OKLAHOMA CITY – If you happen to walk down the coffee and tea aisle of your local Homeland or Reasor’s grocery store, chances are that there will be a display for a brand-new Oklahoma-centric coffee called Rose Rock Coffee.
Started in 2019 in Tahlequah, Rose Rock Coffee owner and founder Matt Brassfield says they offer 19 blends of unique coffee with Oklahoma ties and international flavor.
Brassfield admits to not doing a lot of press so far, preferring to “let the product speak for itself.”
Rose Rock’s Red Fern medium roast and the lighter Blond Nightingale are on par or above many coffee brands available in your local grocery stores.
Among the blends: Boomer Sooner, Gaucho, Go Pokes, and a breakfast blend called Chocolate Gravy, named after a breakfast Brassfield’s grandmother used to make. The sultry and seductive “Black Velvet” blend – not to be confused with the sultry and seductive Alannah Myles hit from 1990 – is a French roast and is $16 a pound, as an example and is aimed at those wanting to add cream to their coffee.
Meanwhile, Go Pokes is a two-bean blend featuring beans from both Papua New Guinea and Honduras. “It’s a very simple, two-bean blend. It’s our cowboy coffee,” Brassfield said.
Some specialty blends created recently include Mondo’s, for a local restaurant, and Hugs & Kisses.
It’s a chocolate cherry blend,” Brassfield said of Hugs & Kisses, adding, “It’s a wonderful craft blend we put together. And we put it out because everyone needs a hug and a kiss.”
Our favorite, however, is the Red Fern blend, which is Rose Rock Coffee’s “executive blend.”
“It’s our flagship coffee and the film Where The Red Fern Grows was shot in and around Tahlequah.” The city of Tahlequah embraced this blend and the name seemed apropos.
For those liking unique blends with blueberry and other distinctive notes, Brassfield highlights the Scissortail blend, featuring Ethiopian and Burmese beans.
Spring Creek, meanwhile, is Rose Rock’s decaffeinated coffee and named for a pure water creek which runs north of town.
“We’re Oklahoma’s coffee,” boasts Brassfield. “Everything is Oklahoma history, Oklahoma living.”
According to a video posted on their company website, the coffee is air roasted. This method of roasting allows for the outgassing of the gases in the bean as it spins, like being in a dryer. The “blending” of beans from different origins – as many as three or four – allows for the blended coffee to achieve the goal Rose Rock is seeking.
With two roasters, Brassfield said, one roasts 10 pounds of coffee beans at a time. The other roasts six pounds of beans.
“We roast about 125 pounds an hour,” Brassfield said.
And what makes Rose Rock Coffee unique? Brassfield offers up some reasons: a clean, bright taste. No acidity. No bitterness.
“We roast every day. We hand blend everything,” explains Brassfield in the video. “(And) the quality of the coffee we buy.
Added Brassfield: “The quality coffee we buy is within the top three percent of the graded coffee in the world.”
Brassfield said he and his small team in Tahlequah are up to the challenge of roasting and packaging and shipping Rose Rock Coffee to brew fans around Oklahoma and around the country.
“We started in small markets,” said Brassfield, speaking from the Rose Rock Coffee office. Initially it was in Reasor’s, a grocery chain that started in Cherokee County and is in the Tulsa market. And for Homeland in the Oklahoma City market, Rose Rock Coffee is well-stocked, having just entered the Lawton market earlier this year.
And for those who order online, the order goes out the same day, Brassfield said. Just go to www.roserockcoffee.com to learn more.