History

The Valerio Family's coffee experience dates back to 1958 when Joe Sr. sourced some of the best Central and South American coffee to brew. He would fill the urn on his steel cart and sell coffee in factories and businesses in Bridgeport and Norristown, Pennsylvania.

Ready to expand, Joe Sr. began loaning brewers and delivering fresh coffee to fellow entrepreneurs to brew on their own. The Valerio family was the first coffee service provider in the Delaware Valley to brew coffee into thermal servers – keeping the coffee fresh after brewed.

His son, Anthony Valerio, studied coffee from seed to cup and quickly developed a passion for quality coffee and the roasting process. He networked and shared ideas with people from around the country, visiting various coffee roasting facilities. In 1992, he ventured the Valerio family into their first retail coffee house called Café Excellence.

The coffee house was located in Glenside, Pennsylvania next to the Keswick Theater. As a young entrepreneur he blended different origins to make a unique coffee taste and worked on his Barista skills creating specialty drinks that he could call his own. Being one of the pioneers in the coffee house business helped Anthony see the changes in the industry – the traditional institutional roaster whose recipes consisted of three countries and standard grade coffees were going to quickly become dinosaurs. It was clear to him that Specialty Grade Coffee was the product of the future and someday consumers would recognize that coffee should be enjoyed like wine with an appreciation for the "labor of love" it truly is.

Joe Sr. and wife, Angie, at their first store on 2nd Street in Bridgeport, PA.

About Us

Café Excellence buys coffee from over 25 different countries. All of our coffees are Specialty Grade Coffee meaning they are Arabica beans grown at high altitudes 3,000 feet above sea level with only the ripe cherries picked.

Café Excellence's roasting techniques are unique because they combine Artisan Roasting with new technology and science. All Café Excellence coffees are dry roasted and air-cooled, ensuring freshness and consistency. Anthony personally cups a sample of the beans three times. Once before they are purchased, again when the beans are received and finally as he inspects and samples all of Café Excellence's finished products.

Café Excellence provides the highest quality coffee – getting noticed one cup at a time!

Our Mission

To share the wonderful experience of uniquely Micro Roasted Specialty Coffee with consumers through a caring group of people who are our associates, distributors and retailers.

At Café Excellence, we are dedicated to providing the richest, most aromatic and flavorful Specialty Grade Coffees for your enjoyment. Our 100% Arabica beans are carefully selected and purchased direct from plantations around the world. We consistently slow roast the beans to bring out the finest nuances of flavor.

All Café Excellence coffees are air-cooled and hand packed immediately after roasting to guarantee freshness. Our naturally decaffeinated coffees are guaranteed to be at least 97% caffeine free and all our coffees are certified Blue Ribbon Kosher.

Our Facility

Our roasting production area is over 8,000 sq ft and our warehouse space is an additional 8,000 square feet. Our factory store and cupping room are both over 350 sq ft for a total of over 16,700 sq ft!

Sustainability

Café Excellence has made a commitment to sustainability. Our Rainforest Alliance selections of coffee recipes are made with only 100% Rainforest Alliance Certified coffees.

More than 25 million people in the tropics depend on coffee, a crop that is the economic backbone of many countries and the world's second most traded commodity after oil. Coffee is farmed on about 12million hectares (30 million acres) worldwide, an area larger than Portugal and nearly the size of England. Most of the farms are in areas regarded as high priorities for conservation.

In 1993, the Rainforest Alliance and its partner groups in the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) demonstrated that traditional, forested coffee farms are havens for wildlife. Now, coffee lovers everywhere can support farmers who maintain these rainforest refuges simply by buying beans stamped with the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal of approval.

Like any farming, growing coffee is risky business. Coffee farmers face difficult challenges: over-supply and low prices, inclement weather, pests and diseases, rising costs and sometimes unhelpful government policies.

For more than 150 years, coffee had been widely grown under the leafy canopy of native rainforest trees. When agronomists in the 1970s began promoting a new farm system where the sheltering forest is cleared, and coffee bushes are packed in dense hedgerows and doused with agrochemicals. These monoculture farms produce more beans, but at a tremendous environmental cost. The traditional, agroforestry system is good wildlife habitat. The new monocultures have little habitat, accelerate soil erosion and pollute streams. The new methodologies were not only environmentally destructive, they put more beans into an already overstocked market and converted coffee farms from self-sustaining sanctuaries into stark and lifeless monocultures. Wildlife disappeared, soils washed downhill and streams choked on silt and agrochemicals.

Rainforest Alliance certification helps farmers bear the erratic swings in the global market by giving them the keys to improved farm management, negotiating leverage and access to premium markets. By implementing the SAN sustainable farm-management system, farmers can control costs, gain efficiencies and improve crop quality.

The biodiversity on well-managed coffee farms can be awesome. One certified cooperative in El Salvador holds more than 100 tree species. SAN biologists have spotted members of dozens of species of rare birds, wild cats such as ocelots, postcard-size butterflies, Technicolor frogs, seldom-seen orchids, monkeys and (once) a giant anteater. Forested coffee farms are critically important to serve as migration stopovers for birds traveling from as far away as Canada and Alaska. In areas where deforestation is rampant, these coffee farms may be the only habitat available to provide shelter and food for wary birds. Certification is one way to guarantee that coffee farms maintain wildlife habitat and other environmental benefits, while protecting the livelihoods of coffee farmers.

Community

Café Excellence is a community involvement Micro-Roaster of fine Specialty Coffees. We are a PA preferred Pennsylvania company that participates in numerous events and charitable programs.

Our team volunteers at community events and programs all year long. You may see us walking to raise money for Cancer, serving coffee at a charitable event or getting down and dirty working on properties for Habitat for Humanity. Our team believes in giving back and our philosophy is all about roasting great coffees and working with people. To learn more about us visit our blog, join us on Facebook or Twitter.

Growth

Continuous education and personal development is the key to a successful team in any business. At Café Excellence we believe in personal growth and making a continuous effort to learn more about the coffee we produce and ourselves. Friday mornings we have our Team Cupping. The Café Excellence Team cups coffees together and helps each other develop and sharpen our tasting skills. We have detailed discussions about aromas, flavor, acidity, body and how our different roast profiles develop the full complement of these wonderful coffee characteristics.

We also regularly attend the SCAA's Specialty Coffee Association of America annual education conference. Owner, Anthony Valerio is a member of the Roaster Guild – continually expanding his knowledge and contacts.