The Story
Greater Goods Coffee began in 2015 when husband-and-wife team Khanh Trang and Trey Cobb decided to follow their passion and palates to form a roasting company in the Texas Hill Country. The pivotal moment came three years earlier, when professional photographer Khanh accompanied automotive engineer Trey on a business trip to Portland, Oregon, where she discovered the Specialty Coffee Association conference and left inspired to make coffee her new career.
In 2014, they sold Trey’s motorsports company, COBB Tuning, and launched themselves full-force into their new life as coffee roasters.
Greater Goods Coffee is a woman-owned, small-batch roasting company based in Dripping Springs, Texas. What began as a roastery in the Texas Hill Country has evolved into a multi-location operation with cafes in Bee Cave and East Austin, though their fundamental plan to craft amazing coffee while doing good in the community has remained unchanged.
Despite having virtually no experience in the coffee industry when they started, co-founder Khanh Trang was named Roaster of the Year by Roast Magazine in 2021.
The roastery was named Texas’s best coffee by Food & Wine Magazine in 2019.
Sourcing & Relationships
Greater Goods travels far and wide to find the world’s best beans, from Mexico to Vietnam. Cup quality goes hand-in-hand with the relationships they build at origin, and they partner exclusively with producers and importers who provide transparency and living wages.
They believe good coffee happens when great people come together to build long-term relationships, working with trusted producers and importers who share their values of sustainability, transparency, equity, and creativity.
Their approach to sourcing emphasizes relationship-based partnerships. They focus on relationship-based sourcing with producers of a similar ethos, working with farmers who are as passionate, equitable, environmentally conscious, and quality-driven as they strive to be, with the goal of buying their coffees for years to come.
They develop impact-driven relationships whenever possible to make firsthand assessments, exchange ideas, and offer support, paying more than Fair-Trade prices to ensure their partners at origin can invest in their farms and communities.
A prime example of this approach is their eight-year partnership with the Solís brothers in Costa Rica. Their Take Me Home coffee is sourced via a longstanding direct partnership with the Solis brothers in Tarrazú, Costa Rica, where they’ve worked with the Solís family for eight years, with harvests improving year after year.
The Don Oscar farm, now in its fifth generation and named for the brothers’ father Oscar Solís, employs a staff of 75 to manage the 60-hectare estate with a management team composed entirely of extended family.
Roasting Philosophy
Greater Goods designs custom roast profiles to elevate the natural beauty of their coffees, from sparkling acidity to brown sugar sweetness.
Once coffee arrives, they craft individual roast profiles to bring out the best quality in each batch, maintaining quality standards through small-batch roasting to bring out the full flavor of each coffee variety.
Their approach is rooted in a clean-roast philosophy based on quality and responsibility, specializing in ethically sourced, small-batch roasted Arabica beans.
Quality control is rigorous at every stage. They only select coffee beans that meet their quality control standards, requiring all coffee to be clean enough to receive a minimum of 80 points or above on the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) scale, with most of their coffee scoring 84 or above.
To put this in perspective, only 2% of all coffee grown around the world meets their high standards and specialty-grade requirements, and they use sophisticated tools to enhance the beans’ natural flavors while maintaining optimal freshness through oxygen-free environments and small-batch roasting.
Each roast is designed to highlight the unique characteristics of its origin—floral Ethiopian light roasts, chocolatey Latin American profiles, and rich seasonal blends. Their small-batch approach ensures freshness, consistency, and flavor clarity in every cup.
Their smoke-free roasting process not only eliminates emissions, but also requires 80% less energy compared to other coffee roasting companies.
What to Try
Kickstart Espresso Blend stands as their shining jewel—a best-selling espresso blend that serves as their daily driver for any brewing method. This power-ballad of sustainably sourced single-origin specialty coffees from Central and South America envelops the senses in rich chocolatey sweetness, syrupy body, and a sweet, brown sugar-like finish.
Meticulously sourced and thoroughly quality controlled, Kickstart is chosen based on seasonality and cup profile, with consistent roast profiling ensuring the bag you buy today hits the same notes as one purchased months later.
For newcomers to specialty coffee, Pick-Me-Up House Blend serves as their signature introduction. Crafted with sustainably sourced Ethiopian and Colombian coffees, it’s fruity, chocolatey, and designed for drip coffee machines—their number one recommendation for those dipping their cupping spoon into specialty coffee.
Connection Cold Brew Blend addresses Austin’s essential summer survival need, designed specifically for the cold brew process to highlight smooth, chocolatey goodness from Colombian and Brazilian beans, with high sweetness and low acidity perfect for oat milk and honey or drinking black.
Single-origin offerings showcase their sourcing relationships, particularly Take Me Home from Costa Rica, sourced through their eight-year partnership with the Solis brothers in Tarrazú. This honey-processed coffee delivers toffee and nutty characteristics with vanilla bean and almond paste notes, featuring a light body and sweet cup profile ideal for pour-over, espresso, or drip brewing. Each coffee purchase directly supports local nonprofits: Kickstart supports Central Texas Food Bank with four meals donated for each 12oz bag sold , while Connection supports the Autism Society of Texas with $1 donated per bag.