The words Camino Real might mean different things to people. But if Brent Patton has his way, you will also know Camino Real as the Royal Road to the best coffee you can enjoy. Certainly the best roast in East Texas (and Nacogdoches locals are not the only ones saying it).

Brent and Sarah Patton proprietors of Java Jacks Coffee House in Nacogdoches, Texas are excited to share the recent establishment of Camino Real Coffee Roasters.

For years the coffee beans were fresh roasted right in the coffee house. Now, with demand for their fresh roasted coffees increasing Brent and Sarah have taken a bold step and established the Camino Real roastery up the street. This gives them ample room and greater flexibility to roast all the great coffees their customers have come to love and add new and exciting coffees to the lineup.

And in the process the Pattons created a new brand, Camino Real Coffee Roasters.

Visiting farming friends in Puente Tarazu, Costa Rica

Camino Real is Brent’s passion and love, the roasting arm of the business. Brent enjoys developing  relationships with coffee farmers who are known for their exacting standards, unique flavor profiles, and consistency. He loves traveling to coffee producing countries learning about the  processes for growing, picking, drying, and sorting coffee. He looks forward to working with the farmers who share the same passion for quality coffees as him, and he looks forward to cultivating long term relationships with these farmers.

He uses his years of hard-won experience to hand select the best micro-lots and varietals, from award winning farms and producers — just the product that truly can be branded specialty coffee. This is part of what makes a pound of Camino Real superior to what is sold in the supermarket or even some well known coffee houses.

What you get from Camino Real coffee is truly impressive.

Ripe Coffee Ready to be Picked

It starts with growers who have spent generations perfecting their techniques for farming the best possible bean in their region. Only coffee beans that achieve a uniform size and definition qualify to be called “specialty” coffee.

At the Camino Real roastery, by simply putting your hand in a one hundred fifty pound burlap bag (yes the beans are shipped in burlap) from say Costa Rica or Ethiopia and looking at the beans in their green, pre-roasted form, one can’t miss the quality.

When Brent finally gets these beans in the Camino Real roastery, he knows that he is working with the best-of-the-best. And you taste it in the cup. It’s like when a chef has carefully chosen only the best produce or stock to use as ingredients in the finest meals. Fresh trumps pre-packaged or processed.

Brent, or his assistant, Brandon Harris, then takes the green coffee beans and using years of experience and some know-how will decide how to roast each coffee to perfection. This is where artistry begins to shape the final flavor profile of the cup.

Batch of Fresh Coffee Cooling

The better the roast master knows his coffee roaster, the better the product. And Brent definitely knows his roaster. See, one roastmaster can bring out a certain continuum of tastes from a micro-lot of beans compared to another who’s roasting the same exact beans.

Brent and his team labor to create roasts that have their own style or personality, unique to Camino Real which hold their own with the finest coffee shops in Seattle, New Orleans, or San Francisco.

At the Java Jacks coffee house, you see pound after pound of coffee displayed with both Java Jacks and Camino Real labels. Both are roasted at the same roastery to Brent’s exacting specifications. Buying Red Dirt, Stylo Blend, or any other coffee with the Java Jacks label gives you the same great roast you have always enjoyed.

And when you have a bag of Camino Real, you hold decades of expertise in your hands: generations of farming, the careful inspection of a java detective, and Brent Patton’s years of crafting coffee tastes that his customers crave.

This careful attention to quality at every level makes every cup of Java Jacks or Camino Real spectacular.

This is Camino Real Coffee Roasters.