Heath Kessler, owner of Tiny Warrior Coffee, checks his smart watch before shaking up one of his signature iced coffees. It’s early, and he’s on his way to a new job as a user experience designer at Google on the Android Wear team. But he’s got time to make a slightly smoky Vietnamese iced coffee with aromatic muddled mint, and it seems, time to enter the crowded San Francisco coffee scene with his unique focus on iced coffee and its many variations.
Kessler has been (and still is) all over the place – including, full disclosure, a former employee of The Bold Italic – sharing his design and coffee insights. In fact, he describes his shop-within-a-shop at the Alite Outpost on 18th St., between Mission and South Van Ness, as an extension of his design process. “I workshop all the drinks in my kitchen,” says Kessler, who sometimes describes coffee drinkers as “users.” “I have an idea for a drink, and I do small jam-sized mason jars first, giving them to friends in the industry as a ‘beta test’ kit like you would give to a software developer.”
For his – let’s call them virgin coffee cocktails – Kessler concocts all the syrups himself. He and his business partner at Tiny Warrior, the mustachioed master roaster Glenn Scott Matthews, have perfected a cold brew base (which is more than fine on its own) as well as specialty chocolate ice cubes that can be added to any drink.
The well-travelled coffee team features roasts from all over the country, though of course, they frequently look for inspiration locally at Four Barrel and Blue Bottle. At the latter, the New Orleans iced coffee (which is now available in cartons) is something of a distant cousin to Tiny Warrior’s drinks. And indeed, the Tiny Warrior team hopes to perhaps bottle and distribute their coffee in the future.
But for now, Kessler and Matthews are clearly having fun. ”We take coffee so seriously here in this third wave coffee culture,” says Kessler, who worries that many of San Francisco’s coffee hotspots take it all a bit seriously. “That’s why I went with the Tiny Warrior name and concept, it’s meant to be fun: I didn’t want any hint of pretension.”
Kessler takes off for work, hopping on his skateboard with coffee in hand. Matthews, who sticks around to chat about his favorite roasters, doesn’t mind making me another coffee to try: this one a Mission Mocha with TCHO chocolate syrup and smoked chili.
San Francisco might well be the right climate for Tiny Warrior: an environment that loves its design as much as its coffee. Not least, it’s a town where iced coffee isn’t just a summer drink: for some, and maybe soon for more, it’s a year-round way of life.
Got a tip for The Bold Italic? Email us at tips@thebolditalic.com