coffee in California is taking part in the Dubai Coffee Auction this month, just one of 17 producers from around the world invited to the showcase and sell their beans. This will be the first time that California-grown coffee has ever competed at an international auction.
“Maybe this will be our Bottle Shock moment!” said Frinj founder Jay Ruskey, referring to the film about the Judgement of Paris of 1976, in which California wines beat out the French, validating the Golden State’s quality. “This is a watershed moment for California agriculture and for specialty coffee.”
The auction is on January 18 and 19, when Frinj will put up a 20-kilogram sack of Traditional Washed Geisha from Ruskey’s Condor Ridge Ranch on the west end of Goleta, where he planted his first trees back in 2002. That will be evaluated by top international buyers and then auctioned off alongside estates like Panama’s Hacienda La Esmeralda, which recently sold at a record-breaking $30,204 per kilogram.
The auction marks a resurrection of sorts for Frinj, which declared bankruptcy amid lawsuits from a former employee and investors in 2024. The company, which was founded in 2017, surged in growth for years, eventually enlisting more than 70 farms from Santa Barbara to San Diego to grow coffee trees. Their beans would then be processed at Ruskey’s Goleta ranch, which is also home to his Good Land Organics farming business. (Read my 2021 cover story about the origins and mission of Frinj here, and more about the farm tours here.)
That fast rise eventually ran into financial issues, leading to a reorganization of the company and a settling of the lawsuits last year. “Everything legal is resolved now, and we’re back to regular business,” said Ruskey, explaining that the company used a Series A investment round to get back on track. “We also moved our processing facility and headquarters to Ventura to better serve farmers by being more centrally located and to provide room to expand production.”
Ruskey is excited to be back focused on spreading the gospel of California coffee, now on the world’s largest stage. He’s never been to a coffee auction himself, so is learning the ropes quickly, hoping to share live links to the auction that are open for 24 hours to qualified buyers.
“Twenty-three years ago, conventional wisdom said specialty coffee couldn’t be grown outside the tropics,” said Ruskey. “Today, we’ve proven that California terroir produces some of the finest coffee in the world.”
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